Wagner Coach on Facing Cal: `Hopefully, We Can Compete'

Tom Masella has been coaching college football since 1982, when he began his career as an assistant at Wagner College, his alma mater.

He has worked at 10 different schools since then, four of them as a head coach, including Wagner, which he will lead across the country to face Cal on Saturday afternoon.

Masella, 67, faces a challenge this week unlike any he has experienced.

The Seahawks lost 87-3 to James Madison last Saturday, the worst defeat in the century-long history of Staten Island, New York-based program.

An FCS-level team, Wagner schedules two games against FBS programs most years in order to earn visitor paydays that help fund their athletic department.

This two-week assignment is tougher than most. James Madison was good enough last year as a Group of Six team to qualify for the College Football Playoff. Cal is the ninth Power Four conference team Wagner has faced — the Seahawks are 0-8, outscored by an average margin of 56-5.

Masella took time from game prep to talk on the phone with us this week. Here’s our conversation:

Tom Masella | Photo courtesy of Wagner Athletics

How tough is preparing your team after losing 87-3?

“We knew we were going to have back-to-back games against two teams that on paper are a lot more talented than us. I understand these games. Saturday’s game got away from us a little bit. Early on this week, I thought our kids were a little bit down, but I think they’ve started to come alive and look forward to the challenge.

“I say this all the time — these games against the (FBS) schools don’t make or break our season. It’s getting to (Northeast) conference play. In the first half, I actually thought our starters on offense did improve. Special teams was an absolutely disaster (allowing three punt returns for touchdowns). They were just flat-out better than us.”

You pulled a lot of your starters at halftime, while trailing 42-3. What was behind that decision?

“These games are trickier than in the past. We’re always developing players now. With the way college football is, we’re going to lose 8 to 10 players every year that are going to move up. That forces us to play younger and younger players.

“Certainly Saturday we played a lot of those young players. They’re just not ready for it. That’s a decision I made at halftime that I was going to sit some guys down and try to keep guys healthy for our season that starts in another three weeks.”

Expand on how is the transfer portal is altering how your program functions?

“It makes it a little different than it was in the past. We had more players that could compete in this type of game. I’m not sure we have as many of those players as we had in the past.

“Our kids that go up (as transfers) are better than the kids that are coming down. That’s the best way I can put it. It forces us to still develop players but keep playing younger players. I think we’re starting four or five true freshman, and that’s not a good recipe for these games.”

What do you see when you scout Cal?

“I think they’re a very talented team. They had a really good game against UCLA that kind of fell apart at the end. But you could see the talent all over the place. I thought they had a great win against Syracuse on Saturday. Defensively, they did a lot of good things and offensively certainly they’re explosive. The quarterback (Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele) is fantastic. I think they’re a team that’s going to get better as the year goes on when they figure out who they want to be.”

What will be your team’s mindset on Saturday?

“Our kids enjoy (these games) and they’ll be prepared. Hopefully, we can compete. We have to play two of them a year. They help fund our program, no question about it. We’ve gotten used to this. We didn’t get used to what happened Saturday. That’s the way it is. We’ve got to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and move forward.”

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