Aziz Shittu

The Luxurious Sportsmanship

Aziz Shittu, Jr.was born July 27, 1994 in Merced, Calif., and graduated from Buhach Colony High School (Atwater, Calif.), where he lettered in football and basketball.  On the gridiron, he earned All-America honors on the Parade, Rivals, Sports Illustrated and SuperPrep teams and played in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl; Rivals.com ranked him as the nation’s 27th overall recruit (all positions) coming out of high school.  His first language is Yoruba, native to several countries in West Africa where his family originated from.  Full name is Abdulaziz Shittu, Jr. Shittu earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Stanford in 2016.

Shittu, 25, joined the Buffaloes after he retired from professional football, as he signed as an undrafted free agent with the Philadelphia Eagles, and spent the 2016 season on the practice squad. After suffering a knee injury, he was placed on the team’s injured reserve list but was still a member of the Super Bowl XLII champion Eagles’ 2017 team that defeated New England.  He spent the 2018 in two different stints on the Dallas Cowboys and was resigned by Philadelphia just ahead of the 2019 season, but again was soon placed on injured reserve.

Aziz lettered four years (2012-15) at defensive tackle for Stanford University, playing for head coach David Shaw.  He recorded 78 career tackles (33 solo, five-and-a-half quarterback sacks), with three passes broken up, two fumble recoveries and one forced fumble.  He was a regular starter as a senior, when he was in on 58 of those tackles.  In Stanford’s 45-16 rout of Iowa in the 2016 Rose Bowl, he was named the Most Outstanding Defensive Player of the Game when he was in on 10 tackles, with eight solo, four for losses including two quarterback sacks, and a third down stop.  He earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors on the field as a senior, when he was also named to the first-team All-Academic Pac-12 team.