Football: Elijhaa Penny transferred from a California school to Idaho, but he brought all his skills with him

There are a lot of Idaho football players who come from big cities and from another part of the United States.

Idaho senior Elijhaa Penny is one of those guys.

Penny, who is in his second year with the Vandals, is a 6-foot-2-inch, 234-pound running back from Lakewood, California. Lakewood is about 21 miles south of Los Angeles with a population of approximately 80,000.

After graduating from Norwalk High School, Penny played one season at College of the Sequoias, a community college in Visalia, California. He then played his sophomore season at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, which is just a 6.5-mile drive from his hometown of Lakewood.

Then it was on to Moscow, a completely different place for Penny.

“People just live a slower type of lifestyle. It’s different,” Penny said. “From everything, from fashion to the music people listen to everything. Everything was just different. But I adapted well and I like it here in Moscow a lot.”

Penny also had to adapt to Division I football after playing two seasons in the community college ranks.

“It’s definitely faster-paced,” Penny said. “Guys are bigger, stronger and faster but I feel like I’ve adapted well with my time here at Idaho and I’ve been productive here for the Vandals.”

Penny is Idaho’s leading rusher this season with 438 rushing yards on 97 carries (4.5 yards per carry).

Idaho running backs coach Jason Shumaker, who is also the recruiting coordinator and special teams coordinator, said he and the coaching staff liked Penny’s size and athleticism coming out of Cerritos.

“He’s very athletic on his highlight tape,” Shumaker said. “He had a play where he jumped over a guy so we knew he was very athletic. He had scored a lot of touchdowns that year for his team and so then getting to know him and everything we realized he’d be a good fit for the program.”

Penny can also catch the ball out of the backfield. He has hauled in 17 passes for 109 yards this season.

“That’s definitely one of the things that we liked about him was he was a well-rounded player,” Shumaker said.

He said Penny’s ability to catch, run, block and the fact that he’s big appealed to the Idaho coaching staff in the recruiting process.

At 234 pounds, Penny is a bigger running back than most at the college level, but he was bigger last season at 254 pounds.

“(Losing weight) was something we definitely encouraged him to do and be able to help him become what he’s become for us this year, which is carrying the ball 15 times, 20 times a game,” Shumaker said. “I think being heavier he probably wouldn’t have been able to do that as effectively and so he’s been able to be more of an every down guy for us instead of just a third down guy this year.”

Penny said he chose Idaho because coach Paul Petrino was loyal to him from when he first started recruiting Penny and because he said Petrino coached a lot of good running backs that he watched when he was growing up.

Penny also said he came to Idaho because he wanted to turn the program around.

“I always liked being someone who starts trends and stuff like that,” Penny said. “I thought it would be awesome for us to do (it) with the recruits I came here with. With that ‘W’ (against Troy Saturday), I feel like that win is going to start something special.”

Garrett Cabeza can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @CabezaGarrett