BYU gave Langi a scholarship, despite the fact that head coach Bronco Mendenhall met him for a grand total of 15 minutes and, as Deadspin notes, his entire recruiting evaluation was based on one pickup basketball game in 2013.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Mendenhall said teaching him how to play football will be an "adventure."
"Maybe we'll just have him lay sideways right off the snap and just block the whole thing out," he said. "There's got to be someway he can do something."
According to Mendenhall, assistant coach Steve Kaufusi discovered Langi while he was playing a pickup basketball game in Tonga two years ago.
"He just saw a giant body who's light on his feet and can change direction and loved working out and training," Mendenhall said.
When Langi came to Utah before going on his mission, he had a 15-minute meeting with Mendenhall. The coach says he never intended to offer a scholarship going into the meeting, but he changed his mind.
"It's not a fat 410. It's a solid - lean isn't the right word - it is a solid-looking, healthy giant man. When I shook his hand, his hand went almost up to my elbow, and I was like, 'How can this not being something?'"
"I've never done anything like this before."
According to BYU's website, there were no local football teams for Langi to play on in Tonga, so his only football experience is in "camps."
Vanish The Foe, SB Nation's BYU-specific site, found this short YouTube video of Langi playing some sort of disorganized football in Tonga. He's nimble:
Check out new BYU signee Motekiai Taukolo Langi with BYU's 6-7, 265-lb Bronson Kaufusi. #BYUNSD15 #BYUFootball pic.twitter.com/Nc4bwkvnDm
- Brett Pyne (@brettpyne) February 4, 2015
RT @ctidude: @975Hans @BYUfootball @byusn OH MY HECK! I'm speechless! pic.twitter.com/6q8sp4zfJh
- Hans Olsen (@975Hans) February 4, 2015