Nashville, TENN--Vanderbilt linebacker Bryan Longwell and his family remember Christmas morning of 2022 vividly.
That morning wasn't defined by gifts or cheer, rather it felt as if a bag of coal was dropped on Longwell's world.
The Longwell's remember the text that rolled in at 6:00 AM and told the Lipscomb Academy product that he wasn't good enough. They remember the hurt.
They remember the tears that he shed as that text revealed he was being recruited over by his “dream school”.
"We watched this kid on Christmas day cry," Longwell's mom Omali said of Longwell. "As a family, we had to help him process being told that the school that you wanted to go to just dropped you on Christmas Day and sent you a text message at 6 a.m. telling you that they're not considering you anymore."
Longwell doesn't just remember what he felt that day, he's now open about those feelings as he sits at the top of Vanderbilt's depth chart as a sophomore.
That's because he's learned to use them.
"I got knocked down a lot," Longwell said. "[I] Got dropped from the school I wanted to go to on Christmas Day. [I] Got a huge chip."
Longwell's only power five offers as he entered that Christmas morning were Auburn and Colorado with Auburn perceived as the leader heading into the winter.
It was easy for the Lipscomb Academy product to envision a career under the bright lights of Jordan Hare Stadium. Those plans didn't come to fruition, though.
A sentence similar to that last one came up a lot throughout Longwell's recruiting process, not as a result of his tape but because what Longwell's mom references as the "eye test" that came when looking at her son's measurables rather than his skillset.
That eye test often left Longwell in the dust despite a productive career at Lipscomb Academy.
"It was very frustrating," Longwell's dad Shawn said. "Bryan has always outperformed his measureables."
Whether it was eye-test related or not, things weren't easy for the 6-foot-1 linebacker to process.
They weren't for his family, either.
"He had to do some kind of internal soul searching on 'well what is it that's gonna make me stand out as a football player and what is it that people aren't seeing in me?'" Longwell's dad said of Longwell. "It was a rough time for him. It was kind of a rough time for us as a family watching us go through that and being turned down everywhere we went."
"He's gotten hurt a lot throughout this process," Longwell's mom said of her son. "Bryan's recruitment did not go as he had envisioned."
At one point a marriage between the local product and Vanderbilt didn't even seem likely.
"He didn't get a whole lot of attention from [Vanderbilt] throughout the recruiting process until the end," Longwell's dad said. "Bryan had kind of written that option off like that really wasn't gonna happen.
"At first he was a little emotional about it. He was like 'why didn't they want to talk to me before but now they do?"
Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea didn't view it that way, though.
"He was a guy who we added late to our class," Lea said of Longwell. "It wasn’t because we had questions about him as a player, it more about that it was a numbers game. ‘Are we gonna add a linebacker or not?’"
As the numbers fell into place, the Vanderbilt head coach made his decision.
The Commodores were adding a linebacker.
"I’m really glad we did," Lea said.
Longwell's long-winded process came down to Vanderbilt and Arizona State, although the local product choosing the Commodores felt inevitable.
"It was my brother's dream school," Longwell said. "It meant a lot to be able to stay [in Nashville] and it was really impactful to my decision."
The Lipscomb Academy product is making his brother proud, he's starting as a sophomore and he's home. It feels perfect. Longwell and his family think it feels like a work of God.
That's a common occurrence in a household that's been designed that way through a shared Bible app, Bible studies and encouragement texts from Longwell's mom before each game that include verses.
Longwell wrestled with questions surrounding that faith, but has established belief amid trials like his recruiting process.
The Vanderbilt linebacker has faith that he's on West End for a reason and that he's not done yet.
The former two-star recruit wants to prove Vanderbilt made the right move and that the text he received on Christmas was a mistake.
"I have a huge chip trying to prove it every day." Longwell said. "This was one of two choices I had for college. There wasn't much for me there."
That's been noticeable to Lea, who has been doubted in some ways himself throughout his head coaching tenure.
“He believes in himself and he has confidence and he’s a good football player," Lea said of Longwell. "I relate a lot to that mindset, to that mentality."
That mentality has carried Longwell to a place that some never envisioned due to the 6-foot-1, 227 pound linebacker's size. Longwell is a factor week in and week out, perhaps more than he would've been if everyone thought he could be.
"[I'm] just trying to prove everyone wrong," Longwell said.
