A typical day in the atypical life of one 2025 NFL draft prospect begins the unusual with the usual. Alarms sound at 6:30 a.m. sharp on the former grounds of Fort Severn. “The Yard,” as the U.S. Naval Academy is known to its cadets, wakes up quickly: Formation starts at 7 a.m.; classes at 7:50; breakfast, inhaled in between. At 11:45, this prospect uses his “break” to lift weights, study game film, recover and refuel. Then, more classes. Then, more workouts, speed and agility focused … or technique driven … or more film or weights or recovery until … 8 p.m. Then, a mandatory two-hour study period. Followed by his only “free” time, which is … “Pretty much,” the prospect says, “just sleep.”
These cadets become Ensigns in the Navy or Second Lieutenants in the Marine Corps. Many go to war. Most know what’s brewing in the geopolitical hemisphere, all the threats and conflicts. Many will commit to at least five years, anyway. This is their duty. Their commitment.
And then there is Rayuan Lane III. He will complete his Academy requirements this spring. He will fulfill his five-year commitment soon-ish. For now, Lane will pursue another career where futures remain uncertain and daily schedules feature motivational slogans such as Your choice: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
He’s ready. No one questions that. Ready, in fact, for war … and not in the misguided, metaphorical sense. He’s ready for actual war, so this other career, in professional football, which is not war, will somehow present lower stakes than what he has already prepared for and perhaps his only chance to fulfill the dream he has toiled toward his entire life.
Imagine that investment: week after week … that schedule … football in the fall … practices and film review and games … while world leaders fight … and war breaks out in Ukraine … and in Gaza … and so many countries, all over the world, shout and threaten in anger, division, conflict. Imagine the concentration required. The scheduling. The guts.
He’s not the excuse-summoning type. Even though Lane chose the Naval Academy for football and may also end up in conflicts where the stakes are life or death. In and of itself, a legitimate NFL prospect from any of the service academies is rare. At present, there are six graduates from one of three service academies playing in the NFL.
Lane wants to be the seventh.
Lane fell for football, the first time, around age 5. He soon joined youth teams and starred in Pee Wee leagues and made football his primary mission. His family moved from Ohio to Baltimore the next year, where the hometown Ravens stoked his gridiron obsessions with a championship in Super Bowl XLVII. His family attended the victory parade.
As the middle child born to William and Felecia Lane, sandwiched between an older sister and a younger brother, Rayuan still somehow managed to become the one the others looked toward. Like “another father figure in the house,” his mother says. Rough. Tough. Reserved. A natural leader. She describes his personality, even in boyhood, as “very stern … sometimes, even comical to watch.” Like spying on her youngest child, and reminding her oldest of house rules.
Rayuan had instincts. Intellect. Vibes. He was also gloriously low maintenance. On Baltimore-area basketball courts, he wore the same sneakers for two consecutive years. Not because he didn’t want new shoes. Not because his weren’t fraying. Because he didn’t want to bother mom.
At the Gilman School in suburban Baltimore, Lane joined a college prep powerhouse. He ran track (three letters), played basketball (same) and football (two letters, hmmm). Football began to feel more like a weight he carried. Basketball beckoned the combo guard. Gilman’s football program had hit a lull. And his football aims seemed far removed from his reality—a junior varsity freshman season where opposing quarterbacks mostly avoided him and he grew bored playing quarterback on offense. With his parents’ blessing, having fallen “out of love,” he took a season off.
The time away lent the wisdom Lane would apply to all next steps. He needed football. For the discipline. The camaraderie. To make up whatever he could to the teammates Lane still believes he let down. “I realized, like, football is my life,” he says.
In his junior season, 2019, Lane played running back, and returned punts and kickoffs. He excelled at defensive back, as a hybrid who rotated positions. He made all-state. But he still needed another year of game film, more highlights from his senior season, where he scored seven times in the first two games. And then COVID-19 shut down sports.
The mental health break combined with a global pandemic to limit Lane’s film; spliced from one elite season and one two-game season. He needed to participate in skill camps to display his talent relative to other prospects. Those were wiped out along with the seasons.
Lane became emblematic of this generation of college athletes. The one that understood the necessity of mental health. And the one caught in COVID-19’s destructive wake. He would leave high school as a zero-star recruit. Perhaps his football dream had already been realized.
Then it arrived, like a bolt of lightning. A bona fide scholarship offer. The first. Of few. From the Naval Academy. “We didn’t see [that] coming,” Felecia says.
She called Rayuan’s high school coach and asked, “Is this legit?”
Indeed. She knew her son. Serious. Loyal. She knew what those Navy coaches projected, too. She heard them saying, “We see you. We see your talent. Here’s your opportunity.”
And she also knew, right then, right away: Rayuan would be a Midshipman.
The Lane family understood the football odds, which from any service academy into the NFL were long and uncertain, far lower than, say, the odds he would see military combat. As the Lane parents dropped Rayuan off for his plebe year, they emphasized what they had always told him. Put in the time. Dedicate yourself. Give it your all.
Things have a way of working themselves out.
Immediately, Lane subscribed to Navy mantras, such as this, from the football program: E-A-T (Effort, Attitude, Toughness). He started the final seven games of his first season. Made the team’s calls on defense. Led teammates with far more experience. And surged on special teams, especially in the gunner role, where he played as if possessed.
This time, Lane played in his sophomore season, spearheading a punt return group ranked 23rd nationally and a kick return team at No. 25. He displayed versatility. He almost never got injured. He never left a single practice, let alone a game.
His coaches saw a player with more natural talent than they typically could land. And saw someone who hadn’t come anywhere close to unlocking all the traits that separated him. After completing half his academy training, Lane faced a choice that he could make only right then. After two years at the academy, the Navy presents cadets with “2 for 7” contracts. If signed, they agree to an additional seven years of service. Minimum. For Lane, that meant two more years/seasons at the academy and then five more in the Marine Corps.
He entered the transfer portal to assess his options. He visited a handful of programs, drawing interest from Notre Dame, UCLA and Ole Miss. Then, he considered his football future in relation to his overall one. He still loved the game as much as anyone loves anything. But those two years of commitment had changed him as a person, too. One program offered $1 million in NIL cash to leave Navy and, potentially, war behind.
Lane turned all of it down—the money, the status, the eyeballs. He chose Navy. He chose his teammates. He chose the program. He chose “home.” He signed the 2-for-7 papers. He mapped out how he would complete his degree in quantitative economics. And chose his future—in a more holistic sense. He chose football but not only football. He chose football and his degree and his commitment and balance. Even if balance, for him, means elite focus on two things and little else beyond them.
He describes this growth, his personal evolution, now, as similar to coming across a “light you’ve never seen before and being able to take that light and apply it to every relationship you have.”
Navy, then, marked a relatively easy choice, he says.
This didn’t just make Lane a better soldier, or a better human. It made him a better football player, too. After returning to Navy, he made 12 more starts his junior season and made third-team All-AAC. The four interceptions he snagged tied for the 16th in the country. National analysts began placing him on watch lists for the Jim Thorpe Award, conferred annually to the nation’s best defensive back. Only one player from the service academies had ever won it (Trey Taylor, Air Force, 2023). No Navy football star had won a “major” award since Roger Staubach delivered the Naval Academy a Heisman Trophy in 1963.
Off the field, Lane became a squad leader, in charge of seven other Midshipmen in the 8th Company of their Brigade. His class vowed to return the football program to a winning season for the first time since 2019, which marked the last time Navy won the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy, too.
Against Memphis, a conference rival that finished 2024 with an 11–2 record, Lane made his 33rd-consecutive start at free safety, his most typical position. Pundits were tabbing the Tigers as the most likely College Football Playoff team from the non-Power conferences. Navy hosted—and hung around. Leading 49–44 with less than a minute remaining, Lane stepped in front of a pass attempt he saw early, grabbed the interception and raced 86 yards to the end zone for the game-sealing pick-six score. He won’t ever forget how that celebration felt, amid a sea of cadets who forced their way onto the field, alongside the brothers he couldn’t leave behind.
That same night, though, Lane cautioned himself against feeling too good, or looking too far ahead. He credited the coaching staff. He pleaded with teammates for consistency. He invoked a mantra the Midshipmen deployed all season. Don’t choke on the sugar.
Navy reached 5–0, and their free safety, the program’s single-best player, made many a midseason All-America list, same as Cam Ward, Travis Hunter and Will Campbell—all nearly certain to be taken in the first 10 picks in April’s draft. Upon toppling Charlotte, Navy had started a season 6–0 for the first time since 1979.
Lane had become a bona fide NFL prospect. His agent, Kelton Crenshaw of Klutch Sports, noted one particular review. Klutch Sports Group had named Steve Keim the general manager of its football division before the 2024 pro and college seasons, after he “stepped down” as the Arizona Cardinals general manager at the end of ’22. “A couple of my guys in the league are talking about this guy,” Keim told Crenshaw, who, after a brief examination, began trying to hook Lane as a client.
Navy lost three games in 2024. Still, the Midshipmen were consistent. They didn’t choke on any sugar. They toppled East Carolina, then ranked 18th, on the road by two touchdowns. They beat Army, returning the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy to its “rightful” home in Annapolis. They became only the sixth Navy team in 131 football seasons to hit double-digit victories. And they vanquished the Oklahoma Sooners in the Armed Forces Bowl.
The College Football Network named Lane a first-team All-American on special teams and its Special Teams Player of the Year. Other lists placed him as an honorable All-American at safety. Two NFL evaluators Sports Illustrated asked about Lane considered him the single-best “gunner” in the country last year, which, in and of itself, should be enough for the chance to make a roster. He even began returning punts again. While starting 43 consecutive games.
And, then, Lane became only the fifth Midshipman ever to accept an invitation to the Senior Bowl.
And, then, Lane became the first Navy football player invited to the NFL combine since 2019.
And, then, well, we’ll see. Even Lane isn’t exactly sure.
Lane’s major, quantitative economics, centers on proving real-life hypotheses through numbers and scientific analysis. He already has those: 244 tackles, nine tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, seven interceptions, two defensive touchdowns, 21 pass break-ups, eight forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries and—big and—his four-year commitment to sacrifice and leadership and causes far bigger than himself or any sport. “I would say [the numbers behind his NFL hypothesis] are, you know, pretty good,” Lane says.
The case for Rayuan Lane III starts there. It continues with his brain, that analytical bearing. Always figuring stuff out. He’ll add brainpower to any franchise. But he’ll also learn football—schemes, adjustments, nuances, technique complexities—at far higher levels than before.
Lane can then apply that knowledge to his existing versatile skill set. The NFL evaluators gave him above-average grades on ball skills, experience, speed, versatility, creating turnovers, instincts when playing “downhill” in run support, football processing speed, ability to manipulate quarterbacks, zone coverage and straight-line quickness. Lane also ranked among the top 20 safeties in the nation in overall grades and pass-coverage grades on many prospect evaluation sites. (NFL Draft Buzz projects him as a rotational defensive back with above-average coverage skills.) After eight weeks of the 2024 college football season, his 90.2 coverage grade ranked among the top 15 DBs in the FBS.
Development remains essential. At 5' 11", weighing in around 200 pounds, Lane presents as an undersized safety. His coverage skills, at present, would not allow for a full-time move to cornerback. His tackling technique, according to evaluators, can be improved. He must adjust to NFL-level, across-the-board talent, too.
That said, it’s not hard to see a future Lane can see that others have missed. Imagine … Right coaches. Right system. Right brain. Right work ethic. Right … growth.
The larger issue centers on one metric, from one day, at the most critical evaluation showcase. Lane did run the 40-yard dash in 4.57 seconds at the NFL combine. His time ranked 13th among the 15 safeties who ran in Indianapolis. His broad jump (10' 8") ranked fourth among participants. His vertical leap (37 inches) ranked fifth. His 20-yard shuttle time (4.28 seconds) ranked third. Speed, though, is a requirement for pro football employment.
In defense of his 40 time, all other safety prospects at the combine prepared at elite training centers, where they train, specifically, to run one 40-yard dash in front of professional football evaluators. They had specialized speed coaches. They didn’t have formation in the morning or classes for six hours every day. Lane, his agent says, “Pretty much took off his [Navy cadet] uniform and ran the 40.” It stands to reason he’ll improve there.
If drafted, Lane will become the 18th Navy football player, ever, to earn that particular distinction. At that point, he’ll apply for a waiver to delay his military commitment for a professional sports career, however long it might last. To obtain sign-off, he’ll likely need to make a team.
Last season, while Rayuan began finishing his Navy football career and Naval commitment, his younger brother, DeJuan, played spot duty in 16 games as a true freshman at Penn State. Felecia, meanwhile, became the Lane family travel consultant. She printed out the Midshipmen’s schedule and the Nittany Lions’ slate. She compared them side by side. She took notes. She created a budget. She made reservations.
DeJuan is three inches taller and about 10 pounds heavier than his older brother. He also plays for a major college power, a College Football Playoff team last season that finished 2024 ranked fifth. DeJuan will, ostensibly, develop faster than his older brother, which perhaps presents an alternative reality for Rayuan. Who is … not buying that notion. Won’t even consider it.
Rayuan Lane III has not and will never look back at what might have been—if he played another high school football season … if most of his senior year wasn’t lost to COVID-19 … if his first scholarship offer had been elsewhere … if he’d transferred … if he’d played for a “major program” … if he’d cashed in on NIL dollars. Abstract concepts, all. Each meaningless; at least for Lane, for now.
The NFL draft begins April 24. Lane will likely hear his name on Day 3. Roughly a month later, he will graduate with his class at the Naval Academy. As a better leader. As a better football player. As a better man. The boy who attended the Ravens’ last championship parade competed at the team’s local pro day, fully aware of all the symmetry involved.
“There’s definitely a full circle moment,” he says.
Because he did stay, and, as his commitment to greater purposes heightened, his love for football didn’t shrink. His skill set only grew. His mind only broadened. Lane says he still thinks back to the transfer portal time almost every day. Not because he feels slighted or overlooked. Not for ego. Because he’s thankful, for his teammates. Because he’s grateful, for the turnaround. Because he wouldn’t change one single thing. About any of it.
Remember that family motto?
Things have a way of working themselves out.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Naval Academy Safety Who’s Ready for War and Ready for the NFL Draft.