There are 93 players listed on San Diego State’s spring football roster.
By the time those players took the field Monday morning for the team’s first practice, SDSU coach Sean Lewis’ intention was that they be more than just names on a piece of paper.
“We’re preaching more of a connection and a foundation within the team,” said SDSU junior edge rusher Trey White, who was among the nation’s leaders last season with 12 1/2 sacks. “We want to be more connected, and I already feel that.”
Lewis has called a review of last year’s 3-9 season an autopsy, which seems appropriate for a year that died a slow death with six straight losses to close out the campaign.
One thing the coach identified as lacking in his first year as Aztecs coach was the connection among the players and coaches.
“Brand new staff that welcomed 58 new players to the program,” said Lewis, whose 2025 roster includes nearly four dozen new players. “As a group of individuals, there was a lot going on. I can insert any excuse. I did a poor job of leading and being intentional about carving out the time … and facilitate conversations so that we could truly get to know one another.”
One way to facilitate conversations is requiring occasions where cell phones are put away.
“We’ve been very intentional about certain times throughout the course of the day of eliminating the phones that all of us, myself included, where it’s an immediate distraction,” Lewis said.
An example he provided is that when there’s a lull in a conversation, the default response often is for someone to bury their nose in social media on their phones.
“As opposed to saying, ‘Hey, how’s your day? What’s going on? What did you have for breakfast?’ And starting a conversation,” Lewis said.
In addition, the staff has been more mindful in certain situations of putting players together from different position groups, rather than, say, offensive linemen always being with the offensive linemen or linebackers always being with the linebackers.
“Those individual groups know one another,” Lewis said, “but collectively as a team there’s those barriers. So breaking that down, along with the staff just being purposeful about how we’re using the time so we can have that strong foundation of connection.
“When we get way downrange here in the fall and the starts coming and the adversity hits, that team that’s connected is going to be stronger and they’re not going to divide.”
The Aztecs visited Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado last week for a first-hand look at team-building.
“There’s no greater teams in the whole world, in my opinion, than what those men and women are doing down there,” Lewis said. “We took some time to go down there and be around those special individuals that are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.
“You talk about having trust and having connection with those individuals at an elite level, showing our guys an example of what that looks like. … It’s tangible and it’s a real difference maker.”
Added Lewis: “At its core, it’s doing a bunch of hard things together. To see who, when those hard things are happening, are going to look up and out and do it for their teammates as opposed to looking down and in and just do it for their individual self.”
White said the opportunity to pick the brains of military was invaluable.
“Their circumstances are different, it’s life or death,” White said.
But they saw similarities in how crucial it is to be able to rely on the person next to you to be successful.
“We had a lot of new guys coming in (last year) and I felt like that connection wasn’t where it was supposed to be,” White said. “That’s why we’re really harping on the foundation and the connection between the people, our teammates and our coaches.
“I think that’s going to help us to go farther. You don’t want to let your teammates down. That’s the worst thing you can do.”
SDSU senior center Ross Ulugalu-Maseuli said it’s difficult to build a bond in one year.
“The more time you have building with the coaches, the better the team’s going to get, just building that connection,” Ulugalu-Maseuli said.
Asked how best to connect, Ulugalu-Maseuli said: “You build a bond through pain.”
“Winter conditioning. Spring ball,” he said. “Going through those days where it’s hard to get through a day, that’s where you build a bond with that teammate that you know you can trust later on down the road.”
After seven weeks of winter conditioning, the Aztecs have embarked on six weeks of spring workouts. The result of those efforts will not be measured for several months, but Lewis believes progress has been made.
“Our guys have learned how they truly need one another to be successful at the highest level,” Lewis said. “It’s been really cool hearing the chatter. A connected team is going to communicate.
“The volume of communication and the energy that the guys brought on Day 1 is a very tangible payoff for that.”
GM hire official
Notre Dame director of recruiting Caleb Davis was officially announced Monday as the SDSU football program’s first general manager. As reported last week, Davis’ duties will include overseeing roster management, financial allocations and recruitment as well as being the program’s liaison for NIL partnerships.
“It shows the commitment to innovation and pushing forward as we continue to move as a university in staying at the forefront of everything that’s going on in the college football landscape,” Lewis said. “Balancing all the things that are going on and having another really smart individual with us in the room as new problems pop up, which they seem to do daily around here in the world of college football, you have another bright mind that you can bounce things off of so that we can work toward solutions and stay at the forefront of everything that’s going on.”
