Spartan football: 2024 Spring camp catchup

In the football cycle of life, we’ve reached full circle for San Jose State after seven years of the Brent Brennan era. There’s no doubt Brennan established a much-needed culture and a level of clout in the Spartan football program. Brennan is now in ramp-up mode at Arizona.

“Fortunately, from a culture standpoint, things aren’t much different than what coach Brennan did,” said new Spartan head coach Ken Niumatalolo. “The transition has been OK so far, but overall, it’s too early to tell for sure.”

Without skipping a beat after Brennan, San Jose AD Jeff Konya landed a well-established football stalwart in Niumatalolo, who by all intents and purposes is a natural football lifer with a highly respectable body of work.

15 seasons at Navy with a 109-83 record. Six wins in 11 bowl games. Twice with teams in the top-25 and numerous high-profile wins.

But Niumatalolo is much, much more than what we see tangibly by the numbers. Niumatalolo has always been about a deep, intrinsic culture that emanates from brotherhood, family and love.

It’s probably too much mushy stuff for a finicky sports audience. Basically, Niumatalolo’s staff and administration expect to be the next level of progress for San Jose State, as we anticipate the Niumatalolo brand to be part of San Jose for a long time.

Spring goals & changes

After seven years of wide-open practices, media access will no longer be a free-for-all, and rightly so after a number of media oversteps the last few years. It just leaves more to the imagination with one’s own armchair assessments.

The first assessment based on off-field observations and in-orbit commentary is a vibe of respect, inclusion, certainty and excitement.

After just six spring practices, the many new coaches still have a ton of evaluations left to do, especially in implementing the new “spread-and-shred” offense led by new OC Craig Stutzmann.

“Craig at Texas State was good last year on offense,” said Niumatalolo. “They averaged over 30 points a game, so the bar is high and I’m really excited to have him here.”

Stutzmann’s offensive style and imprint was also felt at Hawaii and Washington State. With Texas State, Stutzmann’s offense average 457.6 yards a game along with 36.7 points a game (12th-most points per game in the nation in 2023) - all-time highs for the Bobcats.

“I think we do have a lot of pieces here that fit what we’re trying to get done,” said Stutzmann on his early impressions from spring practice.

The stable of QBs, receivers and the offensive line based on last year are all on the radar of highly capable talents who could deliver for the Spartans.

QBs Tyler Voss, Jay Butterfield and Anthony Garcia are formidable arms and shot-callers. Receivers Nick Nash, Malikhi Miller and Justin Lockhart are proven threats. And the offensive line has considerable size, depth and experience.

“There’s three goals that we have in mind here for the spring,” said Stutzmann. “To develop the base and building blocks of our offense, establish our various tempos and evaluate the players and all the variations they can bring.”

It’s an offensive philosophy and style that expects to be a cornerstone identity for the Spartans.

QBs & McGiven

As the value and importance of the quarterback goes, Walker Eget, Dorian Hale and Emmett Brown also bring their experience and style to the table.

“We got six QBs and they’re all a little different,” said Stutzmann. “Some guys are more scramblers, some operate in faster tempos or slower tempos, some operate better from the pocket. And we got a couple guys who operate well from outside the pocket too. It’s interesting to have it all.”

Stutzmann added, “I also told the quarterbacks we’re going to clean slate it and we’ll rotate through some things in the first couple of weeks and see where the chips fall.”

As one of two coaching holdovers, Kevin McGiven is now the passing coordinator & receivers coach - a role McGiven looks to equally cherish and find immediate synergy with Stutzmann.

“I’ve known Kevin since 2010 and he’s done a wonderful job as an offensive coordinator here,” said Stutzmann. “He gives me a lot of insight.”

Year 1 expectations

The normal expectation for any first-year coach might be to have a down or so-so year; mainly because of so many transitory conditions.

“I’ve done this for 35 years,” said Niumatalolo on downplaying year one challenges. “The biggest thing was getting our staff together.”

“We’ve got a great staff,” added Niumatalolo.

San Jose State rounded out its staff this week. With vibrant, veteran coaching experience, it’s a venerable leadership lineup that expects to lift any capable roster to new heights.

“From coach (Derrick) Odum to coach Stutzmann to our great assistants and our players, it’s all there,” said Niumatalolo.

“All that is football, which is all I know isn’t hard.”

Perhaps it’s a Niumatalolo parable worth pondering and knowing it is all about the execution at the end of the day.

Practices continue after spring break next week and ends with the April 27th spring game. Open to the public and the media, it’s certain to be a significant milestone to assess.

Stay tuned for an early look at the Spartan defense with DC Derrick Odum next week.