Jayden de Laura
Jayden de Laura is an American football quarterback for the Vegas Knight Hawks of the Indoor Football League. He played college football for the Washington State Cougars football team before transferring to the Arizona Wildcats football team in 2022.
Early life
De Laura began his high school football career at Damien Memorial School in Honolulu, Hawaii, playing on the school's junior varsity team as a quarterback, safety, kicker, and punter before dislocating his collarbone two games into the season. He then decided to focus exclusively on playing quarterback, transferring to Saint Louis School in Honolulu, which produced quarterbacks such as Timmy Chang, Marcus Mariota, Tua Tagovailoa, and Chevan Cordeiro. De Laura also worked to increase his weight from 140 pounds with help from his family, including his uncle Mel, a former strength & conditioning coach at Hawaii and SMU under June Jones.After sitting out his sophomore year due to transfer rules, de Laura took over the starting job from Cordeiro in his junior season, during which he helped lead the team to a state title while throwing for over 2,000 passing yards. In his senior season, he threw for 3,452 yards and 29 touchdowns and was named the ILH offensive player of the year and Hawaii's Gatorade [Player of the Year award].
A three-star recruit by 247Sports and ESPN, de Laura committed to playing college football at Washington State on October 2, 2019.
College career
Washington State
Initially unsure about his future at Washington State following the departure of Mike Leach and other offers from schools such as Ohio State, de Laura reaffirmed his commitment to Washington State following the hire of Hawaii head coach Nick Rolovich, whose run and shoot offense was similar to the one de Laura ran at Saint Louis.De Laura was named the starting quarterback for the opening game against Oregon State in 2020, becoming the first true freshman quarterback to start a season opener in program history. He missed one game against Stanford after testing positive for COVID-19.
Arizona
After the end of the 2021 Washington State season on January 7, 2022, de Laura entered his name into the transfer portal. On January 10, De Laura announced his intention to transfer to the University of Arizona.On December 25, 2023, Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch announced that de Laura would be entering the transfer portal for the second time.
Texas State
In January 2024, de Laura transferred to Texas State. On January 24, de Laura withdrew his transfer to Texas State days after settling his civil sexual assault case and public outcry.On February 22, de Laura declared for the 2024 NFL draft.