There are three boxes in Lamont Oliver’s downstairs office at his Merdian, Idaho, home, filled with recruiting letters and scholarship offers. He was a prized running back and pitcher, who was offered the chance to suit up at schools like USC, Penn State and Texas A&M.

Lamont rarely pulls out the boxes, but he remembers showing them to his kids twice. His point: to illustrate that they had the potential to fill boxes of their own when they grew up.

During his senior season of high school in 2013, Khalil Oliver showed his dad his own box of letters and offers. Inside were envelopes with school logos from the Mountain West Conference, the Pac-12 and the SEC – not the list of schools a two-star recruit normally boasts.

But his heart was set on one place and one coach.

“I was going to stay in Idaho and I was going to play for coach [Chris] Petersen at Boise State,” Khalil said. “And then he left.”

During his first visit to the Oliver home — a Monday evening in December 2013 — Petersen told Khalil, who had enough high school credits, to enter college early. They had plans for Khalil at Boise State, and he couldn’t be happier.

Friday morning of that same week, after Khalil had made himself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lamont asked his son if he had checked his phone. He hadn’t, but when he ran upstairs and saw 30 text messages, Khalil was shocked. Petersen was leaving Boise State for a five-year, $18 million deal at the University of Washington.

Khalil never got the chance to be the hometown kid – Meridian is approximately 12 miles from Boise, Idaho. He ended up at Oregon, and in his second season, he’s become a featured part of the rotation at safety for the Ducks’ secondary. In the recruiting world, he was labeled as a two-star player by Yahoo– an also-ran in a 2014 recruiting class filled with stars. But in his redshirt freshman season, he’s starting to stick out.

“It’s nice to make a name for myself, not having to base my playing ability on what I did in high school, but being able to show what I can do in college,” Khalil said.

Lamont used his experience as a high school football coach to calm his son down after plans fell through with Boise State.

“Sports – and we try to teach our players and I try to teach my kids this – are a microcosm of how life works,” Lamont said. “Things happen on the football field: you get sudden changes and turnovers – things you didn’t expect to happen, happen. And it’s all about how you react to it.”

“Khalil got back up and said, ‘let’s figure out what we’re going to do next.’”

Scott Criner doesn’t call Oregon defensive backs coach John Neal very often. Criner, Khalil’s head coach at Rocky Mountain High School, coached collegiately for 27 years. He was on the same defensive staff as Neal at the University of Pacific in the late 80’s. Criner knows what it takes to play for a coach like Neal – a player must be obsessed with detail and the craft of improving. Khalil fit all the criteria.

“I don’t call him very often and tell him I have a guy,” Criner said. “But with Khalil, it was easy for me to call John.”

“That’s almost my greatest evaluation – when I know somebody and they know the kid and I trust that guy,” Neal said. “Everything [Criner] said about [Khalil] was right: he’s extremely smart, tough and 100 percent work all the time … now we just have to help him become a really great player for us.”

Idaho isn’t a state filled with Division I football prospects. In any given year, Criner guesses about five players from the state will play at the highest collegiate level. But, being a college coach for as long as he was, Criner knows which players have the talent to make it.

“If you’re good, they’re going to find you,” Criner said, “and when they do get found, they’re going to play.”

That’s why Criner continuously told Khalil not to look on any recruiting sites. Criner knew Khalil had the ability to play at the next level. Still, the idea that players from Idaho naturally get overlooked in comparison to recruits from bigger states like Texas or California irked Khalil.

“Recruiting sites would rate me as a two-star on a website, but then I’d have a coach – who the ranking basically said I’d never get an offer from – out at my practice watching me. He’s in my house talking to me, asking me if I would come to his school,” Khalil said. “Rankings really don’t even matter. A lot of the times, you don’t even know the person who’s ranking you. They’ve probably never stepped foot in Idaho.”

After Petersen left for Washington, Khalil didn’t hear anything from the new staff at Boise State. Unsure where he stood with the school, Khalil re-opened his recruiting. His box, like his father’s had, continued to fill with letters.

Khalil took official visits at Washington and Oregon, but this time around, he had a new approach.

“I wanted to go to a school, not for a coach, but for myself,” he said.

On his visit at Oregon, Khalil went out of his way to make his own visits with people in the chemistry department –his major. He had learned his first time going through the recruiting process not to go to a place solely for football, but rather, a place that set him up for success, both on and off the field.

Khalil’s father knew firsthand how important college was outside of sports. Even with three boxes filled with recruiting offers, Lamont never played Division I football. A torn ACL in his senior year of high school forced him out of the sport. He went to the University of Wyoming before transferring to play baseball at Midland Lutheran College, a NAIA school.

Lamont made sure that his kids knew that there was more to life than sports. Khalil made that a priority in his college choice.

“You’re never promised another day of playing,” Khalil said, “but school is always going to be there for you.”

Each week, Khalil has seen more playing time. He recorded a single tackle, on special teams, in his first game against Eastern Washington. Last week, in Oregon’s 62-20 loss at home to Utah, Khalil played the majority of the second half. He’s got six total tackles and a tackle for loss coming off the bench this season.

For people who only looked at the two-stars next to his name on recruiting sites, seeing Khalil on the field might come as a surprise. But to his family, and the people of Meridian, his early success is anything but a shock.

“He always had the work ethic and the drive to be successful,” Lamont said. “I expected him to be able to get on the field and play well.”

Follow Joseph Hoyt on Twitter @JoeJHoyt