GENEVA, Ohio — An injury-riddled, uneventful senior season buried Jake Alston’s college football hopes.

A year at Spire Institute and the Michael Johnson Performance Center resurrected them.

Alston, a 2013 Butler graduate, caught six passes for 38 yards and had 25 tackles — 15 solos — when he was on the field for the Golden Tornado during the fall of 2012.

“He was a borderline Division III player, at best, when he came here,” said Mike Henderson, Spire’s football coach.

Now Alston is headed to Mount Union College, a Division III power, this fall and stands a good chance of seeing immediate playing time as a defensive back. He will have four years of eligibility.

South Carolina, South Florida, Central Florida, USC and Penn State offered him opportunities to make their teams as a preferred walk-on.

“Even if I made it, getting on the field would have been tough,” Alston admitted. “At Mount Union, I’ll have a legitimate chance to play early and be part of a mix that will hopefully win more national championships.”

The Purple Raiders have won 11 NCAA Division III titles and 22 consecutive Ohio Athletic Conference crowns. Last year, under first-year head coach Vince Kehres, Mount Union finished 14-1 — averaging 49 points per game in those 14 wins — and lost the national title game to Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Alston was one of only two football players at Spire. The other is still in high school.

He is 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, after weighing just 170 when he arrived at Spire. Alston could bench 185 pounds and squat 285 as a high school senior. He can bench 300 and squat 378 now.

“We put 30 pounds of muscle mass on him,” Henderson said. “Jake is the hardest working kid I’ve ever been around. He really wanted this. He bought into all of the training.

“He ran a 5.0 40-yard dash when he got here. Now he runs a 4.6. And he’s totally improved his skill set.”

Henderson formerly played for the Miami Dolphins before injuries curtailed his career. He was a member of the Air Force’s Special Forces as well.

“I was taught by a pro and learned discipline from a military coach as well,” Alston said.

“At first, it was really weird,” he said of training for football alone. “I was used to game motivation to get me through practice in high school. But here, I learned how to stay focused and be driven by my main goal of getting to college and finding a place to play football.”

Henderson said Spire uses a diagnostic process with its athletes to determine what parts of their body are weakest, then puts the athlete through a month of corrective exercises to strengthen them.

From there, it’s all technique and physical training.

“For a month, we worked on Jake’s first five yards of the 40-yard dash and maximizing that,” Henderson said. “He never ran past those first five yards for that month. Then we spent a month on the next 10 yards, then the final 20.

“For football, Jake’s first three months here were all spent on footwork. For three weeks, all we did was work on the start of his (pass) route. As a defensive back, we worked on his backpedal for the first five yards.”

Eventually, a college prospect blossomed.

“They contacted college coaches and when I was ready, I did the equivalent of a NFL combine workout on a live video feed so all of the interested coaches could see it,” Alston said. “That’s how I got exposed to schools and received the offers I did.

“Once I started noticing results, I got into the training.”

Henderson insists Alston will be ahead of the game when he arrives at Mount Union’s preseason training camp.

“In terms of conditioning, he’ll be well ahead of the other incoming freshmen and ahead of the redshirt freshmen and sophomores,” Henderson said. “He’ll probably be in better shape than some of the juniors.

“Jake will be able to spend plenty of time studying the playbook and learning the system. Physically, he’s already there.”

All of that suits Alston just fine.

“I just want to play some football ... and win some championships,” he said.