Stanford has offered 3 recruits who plan to go on LDS missions

Stanford has recently offered three recruits who are expected to go on missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after high school: Raider Damuni, John Henry Daley and Kahanu Kia.

There are seven returned missionaries on the roster and Scotty Edwards is currently on a mission to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Defensive coordinator Lance Anderson is a member of the church and the staff as a whole has made sure LDS recruits know that they support postponing college for two years to go on a mission. Head coach David Shaw is on the record that he actually encourages it because of how mature the young men are when they do get to campus.

Damuni and Stanford go back to last year when he started building a relationship with defensive backs coach Duane Akina. He visited for a junior day and current linebacker Levani Damuni is his cousin. (Raider's father, Jack, is on BYU's football recruiting staff.)

Damuni has been committed to BYU since 2017 but has been offered by Oregon, Utah, Arizona and Oregon State this year.

"Definitely a school like Stanford with all the opportunities after football would make the decision harder. You get the best of both worlds at Stanford," he said in a message to Cardinal Sports Report after he was offered.

He had six interceptions his junior season and returned three for touchdowns. He returned two kicks for touchdowns and had 40 tackles.

Like Damuni, Daley has been in contact with Stanford since last year and has visited the campus. He has been a low-profile recruit for most of his process — BYU offered his sophomore year and since then so has Colorado, New Mexico, SDSU and UNLV.

He told Adam Gorney he has a high level of interest in Stanford and more schools may get involved when he puts out a Hudl video of his first four games. Through three games so far he has 22 total tackles, 14 TFL, seven sacks, three hurries, two pass deflections and one blocked punt, according to Maxpreps.

Kia's recruitment hit a new level this week when Notre Dame and Stanford offered in the span of 24 hours. Utah, UCLA and several other schools previously sent him official offers.

He provided a rough timeline for his process in a BruinBlitz interview Thursday:

“With all the options I have, I think I’m going to start cutting my list down, maybe in a month,” Kia said. “That’s what I think I’m going to do, but regarding commitment, I think I will do that before Christmas. Sometime around there and just see where it goes."

He also clarified how he might handle his mission after high school:

“I want to go on my (LDS) mission, but if I was to go to UCLA first and it’s only like one or two months going from the end of my season, then right into fall camp then playing would be something I would have to think about.

“Whatever the coaches feel like,” Kia said. “I have planned to go on my mission, but if the coaches want me to come in a year to see if I could play or whatever, then I would do that.

“If they want me to go right away and come back after, I will do that. Whatever they want.”