Former RCC Football players sign with NFL teams

Three former Riverside City College Football players sign with NFL teams. All three former players have signed on as undrafted free agents with the Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks respectively. USC wide receiver Isaac Whitney and Oregon State long snapper both signed with the Oakland Raiders. West Virginia quarterback, Skylar Howard, signs on with the Seattle Seahawks. Head Coach Pete Carroll (Seattle Seahawks) said about Howard, "He's a mad bomber, man, he threw a ton of deep balls."

            Skyler Howard played one season with the Tigers back in 2013. That season Skylar earned National Central Conference Offensive Player of the Year and was chosen to the All-California State Team. After Riverside Skyler transferred to the University of West Virginia where he was a two year starter and helped lead the Mountaineers to a 10-3 season this past fall which was good enough for a second place finish in the Big 12 Conference.

Wide receiver Isaac Whitney played one season at Riverside (2014). Long snapper and local Vista Murrieta High School grad, Ryan Navarro played two seasons (2013-14). Both players were part of the 2014 team that went 10-2 and captured the National Central Conference Championship. That season Riverside advanced to the state semifinals. Whitney was also a National Central All-Conference player. At USC Whitney not only played football but also participated in Track. In his first and only appearance during the spring of 2016, Whitney ran the second leg on USC's 400-meter relay team. They finished second at the Pac-12 championships that year with a time of 39.74.

Skyler Howard and Isaac Whitney both took different paths as four year bounce backs than Ryan Navarro, who was a local 2 year starter out of Vista Murrieta High School. Head Coach Tom Craft, "All three did a great job on and off the field for us and were relentless in the classroom so they could transfer in a timely manner." Skyler Howard was a walk on at a Division 1-AA and was not offered a scholarship out of high school. Skyler was offered not only by West Virginia, but also Utah, Cal, San Jose St. and New Mexico St. Isaac Whitney, who transferred from a Division 2 school changed his college experience by signing with USC. Whitney was also highly recruited out of RCC. Ryan Navarro plays a unique specialty position and landed a scholarship to Oregon State. Howard, Whitney, and Navarro join former tigers Will Smith (Dallas Cowboys) Eddie Lackey (Dallas Cowboys) Charlie Tua'au (Kansas City Chiefs/Miami Dolphins) and Zaire Anderson (2016 Super Bowl Champion Denver Broncos) as NFL alumni from RCC.  

Story by Eduardo Pacheco