When Nick Saban retired as Alabama’s football coach after 17 seasons and six national championships, never did Ken Niumatalolo realize how profoundly it would impact his life.
Saban’s resignation eventually led to Niumatalolo returning to the head coaching ranks to guide San Jose State.
“He (Saban) was a great one, the best of all time, and I had no idea the trickling effect, and a couple of days I would be here at this podium,” Niumatalolo said during a fascinating opening press conference when he was introduced as the new coach at San Jose State.
Indeed, it was Saban’s resignation that began the dominoes to fall that eventually led to Niumatalolo being named as San Jose State’s coach.
Once Saban resigned, he was replaced by Kalen DeBoer of Washington. Arizona’s Jedd Fisch then replaced DeBoer at Washington. San Jose State’s Brent Brennan, who was 34-48 in seven seasons guiding the Spartans, then replaced Fisch at Arizona.
And that’s where Niumatalolo came in.
A longtime head coach at Navy, Niumatalolo was fired after 15 full seasons following the 2022 campaign. He spent last year working as the director of leadership at UCLA under head coach Chip Kelly. In January, he was named UCLA’s tight ends coach before earning the position at San Jose State.
He coached Navy in the 2007 Poinsettia Bowl after head coach Paul Johnson left for Georgia Tech. Niumatalolo then coached 15 full seasons at Navy and went 6-5 in bowl games. He is the winningest coach in Navy history — 109-83 (.568). Niumatalolo was fired after three straight losing seasons at Navy, ending with a 4-8 mark in 2022.
The 58-year-old Niumatalolo is obviously thrilled to again be back in the head coach’s seat.
An emotional coach, who poured his heart into his players, something that will continue.
Here are some of the interesting nuggets that came out during his first press conference as the Spartans’ new coach.
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He Carried His Players’ Bags
At Navy, Niumatalolo mentioned that his school flew on private jets, like many teams. What was different occurred once Navy’s plane would land.
“We’d get there, sometime there would be a small little place (like) South Bend and they might not have many people doing the bags, so it might take forever,” he recalled. “What we did, I had the coaches unload the bags and so the plane would arrive, I would tell the players ‘grab your Gatorade, go grab whatever food and get on the bus,’ but the coaches would carry the bags and the players had no idea what I was doing.”
It was at this point where Niumatalolo had to pause as he got emotional, before continuing.
“I wanted to show them (the players) how much I loved them,” he said.
Another pause for a few tears and Niumatalolo continued.
“This profession is a ruthless profession, there is a lot of money involved … and sometimes you lose your way, sometimes people lose their way,” he said. “The money becomes so big, and people tend to lose their values of who they are and what they do. And I just wanted our players to know that we love them.”
Over the years, Niumatalolo had numerous bus drivers deliver this same message, “Coach, I have driven a lot of teams, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen coaches carry their players’ bags.”
Ditching The Triple Option, But Not The Run
Niumatalolo acted as if he earned his PhD in coaching while being part of Kelly’s UCLA program.
“I’ve had a great opportunity this past year to sit in coach Kelly’s room, and the guy is an offensive savant,” Niumatalolo said.
While Niumatalolo ran the triple option at Navy, he won’t be doing the same at San Jose State,
“At Navy, we weren’t as big as everybody else and weren’t as fast, so we had to do something that gave us an edge and that edge was option football in our culture,” he said. “But I’ve also felt if I went somewhere else, to a conventional school, that we would do something else.”
Even though he will have San Jose State attempting more passes than during his Navy tenure, Niumatalolo said he wants to run the ball and run it well.
“I want a wide-open passing scheme that can attack any coverage … but I want to have a physical run game. There are going to be times where in Wyoming it’s snowing and you’re going to have to run the ball,” he said.
High Expectations
Niumatalolo doesn’t want to ease into things at San Jose State.
His 2016 Navy team advanced to the American Athletic Conference championship before losing to Temple, 34-10. He has lofty goals in taking over a San Jose State team that is coming off a 7-6 record and a 24-14 loss to Coastal Carolina in the Hawaii Bowl.
“My goal is to be one of the 12 (college football) playoff (teams) and now with the 12 teams it is definitely a possibility,” Niumatalolo said.
He understands that the G5 team earning a playoff bid, will likely be the No. 12 seed.
“Come on brother, let’s go … let’s go whoever the top guys are, those are our expectations,” he said. “Some people might think they’re too high and stuff, but there are some great things that we want to accomplish here.”
