SALT LAKE CITY — Utah freshman receiver Solomon Enis was supposed to go to Penn State.

He was a legacy recruit, following in the footsteps of his biological father, Curtis Enis, who played running back with the Nittany Lions before being selected fifth overall in the first round of the 1998 NFL draft. Football is in his blood, and Penn State was his natural landing spot.

Nearly every one of the other 13 big-name programs that gave Solomon Enis a scholarship offer — programs like Arizona, Arizona State, Georgia, Oregon, Tennessee and UCLA — failed to seriously pursue the four-star recruit from North Canyon High School because there was no question as to where he was going to play collegiate ball.

That’s before Utah coaches Kiel McDonald and Guy Holliday were introduced to the top recruit from the state of Arizona. Enis’ stepfather, Marlon Marerro, said McDonald “recruited the hell out of Solomon” and that “it was even better” when Holliday stepped into the picture.

Holliday was up front with Enis that he would treat him on the recruiting trail the same as how he’d treat him as a football player: no puffing up his talent, no special treatment, no outlandish promises to get him to sign— just a strong commitment to bring him into the Utah football family and be a part of something different.

“I'm gonna treat you during this recruiting process how I'm gonna treat you when you come to school,” Enis’ stepfather, Marlon Marrero, recalled Holliday telling his stepson of now 10 years. With no unrealistic promises about starting or special treatment, Holliday simply offered Enis an opportunity to play receiver at a Pac-12 program and expand his talent.

“I told Solomon, 'Listen to what he's saying,'” Marerro recalls telling Enis. “He's not bull crapping you about anything. You can tell this man is straight, you know. He’s just shooting straight.”

Enis’ mother, Tiffanie Marerro, said she was impressed with the “energy” surrounding the Utah program when they came for his official visit in the fall.

“It had great energy. From the time we got off the plane, to the people, the staff, they were just really — I felt like they were genuinely nice,” she said.

After some serious back-and-forth about the two programs — weighing where he fit in, whether they’d provide a path to the NFL, and ultimately, where he’d feel comfortable — Enis finally decided upon Utah, but had yet to announce it publicly.

On the night before signing day, though, Enis nearly changed his mind.

“Me and his mom were like, ‘if you’re going to pick Penn State, you call coach Holliday and Whitt right now before you sit down and pick, or boy, we’ll kill you,’” Marlon Marrero said, laughing at the thought of the near switch. “I’m like: ‘no, you’ve got to stick to your word. And I don’t care if you want to go to Penn State — that’s fine, this is your thing — but you will call the coaches at Utah and let them know you changed your mind. We will not blindside them.’”

After some deliberation, Enis stuck with his previous decision and selected the Utes on signing day, spurning the legacy tag and opening up a new path to be someone different.

Utah “just kept it real,” Enis said, and they “didn’t really play any games with me.” Although a difficult decision, it was not a tough sell to commit to Utah.

More than six months later, the 6-foot-3 receiver is happy about the decision he made to sign with Utah. The team welcomed him from day one and has allowed him to excel in an offense that hopes to take the next step in year two of offensive coordinator Troy Taylor.

After fall camp started, Enis called his stepdad and reiterated the good news.

“He goes, 'you know, I made the right choice, Pop. This is family,'” Marlon Merrero said. “He goes, 'wow, I just never expected that they would take in the new guys and help them, you know, because you're coming in trying to take their spot.'”

“It's not that hard when you've got the guys that were already here,” Enis added. “They took me under their wing, and just coming in, it was pretty easy.”

Playing with a dedication to the game

With self-described “anger issues” as a young kid, Enis said his mom enrolled him in football to allow her son a way to express his emotions. “My mom put me in so I can kind of open up and meet new people and kind of channel that somewhere,” he said.

He mostly played running back throughout his early years of football, but wanted to play everywhere on the field. His favorite player was Ray Lewis, and delivering the blows made Enis feel as though he was like the defensive Hall of Famer. He played running back, tight end, corner, free safety, linebacker and defensive end — anywhere he could help his team.

Enis eventually switched almost exclusively to receiver his freshman season of high school because of his height.

“I'm like, 'no, you're going to be like 8-feet tall,'” Marlon Marrero said. “You're going to go ahead and play wide receiver.”

The role suited him well, though. He finished his career at North Canyon with 2,334 yards and 31 touchdowns, and in his senior year alone, Enis finished with 820 yards and eight touchdowns on 46 catches. He was eventually ranked the No. 1 receiver and No. 2 overall recruit in Arizona by 247 Sports and Rivals, and became a coveted recruit.

Although the stats weren’t important to him, Enis committed himself at a young age to be the best at whatever he did.

“When he was little and playing football, he would be like, 'I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that,'” Tiffanie Marrero said. “'I'm going to be the number one athlete.' And anything he put his mind to, he always seemed to do it.”

That same drive is what pushed Enis to have an instant impact at Utah. He said he doesn’t want to be just another freshman that redshirts his first season; he’s driven by a desire to be in the starting rotation.

“He’s an internalizer,” Tiffanie Marrero said. “If he has a goal, he's going to work his butt off to get there.”

“He's very observant,” Marlon Marrero added. “He'll sit back and look at everything, look at everybody and see what's what and what's working, what's not working. And then he'll take it from there.”

That attention to detail and hard work has been noticeable to the Utah coaching staff, who plans to include him in their receiving rotation. There is no intent to use his redshirt season as a freshman.

“Yes, he's playing — no doubt about it,” coach Kyle Whittingham said.

Enis failed to crack the two-deep depth chart that was released Monday, but Whittingham reiterated that the freshman will be playing and will consistently be in the rotation.

“We have some guys that we really think are good players and Solomon's right there amongst those guys,” Whittingham said. “He's just not quite in the two-deep, but he'll be in the rotation.”

Enis said his mindset coming in was to “not really say much, just put my head down and work and try to get in the rotation.” With time and more familiarity with the offense, Enis will undoubtedly climb the depth chart ladder and have an impact for Utah moving forward. At the very least, he’ll be there to support his newfound family as the program looks for a special season.

“He's a great leader. He has a big heart,” Marlon Marerro said. “He doesn't like people messing with his friends or his teams or anything like that. He'll be the first one in line to defend them. He doesn't let nobody talk about any of the people that he loves. He's one of those guys — he's a protector.”

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