Exclusive: Yilanan "Issa" Ouattara Believes It's Time To Turn "97-Million Dollar Body" Into Results
In this story:
NASHVILLE—-Then-Vanderbilt defensive line coach Larry Black didn’t know it at the time, but he’d just delivered a line that would stick with Issa Ouattara for the rest of his Vanderbilt career.
Black has since moved on to take the Defensive Tackles Coach job at Michigan, but Ouattara is still a member of the room he left behind at Vanderbilt. He’s still wearing the label that Black touted him with. Black said at the time that Ouattara had a 97-million dollar body. He had still yet to match that value with his play, though.
And, for one reason or another, Ouattara still hasn’t.
The belief within Vanderbilt’s program was that if Ouattara was healthy in 2025, he would have. Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea went as far as to say that he believed Ouattara was an NFL player before the end of fall camp. Lea believed Ouattara was going to demonstrate that.
But, he wasn’t that fortunate. A shoulder injury made sure that Ouattara only got on the field in less than a handful of games. It made sure that he only recorded one tackle and did it while playing far short of 100%. Ouattara had more days than he can count in which he wore a jersey with no pads and walked around in Vanderbilt’s lifting shoes.
Perhaps in 2026, though, life can look different for Ouattara. Perhaps this can be the season that it all comes together for him in a way that it hasn’t yet. Ouattara believes he’s improved significantly since the last time he was in the lineup consistently, he just feels as if he hasn’t gotten the chance to show that.
“I feel like I’ve been taking steps every year I’ve been here,” Ouattara told Vandy on SI. “But, I don’t feel like there’s ever a real sense of arrival. I don’t feel like I have a genetic ceiling. God has blessed me with a lot of talent, so I feel like it’s just in my hands to polish the gift he’s given me and just become the best player I can be.”
That pursuit entails things that Ouattara likely didn’t think about as he came to America as an almost-entirely raw prospect a few summers ago. These days, Ouattara says he’s generally focused on his body composition so that he can be lean enough to play more snaps than he has previously. Ouattara came to Vanderbilt needing to put on weight, did it successfully and is working to strike the right balance these days.
At this stage of Ouattara’s development, it appears as if the only thing holding him back from a breakout season is the injury trouble that’s often surrounded him. Now, though, he’s back and Lea doesn’t appear to believe in him any less than he did when he made his declaration in August.
“Issa is a guy that I would expect big things from,” Lea said. “I think he's the prototypical SEC defensive lineman, we lost a lot of production on the interior line of scrimmage with Issa out. I’m excited to see him match up against guards in our league and I think he can do some great things.”
2025 was a season of setback for Ouattara, who missed the season opener before playing in the second game of the season and having to sit out every game after that. Perhaps the best microcosm of the year was the initial injury coming two days after Ouattara was named a captain. He says it was frustrating to have something out of his control end his season, particularly while knowing how much progress he’d made.
That doesn’t have to define Ouattara anymore, though. He says he’s motivated by the idea of doing what he didn’t have the chance to a season ago. All that sitting and watching is finally over for him. Now, he’s got the chance to prove that he can live up to the label that surrounds him.
“I’ve had two offseasons leading up to this season, if you think about it,” Ouattara said. “For me, missing last year, I kind of took it as an opportunity and a challenge to work on myself and be able to put the best product out there next year. Obviously there’s numbers that you want to hit, but to me, just wreaking havoc–it’s not something that you can always quantify. I just want to be a dominant force out there, it just goes with getting recognized as All-Conference, All-SEC and All-American.”
Follow us onTwitter/X,Facebook,YouTube,Instagram,ThreadsandBlue Skyfor the latest news.
Add us as a preferred source on Google_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
Follow joey_dwy