Tino Sunseri is spending the next two weeks in Costa Mesa while a large chunk of his heart resides on the East Coast.
Thatโs where the new UCLA offensive coordinatorโs wife and 3-month-old son are living with one set of grandparents, allowing Tino to focus the best he can on training camp with the Bruins.
The first-time father is buoyed both by what heโs seeing with his team and reports about his infant, who giggled for the first time the other day. Santino Michael Sunseri Jr. already has a nickname โ โWeโre calling him Sonny, like โThe Godfather,โ โ Tino cracked, referring to Santino โSonnyโ Corleone from the movie โ and curiously studies his father in FaceTime sessions.
โRight now,โ Tino said Saturday morning, โheโs kind of giving me that look, like, โHey, I know your voice, but who are you right here?โโ
Thereโs also plenty of getting to know you between Sunseri and his new quarterback.
Nico Iamaleava enrolled in June after transferring from Tennessee, making this the fifth consecutive season that Sunseri will be working with a new quarterback. In 2021, Sunseriโs first season as quarterbacks coach at James Madison, veteran quarterback Cole Johnson led the Dukes to the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs.
A year later, Sunseri worked with Todd Centeio, a transfer from Colorado State who led James Madison to the Sun Belt Conferenceโs East Division title. In 2023, Sunseri and Jordan McCloud, a transfer from Arizona, helped the Dukes notch another division title.
Last season might have been Sunseriโs most impressive working with a newbie quarterback. Kurtis Rourke, a transfer from Ohio, led Indiana to a historic season that included an 11-2 record and appearance in the College Football Playoff.
Sunseriโs first impressions of Iamaleava align with the sort of immediate success heโs enjoyed with other quarterbacks.
โHeโs a self-driven person,โ Sunseri said. โHe has a certain standard of how he wants to be able to operate each day. And the great thing about my past is Iโve been around a lot of guys that have the same kind of feel and thought process.
โSo the only thing youโve got to do with these guys is youโve got to be able to give them the information, and youโve got to keep being able to stimulate them to be able to make sure that every single day, thereโs something that theyโre being able to attack and chase, and thereโs not one day that he hasnโt come in here that heโs not focused on being able to become the best player that he can be for UCLA.โ
In the limited media viewing period Saturday, Iamaleava had more success on the ground than through the air, faking a handoff and cutting to his right for a touchdown run. The only pass he threw, intended for Ezavier Staples, was broken up by defensive back Jamir Benjamin in the end zone.
Iamaleava has impressed Sunseri with a relentless approach โ whenever heโs not practicing or working out, heโs studying the offense.
โItโs infectious to him; he canโt get enough of it,โ Sunseri said. โAnd when you have those kind of guys, you can start to be able to see how they can be able to develop, and now you can be able to start to be able to formulate a mindset and starting to be able to see where they think, how they think and start to be able to have it to where you can really understand how to coach them.โ
Having such a condensed window to work with Iamaleava before the season opener against Utah on Aug. 30 at the Rose Bowl isnโt a concern to Sunseri.
โItโs not about us being able to install the offense,โ Sunseri said, โitโs about being able to make sure that itโs not too much too fast to where he can be able to grasp it, because weโre not playing next week, weโre playing in three weeks โ itโs still a ton of time for us to be able to utilize.โ
Those wondering what UCLAโs offense will look like might have to wait until the season opener because Sunseri isnโt divulging much besides its goal to stretch a defense so that it must account for โevery single blade of grass.โ Sunseri did suggest that there will be an ample amount of running the football.
โLet me say this: Weโre gonna be a physical football team,โ said Sunseri, whose first coaching stops came as a quality control coach at Florida State and Tennessee and a graduate assistant at Alabama. โItโs where Iโve always been raised, coming from the SEC, youโve got to run that ball, and me being a Nick Saban disciple, thatโs just my thought process, right?โ
A speedy duo
UCLA running back Jaivian Thomas carries the ball during preseason training in Costa Mesa on Friday.
(Nate Donlevy / UCLA Athletics)
Jaivian Thomas, the transfer running back from California, is so fast that his father called him โThe Jetโ growing up.
During informal sprints with his new team, Thomas said fellow running back Anthony Woods stayed with him step for step.
So does that make this a twin-jet offense?
โAnt got gas,โ Thomas said of his teammate, โbut I feel like Iโm the fastest in the room.โ
The hope is that alongside returners Jalen Berger and Anthony Frias II, the Bruins can spread their carries and wear down defenses. While Thomas and Woods are the speedsters of the group, Berger and Frias might feature slightly more power to their rushing styles.
Berger said he had fully recovered from the sprained ankle he suffered against Iowa last season that hindered him over the seasonโs final four games. Thomas was the Golden Bearsโ leading rusher last season, averaging 6.3 yards per carry while gaining 644 yards and scoring seven touchdowns.
Coach DeShaun Foster called Thomas a threat to score every time he touched the ball. If all goes as planned, multiple running backs will cross the goal line while challenging defenses.
โIt allows those guys to be able to stay fresh, and as those defenses align, theyโre playing 40, 50, 60 snaps in the game, and youโre getting to the fourth quarter, those guys are a little worn out,โ Sunseri said of playing a bevy of running backs. โSo then whenever you put a guy in with fresh tires, then he could be able to have it to where heโs running through a couple of those tackles, maybe heโs able to continue to be able to play at a different speed than those [defensive] guys in the game.โ