The pipeline to Los Angeles and The NFL continues.
Former Eastern Washington University defensive end Albert Havili is the latest Eagle to join the ranks of professional football after agreeing to terms as a free agent with the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League. He is one of 135 players nationally from the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision to become undrafted free agents (UDFA) with NFL teams, in addition to 19 FCS players who were drafted.
Havili was one of 21 collegiate free agents the Chargers signed, and they will report for a rookie mini-camp this week. The 6-2, 255-pound Havili registered 199 total tackles, 12 sacks and 18 1/2 tackles for loss during his 53-game career (27 as a starter) with the Eagles.
Since 1984, when Eastern became a member of the NCAA Championship Subdivision (FCS), 86 Eastern football players have either signed free agent contracts or have been drafted by National Football League (NFL) or Canadian Football League (CFL) teams. Currently, 15 former Eagles are on NFL or CFL rosters, including a trio with the Los Angeles Rams (Cooper Kupp, Samson Ebukam and Aaron Neary), plus Kendrick Bourne (San Francisco 49ers), Jake Rodgers (Houston Texans) and Taiwan Jones (Buffalo Bills).
Havili was Eastern’s only full-time senior starter on defense in 2017, starting all 11 games when he earned second team All-Big Sky Conference honors as a senior. Havili was 47th in FCS and fifth in the Big Sky Conference in sacks with an average of 0.64 per game (seven total). He also had 41 total tackles, four passes broken up and seven quarterback hurries.
He started 27 games in his career, and played as a linebacker his first two seasons before a knee injury forced him to redshirt in 2015 and delayed his move to defensive end. After setting what was then a true freshman record with 61 tackles in 2013, he closed his career with a total of 199. He had 12 sacks, 15 quarterback hurries, broke-up eight passes and had 18 1/2 total tackles for loss. He had one interception he returned 77 yards for a TD in his freshman season.
A letterwinner in 2013-14 and again 2016-17, he was a part of EWU’s Big Sky Conference championships in 2013, 2014 and 2016, with playoff berths all three of those seasons. Eastern won 34 of 41 Big Sky Conference games and 48 games overall in the last five years.
