Brennan LaBrie
News Editor
Coming off of his first season as Pacific Lutheran University’s head football coach in 2018, Brant McAdams knew he wanted to expand his program. Expand it to almost twice its size to be exact.
The 2018 squad sat at about 60 players. McAdams envisioned a team of 112 players, PLU’s maximum roster size. In his first full 14-month recruiting cycle as head coach, McAdams set to work with his assistant coaches recruiting players from Washington and down the West Coast, even netting 18 players from Hawaii. By the fall, PLU’s team stood 112 men strong, with 58 new recruits. In comparison, 2018’s recruiting class consisted of 32.
McAdams believes this could make PLU the youngest team in the conference.
“I know there are smaller rosters than us, but I don’t know if there are any younger teams by percentage; over half of our team is first-years,” McAdams said.
This quantity of players is “a roster size that gives us the ability to have enough depth and talent to compete for a conference championship, but not so big that we can’t know each other,” McAdams said. “We don’t get to build those player-to-player and coach-to-player relationships.”
In addition, McAdams added a team this large allows him to break up his players into more groups and therefore use practice time more efficiently. His goal is to finish practice within two hours and his players back to their schoolwork.
The 112 players, now 108 due to injury, make up a varsity squad that travels to all games. It is only divided into a travel team for one away game per year.
First-year defensive tackle Mykah Tuiolemotu from Mililani, Hawaii, said he enjoys such a large group of first-years around him to experience the many firsts of college football and college life in general. He expressed his excitement to see how the players are molded over the next four years.
While the first-year class might be a bit too big to have class dinners together in the UC, Tuiolemotu said first-years spend a lot of time together in the Tingelstad dorm. Here, they dominate some wings in number. Most nights they can be found cooking and hanging out in lobbies or cramming into dorm rooms for movie nights.
McAdams said the upperclassmen on the team embrace the challenge of mentoring such a large group of underclassmen. He enjoys seeing how older players engage those who seem to be “disconnecting” or “slipping away,” especially those feeling homesick towards the end of Fall.
In a meeting for returning players this past Spring, McAdams reminded them of the increasing competition that lied ahead of them this season, and how they should embrace it.
“When you come into a competition with the right mindset, it elevates the people around you,” he said.
McAdams believes that the addition of so much new talent has done exactly what he hoped it would. “I think this big first-year class has been a shot of adrenaline to the program and has helped raise the bar for something that PLU football has hung its hat on for a long time in regards to effort and enthusiasm.”
First-year tight-end Luke Bobin credits the older players for the success of the first-year players so far this year.
“Upperclassmen have really welcomed us like brothers,” he said. They’ve “done a really good job about making sure we feel welcome and we feel like we’re at the right place. They don’t pull us down or anything.”
“They pull us up,” Tuiolemotu added.
While McAdams said he and his team are focusing on “being the best we can be this year,” the first-year players can’t help but be excited about their potential over the next four years.
“Over the next four years you’re going to see this class probably be the best in the conference, just because we have so many people who are really, really talented,” said Bobin, who caught his first touchdown pass during the October 26 loss to the top-ranked Linfield.
The 2019 Fall season
Currently, PLU is on a five-game losing streak, which McAdams credits to costly mistakes and trouble turning the team’s “flashes of greatness and a lot of potential” into big plays, as well as the tough conference PLU plays in. However, he knew of the potential obstacles this season with fielding such a large team, especially one so young.
“Team cohesion is always a challenge, much less when you’re doing it with 112 guys,” he said.
“I think our goal this year is to finish the year stronger in regards to our team cohesion than when we started,” McAdams said.
The team is delivering on this goal, joining together in the face of adversity. First-years have stepped into many different roles due to injuries of fellow players, the coach added.
With PLU’s postseason hopes dashed, McAdams said the seniors have turned their focus to mentoring the younger players and preparing them to lead the team for the next three years.
“It’s easy to be close as a team when things are going well, and it’s very challenging to maintain that camaraderie when things are not going well,” McAdams said. “With a series of losses it’s natural for doubt to creep in, and our leaders have stepped up and reassured our young guys the immediate results aren’t always what matters most, it’s the long term approach.”
