Something strange happened on the way to college basketball careers for Tyler and Trent Thomas.

The 6-foot-6 Cottage Hill twins played football their senior year.

“Their first love, like a lot of football players, is basketball,” Warriors defensive coordinator Carvel Jones said. “But they didn’t want to put all their eggs in one basket.”

That turned out to be the right decision.

Tyler Thomas officially signed to play football at UAB on Wednesday, the first day of the second signing period. His brother, Trent, signed with South Alabama in December. Tyler will play on the defensive line for new Blazers coach Trent Dilfer, while Trent will play tight end for Kane Wommack and South Alabama.

Neither played football for Cottage Hill as juniors, instead opting to focus on basketball.

“It was surprising,” said Cottage Hill basketball coach Adam Thomas, who happens to also be Trent and Tyler’s father. “What most people don’t know because we don’t share a whole lot is that, even though we didn’t play our junior year, that summer we received seven football offers each. What we said is, ‘OK, Lord, what are you trying to show us here?’ So, we followed that and here we are today. We thought it was going to be basketball, but it’s going to be football.”

The brothers said they made the choice to return to the football field together.

“We thought it would be best for our futures if we went out and gave it another try,” Tyler said. “It turned out to be successful.”

Tyler finished his senior season with 110 tackles, 18 sacks, an interception and three forced fumbles for the Warriors. He said he liked what he heard at UAB from Dilfer and the new Blazers staff.

“I really liked everything I saw and heard,” he said. “They are trying to build something special with coach Dilfer coming in this first year. We should do some pretty special things next year.”

Trent finished the season with 130 tackles, 16 sacks, an interception, a forced fumble and three fumble recoveries, though he is slotted to start his college career on offense. Trent was a first-team ASWA Class 3A All-Star player and a finalist for Lineman of the Year.

“Our first love was basketball,” Trent said. “We always wanted to play basketball in college. When coach Jones came over, he convinced us to get on the football field and we loved it and had a lot of success doing it. That’s what led us back.”

One person who was certainly glad to see the Thomas twins come back to football was veteran head coach Bobby Parrish.

“I was ecstatic,” he said. “I don’t know what happened their junior year. I didn’t get into that. Their dad just told me, ‘Coach, I think the guys are going to play next year. They’ve been talking about it.’ And he continued to tell me that and they came out and I was very happy.”

Trent said the transition to future college football players has been extremely rewarding.

“When we sat out our junior year, we were trying to focus on basketball,” he said. “We wanted to play basketball, but our senior year we didn’t have the basketball offers we wanted so we tried football one more time, and we were successful.”

Their basketball careers aren’t over just yet.

The Thomas family is hoping to take Cottage Hill back to the final four for the second time in three years. The Warriors are 22-2 and ranked No. 2 in Class 3A heading into Friday’s regular-season finale against Class 7A No. 2 Baker at home.

What are Cottage Hill’s chances of bringing home a state basketball title before the Thomas twins close the book on that sport?

“Very high, very high,” Tyler said. “Two years ago, we lost in the final four and this past year we lost in the Elite 8. So, we are still chasing after that title.”

Cottage Hill also recognized volleyball player Kylie Lindsey on Wednesday. She signed with Belhaven.