Raised on soccer, Tino Sunseri desirous to revitalize UCLA’s offense

That thick, wavy black hair as soon as had no place atop Tino Sunseri’s head.

Lengthy earlier than he arrived in Westwood as UCLA’s offensive coordinator and a GQ cowl candidate, his father made him shave that wonderful mane, the higher to guard his head in order that it will match snugly inside his helmet as a younger quarterback.

“I at all times had an emphasis of, ‘Hey, I don’t care how your frickin’ hair seems or what girls assume,’” Sal Sunseri stated. “The underside line is, I needed him to be safe.”

That is how the Sunseris function. Success means sacrifice. It’s why Anthony Sunseri, Tino’s grandfather and the household patriarch, would rise at 5 every morning to organize for one more day of operating the household’s Italian deli and grocery retailer in Pittsburgh. The person who known as himself Tony Macaroni wouldn’t come house till after 5 within the night, solely to sort out a stack of payments and different obligations simply in order that he might get to mattress and rise to do it yet again.

“The underside line,” Sal stated of his father, “he would say, ‘In the event you can’t rise up within the morning, you ain’t value a s—’ .”

Tino was on the transfer virtually from delivery. The son of a school and NFL coach who schlepped him from Pittsburgh to Iowa Wesleyan to Illinois State to Louisville to Alabama A&M to Louisiana State to Michigan State to the Carolina Panthers by the point he was in center faculty, Tino grew up with a sporting items retailer’s value of substances and a deep appreciation for the gamers who wore all these helmets and jerseys.

Maybe the primary teaching adage Tino realized was that in the event you win, you keep. In the event you lose, you progress.

A uncommon respite got here when Sal spent seven wonderful years as defensive position coach with Carolina. His spouse, Roxann, would make 150 meatballs with garlic bread that Sal would distribute a couple of days after wins. Although meant for the defensive linemen, Sal would make certain to squirrel some away for different gamers corresponding to operating again DeShaun Foster.

“They’re a ten out of 10,” Foster stated of the meatballs.

It was within the Panthers locker room that Tino, accompanying his father to work with vast eyes, first encountered the participant who would at some point change into his boss. Reserved as he was, Foster discovered it simple to befriend the middle-school boy who dutifully slipped on rubber gloves to choose up jockstraps and jerseys.

“He would come as much as you as a younger child that regarded as much as all these NFL gamers, that was having all of the success,” Tino remembered, “and would take the time to have the ability to discuss to you, spend time with you and was actually, actually real.”

Greater than twenty years later, Sal was lounging on his sofa when he obtained a name from Foster, now UCLA’s coach, asking if he might have Tino’s telephone quantity. The request got here just a few months after Foster and Tino shared a hug on the Rose Bowl, the primary time that they had reconnected since Foster’s time with the Panthers. Tino’s Indiana Hoosiers, thanks largely to the efforts of the quarterback he coached, had simply walloped Foster’s Bruins.

Throughout their transient alternate, Foster informed Tino that he would rent him sometime. That day was before both might need imagined.

The primary time he met reporters masking his new staff, Tino Sunseri shook everybody’s hand.

That is how the Sunseris function. Respect issues. It’s why Tino indulged each buyer, each nasty and agreeable, whereas working his faculty summers as a bus boy and waiter at Bella Notte, the household restaurant in Pittsburgh recognized for its shredded pepperoni pizzas.

He’d totally interact when he might, breaking out an enormous smile. Different instances he’d shift into keep-his-mouth-shut mode if he thought it would yield higher outcomes from somebody who was being troublesome.

“He is aware of the way to discuss to individuals,” stated Nino Sunseri, Tino’s uncle and godfather who runs the joint. “If you may get individuals who aren’t good to carry out for you, image what you may get good individuals to do for you?”

Working on the restaurant additionally taught Tino that he didn’t wish to try this form of factor endlessly. If issues broke his manner, possibly he’d be an NFL quarterback.

By then he’d already led his Pittsburgh highschool, Central Catholic — which additionally occurred to be the alma mater of Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame quarterback Dan Marino and two-time Professional Bowler Marc Bulger — to a 16-0 season and state championship due to his sturdy arm and perfectionist streak. At Pittsburgh, the place his mom had been a star gymnast and his father an All-America linebacker, Tino helped the Panthers attain three bowl video games whereas piling up the third-most passing yards in class historical past.

Undrafted but undeterred, Tino pivoted to the Canadian Soccer League. He gained a Gray Cup throughout his three seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders earlier than being minimize. His teaching begin got here with a former colleague of his father’s when he joined Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State workers earlier than the 2016 season as a high quality management assistant.

Tino would go on to work with a few of the prime offensive minds within the faculty sport, culling concepts from Nick Saban and Steve Sarkisian throughout two seasons as a graduate assistant at Alabama. In 2021, he landed his first massive job as quarterbacks coach below Curt Cignetti at James Madison.

Tino Sunseri throughout his time as a quarterback with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the CFL in 2014.

(Brent Simply / Getty Pictures)

“These guys,” Sal Sunseri stated of his son’s mentors, “knew the way to put factors on the board.”

Eyes vast as soon as extra, Tino watched carefully, absorbing each tidbit.

As he went on to assist Cignetti and Indiana obtain historic success throughout a 2024 season that ended within the School Soccer Playoff, any person was more and more retaining tabs on him.

“Seeing how he has advanced as a coach and every little thing,” Foster stated of the coach he employed in December, rewarding him with a two-year contract that can pay him $1.3 million this 12 months, “it simply resonated, like, that is any person that I needed.”

Much like the way in which he dealt with clients on the household restaurant, Tino tailors his method to every quarterback.

Generally that meant demonstrating what he needed on the apply area or displaying sport footage of prime quarterbacks making the precise choices. Different instances, for the gamers who most well-liked to see performs spelled out with Xs and O’s, he’d diagram it on paper.

“He needed to get to know you,” stated Kurtis Rourke, the Indiana quarterback who led the Hoosiers to an 11-2 document final season earlier than being drafted by the San Francisco 49ers, “and know what studying model labored finest with you.”

That is how the Sunseris function. Meticulousness issues. Rourke stated that Tino’s exacting nature bled into each quarterback, maximizing their potential. Indiana’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator would put performs up on the whiteboard and have everybody within the room clarify each element of what was speculated to occur.

“It helped us study and perceive in order that once we went out into the sphere it wasn’t like, ‘Whoa, what’s happening?’” Rourke stated. “It was very a lot second nature to us.”

In his first season with the Hoosiers after transferring from Ohio, Rourke accomplished 69.4% of his passes for 3,042 yards and 29 touchdowns with solely 5 interceptions.

Successful massive with a brand new quarterback was nothing new for Tino.

Tino Sunseri congratulates Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke throughout a sport towards Northwestern in October 2024.

(Michael Reaves / Getty Pictures)

In Tino’s first 12 months at James Madison, veteran quarterback Cole Johnson helped the Dukes attain the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs. In 2022, switch quarterback Todd Centeio (now a graduate assistant at UCLA) was a part of a staff that gained the Solar Belt Convention’s East Division title. A 12 months later, Sunseri and Jordan McCloud, a switch from Arizona, teamed to win one other division title.

What’s Tino’s components? He stated it’s as a lot about regularly assessing himself as a lot as his quarterbacks.

“Did I articulate this the precise manner? Is he receiving the data?” Tino stated, repeating the questions he asks himself. “As a result of it’s not about what I do know, it’s what he is aware of and what he can apply. And so the most important factor is ensuring that you just don’t overload the pc and it shuts down. You wish to just remember to’re persistently with the ability to give it information in order that it may be in a position to make it possible for it’s prepared to have the ability to have the data you want once you want it.”

Evaluating instructing soccer to fatherhood, Tino stated it’s important to inform gamers not what they wish to hear however what they should hear to develop into the most effective model of themselves.

What Nico Iamaleava, the extremely rated switch quarterback from Tennessee, has heard and seen makes him assured that his coach’s historical past of quick success could possibly be on the verge of repeating itself.

Tino has been so lively in apply drills, mimicking the footwork he needs and rolling out and firing a cross throughout one current session, that he would possibly as nicely pull on one of many quarterback’s blue jerseys.

“He’s a high-energy man, man,” Iamaleava stated of the coach who will flip 37 in December. “He simply has that sure presence to him that makes you wish to go play for him.”

Like his father, who liberally sprinkles “frickin’” and “the underside line” into dialog, Tino is keen on sure phrases. He inserts “make it possible for” and “be capable of” in virtually each sentence, usually a number of instances.

That is how the Sunseris function. Consistency and familiarity matter.

That’s why many imagine Tino’s UCLA offense will look rather a lot like Indiana’s, even when Tino wasn’t the one calling performs for the Hoosiers after they rolled up 41.3 factors and 426.4 yards per sport final season, simply surpassing the 18.4 factors and 328.8 yards that UCLA produced below Eric Bieniemy.

“I count on it to be much like what Indiana’s completed and did final 12 months,” stated Rourke, including the caveat that he has not spoken together with his former coach a lot since he took the UCLA job. “You realize, his offense works, it’s very fast-paced, it has [run-pass options] and an awesome passing assault.”

It’s clear from the snippets of apply reporters have been allowed to look at that presnap motion — designed to maintain defenses guessing concerning the play name — will probably be a staple of the offense. Its design additionally seems to worth effectivity over pointless gambles.

UCLA offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri directs gamers throughout apply in April.

(Nate Donlevy / UCLA Athletics)

In an try to hide his scheme earlier than the season opener towards Utah on Saturday on the Rose Bowl, Tino would solely say that it’s “every little thing” that may squeeze essentially the most out of his gamers’ capabilities. His father predicted it will replicate all of his son’s mentors over time.

“I feel it’s going to be a mix of just a little little bit of Sark, just a little little bit of Jimbo, just a little little bit of frickin’ Alabama,” Sal Sunseri stated, “as a result of he is aware of one factor, that you just’ve obtained to have the ability to run the ball and also you’ve obtained to have the ability to hit explosives.”

Recovering from a shoulder damage that required surgical procedure, Sal gained’t be there Saturday to share one other particular second on the Rose Bowl together with his son. They’d been on the stadium collectively in January 2014 when Sal was Florida State’s defensive ends coach and the Seminoles beat Auburn to win the ultimate Bowl Championship Sequence title sport.

“That Rose Bowl’s been fairly good to him,” Sal stated, “so hopefully he can go on the market and do what the previous man did and win some video games.”

It’s actually what he is aware of. That is how the Sunseris function.