Rebels among Rebels
Every game is important to the USU football team, but this week’s may be even more exciting for running backs Kerwynn Williams and Ladale Jackson, who are both from Las Vegas, and associate coach Mike Sanford, who was head coach at UNLV two years ago.
“Just to play against your hometown team is always big,” Williams said. “I’ve been kind of waiting for this for four years really, just to have the opportunity to be able to play against these guys.”
Playing against the Rebels has made it interesting for Jackson, who is looking forward to having his family come up from Las Vegas to watch him play.
“They want to root for me, but because we live in Vegas, they also want to root for them,” Jackson said. “My mom told me that she is going to wear half our stuff, half their stuff. I don’t know if that’s going to work well in our crowd.”
Williams, who grew up watching UNLV basketball, said there wasn’t any question who his family and friends would be cheering for.
“There’s no choice there. My family is very supportive, they always stand behind me,” Williams said. “They are real excited for this game too. Big Aggie fans.”
Williams and Jackson will see former teammates and opposing players on the field who they haven’t seen since high school.
“I get to see all of my old teammates and a lot of players I played against in high school,” Jackson said. “It’s going to be like one big reunion really, a big Vegas family reunion.”
“There’s a couple of guys on the team that I know that I played against in high school,” Williams said. “It is definitely exciting to have an opportunity to play against them again.”
Jackson made his decision to leave Las Vegas and become an Aggie because of what he saw when he visited on a recruiting trip.
“I came up here on my recruiting trip around January during basketball season,” Jackson said. “Coach Tuiaki, when he was here, he was my recruiter. At first I never really knew a lot about Utah State. I was like, ‘oh okay, it’s another school looking at me.’ I took my trip up here and I met Coach A. Coach A is the one that sold me to come here. He told me about the up-and-coming program that we’re having and the academic service, which is my number one priority because I was always taught school first, sports second.”
The coaching staff was also one of Williams’ biggest reasons for deciding to come to Logan.
“Coach A and Coach Tuiaki both played big roles in
that,” Williams said. “Coach Tuiaki was my recruiting coach. He recruited me out of high school and what pretty much sealed the deal was after I talked to coach A on the phone he just told me what he was all about and what he was trying to do up here with the program and the opportunity that I’d have to turn the program around. I just jumped right on top of that.”
Sanford has UNLV ties as well and said he will enjoy seeing some of the people and players from UNLV, but knows it is important to treat this game like any other.
“It’ll be good to see them, but to me it’s the next game,” Sanford said. “It’s a big challenge for us, they are coming off a big win against Air Force and our focus is on winning the game. That’s the whole focus. Before the game I’ll probably say hello to a few people or I’ll have some people come up and say hello to me. Other than that, it’s the next game.”
Williams is excited about the recent success of USU football and is excited to be a part of the recent turnaround. He hopes for that success to continue with a homecoming victory on Saturday.
“It’s definitely a big thing, just to see how the morale of the community has changed and how everyone is excited for us,” Williams said. “It’s very big for us just to be able to pay the fans back a little bit. They’ve stayed behind us throughout the whole time, through the rough times. We had three and four game win seasons and they stood behind us the whole time. They were very supportive and it’s just great to have the opportunity to pay them back like that.”
Jackson knows what it will be like for the visiting players from Las Vegas to play in Logan.
“They are not going to be ready for the cold, that’s all I can say,” Jackson said. “The cold is going to get them, because it got me when I first came up here.”
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Twitter: @MitchHenline