Haloti Ngata 2025 NFF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS

Haloti Ngata

By Matt Fortuna

He spent 36 years in the profession, including 14 years leading the Oregon Ducks, but Mike Bellotti doesn't need much time to decide who's the best player he has ever coached.

"People ask me, 'Who's the best football player you ever coached?" Bellotti said. "And I say Haloti Ngata, because he wasn't just a defensive tackle. He could have played any position in the front-seven on defense and any position in the front-seven on offense, including fullback or tight end. I mean, he had good hands, he could move. He blocked a bunch of kicks. He was just an outstanding player from the get-go.

"And we were, one, fortunate enough to get him, and two, fortunate to watch him develop and become one of the most dominant players at both levels."

That dominance has reached a new level of validation, as Ngata is now a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. Ngata becomes the seventh former Oregon player to make the Hall while also joining Bellotti, a 2014 inductee as a coach.

A Salt Lake City native, Ngata dominated in Eugene as a defensive tackle. Originally a BYU commit, Ngata flipped to Oregon after he and his family were persuaded by Bellotti, who had plenty of experience recruiting Mormon players. As flexible as Ngata was, Bellotti knew his stud recruit would be at home in the middle of the Ducks' defensive line.

"One, he was going to play early, and so there was still a learning curve involved," Bellotti said. "Two, we wanted him to be the disruptor. He could line up in a three-technique or a one-technique, and he could scare the center, worry the guards. So primarily, we did move him around sometimes, but usually he was going to draw a double-team from people. So, it didn't matter where we put him. They sort of said, 'Hey, let's go that way. Let's tilt the line toward him,' and all that. But he sort of took that as a challenge."

Though he would grow to be a 6-foot-4, 340-pound menace as a pro, that edge didn't always come naturally to Ngata. Oregon's staff was up for the challenge.

"One of the things that we had to do with Haloti, he was such a nice young man that we had to get him mad before games, because he was too nice," Bellotti said, laughing. "And one of the coaches would tell him that somebody said something about his family or something like that. I'm not sure what it was, but it was to get him riled up because he was just a really nice kid, and he wouldn't dominate like he could.

"If he was just a little bit mad, he could just go in there and knock people around."

Family meant everything to Ngata. His father died in a car accident during Ngata's freshman year of college. His mother died of kidney disease months before he was drafted. His parents stayed with him through everything that he did, including a 13-year NFL career that featured two first-team All-Pro nods, five Pro Bowl honors and a Super Bowl win with the Baltimore Ravens, who drafted him 12th overall.

"I always thank the Lord for the amazing parents He blessed me with, and just always try to represent my parents to the best of my abilities and live them through me," Ngata said at his retirement news conference, tearing up. "Everything that you guys love about me is from my parents - the hard work, humility, just the community service - all comes from them. So, just know that the things you like about me are from my parents."

Ngata's impact was felt early at Oregon, where he earned freshman All-American honors en route to a college career that spanned 35 games and included 151 tackles, 24.5 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, three forced fumbles and seven blocked kicks.

He was never above playing special teams, even if that ended up costing him his 2003 season due to an ACL tear he suffered on punt coverage in that year's opener. Bellotti forever rued calling a safe punt on that play, but he was impressed by how seriously Ngata attacked rehab, coming back stronger than ever in 2004. By Ngata's final year of college in 2005, he no longer needed the coaching staff to light a fire under him.

"By his last year with us, he recognized what he was capable of, and he knew the level of play that was expected from him," Bellotti said. "So yeah, he learned. It took a couple years, though, to get him to use his skillset and his size and his speed that he had to really take over a game."