LU Moment: LU Football scores another historic season | S8 Ep. 35

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Podcast: S8 Ep. 35
Date: December 16, 2025
Title: LU Moment: LU Football scores another historic season | S8 Ep. 35
Host: John Rollins

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JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the LU Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with Lamar University faculty, staff, students and alumni. I'm John Rollins, Associate Director of Community Relations and Public Affairs here at LU, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. My guest today was named Lamar University head football coach in December of 2022 becoming the fourth leader since the sport returned to varsity status in 2010. It's my pleasure to welcome coach Pete Rossomando, to the LU Moment today. Thanks for joining me today on the show.

COACH ROSSOMANDO: Yeah, thanks for having me, John. Appreciate it.

JOHN: It's awesome to have you. And I know you're no stranger to radio.

COACH: Yeah, I do it every week on KLVI. The Coaches Show.

JOHN: The Coaches Show, yeah. So check that out during football season, for sure. You get a little break in between, right? Get you ready for it for next season. So, when I was looking up some background on you for today's chat, I read that you have over three decades of coaching experience. I guess my first question for you is, why Lamar, you know, what about this head coach role drew you in, or made you interested in applying for this?

COACH: I think it started with the relationship with Jeff O'Malley and Dr Taylor. I mean, they were in on the interview and I had a chance to meet them and hear their vision from where it was and where they really wanted it to be. And I think that obviously tweaked my interest. And, yeah, I had an opportunity to see the facilities that were here, and compared to some of the places I've been before, it was it was a step up. So yeah, I really enjoyed my conversations with them, and that kind of got me interested. And then obviously, with the facilities and seeing their vision, I figured there would be some room for growth, and that's kind of where we are right now.

JOHN: It's clearly paid off, right? We’ve enjoyed having you.

COACH: I've been here three football seasons now.

JOHN: Okay, so you got three years ago and you’re about to start year four, right? It’s nice because you're getting to start to see some of the fruits of your labor. You put the time in, you build up these teams, and you're getting to finally see the payoff.

COACH: Yeah. I mean, every year it's kind of its own iteration. But, you know, we've seen it build, and we've seen the support build in the community. And, you know, I think the community was so excited when they brought football back, because it was 20 years or so that they didn't have it. So, I think they were so excited about having football back in Southeast Texas, college football, and, you know, it just didn't kind of live up to their expectations. And I think a lot of them went away and waited for the product to get better, and hopefully they feel like we're at that point. And I think they have, you know, I think we had a great crowd at the McNeese game this last season, and it was so fun to turn around and see the stands so filled and people cheering on Lamar and in red. And I think that's hopefully a foreshadowing for what we're going to see coming up in in the future. And you know, the success of the program has really brought them back out, and The Flock, as they call themselves, is the student section that has grown at each game this past year, and we're just so blessed that we have them out there to cheer us on. And I think always, the student support has been what the what the players have really wanted. They feel like they've done their job and getting them out there.

JOHN: Yeah. Who better to cheer you on than your peers, your classmates, right? I love that. You bring up the last game, and I was the obnoxious fan taking pictures of the crowd. I was like, “This is so great! I’ve got to post this later.” So, before we get too deep into the LU football program, I want to hear a little bit more about your background. First, why football like, where did this all start?

COACH: New York City. I grew up in New York City, went to high school in Staten Island, New York. We were a baseball and hockey family, and my oldest brother got into football his last year in high school, and he's six years older than me, and kind of introduced it to me and my other brother. My other brother was two years older, and, you know, we kind of just gravitated towards it. We grew up without a dad at home. My brother was like my dad, and, you know, he kind of brought me to it. And then my high school coach, a guy by the name of Joe George, was his name and he's still coaching in New Jersey all these years later, and just was a great mentor to me, and was like a father figure, and grew me to appreciate the sport and felt like it was a way out of the city. I had a bunch of different opportunities, but the one I actually gravitated towards and accepted was an opportunity to go play at Boston University and get an amazing education there in the field of pre physical therapy, which is exercise physiology. Thought I was going to be a physical therapist. Obviously, that didn't work out. But there was a guy who was there coaching me, and this is how small world. His name is, Tony Sparano, who, at one time became the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He was our offensive coordinator, and he got a coaching job at a Division II school, a head coaching job, and offered me a graduate assistant opportunity. I didn't really know what I was going to do in my life, so I took that opportunity and I went to work for him, and, man, it just changed my life. You know, having an opportunity to be around young people and, you know, just to help how they go about their daily lives and inspire them. And that was just something that I knew I really wanted to do, and I just kind of dug in, and that's how I got started. And I was there five years with him, and moved on to a couple other places, and wound up at a place called University at Albany, and the guy that was coaching there was name was Bob Ford, and he'd been there 30 years at the time, and he started the program, and he changed my way of thinking about being a head coach. I never really thought I wanted to be head coach. I wanted to be offensive coordinator, call plays, have a little bit of fun, coach the offensive line, and then, you know, Coach Ford really got me interested in becoming a head coach, because I saw the way he touched people's lives, and the way he helped them get jobs post-graduation, the way he just sunk into them, and really just moved me in that direction. And then I had an opportunity to go back to New Haven, where Tony brought me and be the head coach, and did that for six years. And man, that was a great experience. I really was able to get to know a lot of people and run my own program and be around great coaches, and then from there, went to Central Connecticut, which was my first Division I job as a head coach. I took over what would be considered a “dumpster fire,” and spent, you know, four years turning that program around. We made the NCAA playoffs also the first time in their school history. And the year after I left, they won another championship and went to the playoffs again. So really felt like I set that place up for success, and then I left to go be a Power 4 coach. Went to Rutgers University and spent some time there, and wanted to try to learn how to run a big program, and went from there to Vanderbilt in the SEC. So I was in the Big 10 in the SEC. Thought like, that's kind of where I wanted to be at that level, but we didn't experience as much success at those places. You know, I always looked at the leadership and said, “Man, could I do something better if I was in their shoes?” and just kind of took notes, and, you know, really started to develop what my philosophy would look like if I got back to the Division I level, and went to Charlotte from Vanderbilt. I was the offensive line coach there, and the head coach got let go with four games left, and they asked me to be interim head coach. And man, I thought this was my opportunity to try to put those notes into play, even though it was a short amount of time. And, you know, we were 1 – 6 at the time, no 1 - 7 at the time. And Rice was actually the first game, which is down here, you know, my first game as an FBS head coach, and we beat Rice by a lot of points. I know that, and it quickly, you know, just kind of installed my philosophy. And I knew the guys on the team, and had good relationships with them, but I kind of got really that, that head coaching bug back, you know? And I just said, I really want to be a head coach. And had a couple of different opportunities coming out of there, and one of them was Lamar, and again, had a chance to meet Jeff and Jaime, and they were 1 – 10 the year before I got here. And yeah, you know, the one thing I thought was, “Man, you can't fall off the floor.” So, what an opportunity.

JOHN: There you go. An opportunity to come and write your own story, right?

COACH: Yeah. Dr. Taylor kept telling me, “You know, just win a few games. Show some progress.” And I just said, “Man, if I win two or three games, I'm going to be miserable.” So, I think I'm just going to go all the way and try to win as many as I can. So we had a winning season that was the first time in a while that they'd had a winning season since ‘18 and we had back to back winning seasons in ’24, and then obviously in ‘25 got back to our winning ways and beat the number four team in the country, beat the number 12 team in the country, had an opportunity for seven or eight straight weeks to be ranked in the Top 25 and make the NCAA playoffs for the first time since ‘18. And reflecting back, when you're in the moment, you don't you don't reflect. You just take it week to week. But reflecting back, it was an amazing team. We had a great group of young men and coaches, and we really did some things that had never been done here before. And you know, we want to continue to build on that legacy, and the only way you can do that is to go out and recruit and get really good players back here and continue to mentor the guys that are in our program and continue to hire great coaches. And that's really what we plan to do. And I think we have a really good foundation that we're building on right now, and just want to continue to use that momentum to, you know, springboard us to, hopefully a national championship at some point.

JOHN: To the next level, right? Speaking of foundations, you know, I think it is important to stop and reflect on your accomplishments every now and then. So, it's nice that you had the opportunity to kind of go back and share what you just shared. But looking ahead, you know, what are some of your goals, or kind of your hopes for the 2026 season?

COACH: Well, I think right now we're in the recruiting mode. Really try to build our roster a little bit better, maybe than it was a year ago. And you know, look at some of our shortfalls and try to do better in the recruiting process to increase those areas. And every year, you're going to look back and say, “We want to compete for a conference championship.” And you know, last year, we played Stephen F. Austin in in the eleventh game of the season with an opportunity to win the championship, and that's really where you want to be at the end of the year each year, with an opportunity to win it. And that's what we're doing right now. We're working on our roster. We're building through the recruiting process, and we've had a couple guys commit to us, and obviously did a great job in high school, but now we're in the transfer portal, and we're in the junior college world trying to get older guys to come in here and fill some of those spots that some of our older guys graduated. We love our nucleus, we think our team is really good, but we really need to bolster that through the recruiting process.

JOHN: Absolutely. And y'all just had an early signing day, right? Did I see 11 people who signed. I believe I saw that on Facebook?

COACH: We did have 11 signees. Mason Manning is probably the big local guy from Orangefield High School.

JOHN: And we love seeing local obviously, that's always important as well. You know, with all this newfound momentum with the football team, have you found it's gotten a little easier from the recruitment side of things?

COACH: Recruiting is always the same, you know. I think the hardest part my first year here was that we couldn't get one year guys, you know, guys who had one year left didn't want to take a shot because yeah, you're rebuilding, right? Really don't want to do that. This past year, we did a way better job of that, and I think we'll continue to do better there, but I think all avenues are open right now for us. You know, we still have to continue to work at it. We still have to show value to the people that we're recruiting, make sure they see a value in Lamar and not only the football but the education. You know what they're getting, from a resource standpoint, job placement, those types of things as guys are looking to maybe go to the NFL, but understand that there is life after that, and making sure that they have the opportunities to do that from Lamar, and I think that's a lot of the questions that we get, and it's the reason why we have Dr. Taylor on speed dial. He can talk about the opportunities that present themselves in Southeast Texas, and oil and gas industry, the engineering industry, all the things that we are so blessed to have unbelievable programs here at Lamar to allow these guys to have a different experience when they get out of here.

JOHN: Yeah, and you bring up, you know, that academic piece of everything, because I know that's something that is also at the forefront of what you all share. You know, I believe the GPA of the football team was the highest it's been in a while, either last year or this year, correct?

COACH: Since they brought football back.

JOHN: Since they brought it back. That's amazing! Yeah, and that's the side you don't always hear about. And you know, something else I'll say, I've been at many events with football players, and they're right out there getting involved. You know, they're at the Mardi Gras event next to the floats, throwing beads to the kids. They’re in the local schools, giving high fives and passing out flyers. I mean, they're doing a lot.

COACH: We’re going to do everything at the highest level. We can do it at academics included. And really that is the main focus in what we do is education, whether it be education, football wise, education for life, or classroom education, like they're getting here in grad school or undergrad. But I do think that's the most important thing we can instill in our guys, is a feeling that all this matters, you know, it's not just the football piece, you know? And, yeah, that's really what we work on daily with our guys, is making sure they understand that it all matters. Yeah. You know, we always say, “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

JOHN: Oh, I like that. It's all part of the big picture, right? So, I had Coach Pat Walker on before, it’s probably been about a year, and he said something that's always stuck in my mind, and it was, “You can't have the fruit before you have the roots.” And I was like, “This is awesome!” So I use it all the time. I quote him all the time, but it's so true, you have to instill that education and knowledge and team building and bonding and collaboration, it all comes out in these sports.

COACH: You know, no one sees the work that you put in in the dark. From January until really, the end of August, all that works in the dark, right? Nobody sees it until you get out on the field. But we understand that we are forming roots, you know, we're growing roots, and, you know, we want deep roots, and we want our guys to work really hard at all these facets. We’re not going to compromise, you know, we're just not going to do that. We're going to set a high standard at all the things that we do, and we're going to make sure our guys live up to them.

JOHN: Well, I think it comes it comes across for sure. So, before we wrap up, you know, I know there's something exciting kind of in the pipeline for y'all involving locker rooms. So, do you want to share about that really quickly?

COACH: You know, in the past, we had donations for our team room, which we renovated and updated all of our electronics, you know, really state of the art the way things look from a graphic standpoint. We did the same thing in our weight room, and now we're transitioning to the locker room, which is it's been original to the building, so it's 14 years old. And you know, when you use it every day for 14 years, things get a little worn, little wear and tear, right? So we're going to go in and renovate the team room, the players’ lounge where they spend a lot of time in there. And we want to make sure it's it feels like a home away from home and then the coaches locker room, which needs to be done as well, again, 13 years of use and abuse. And we really need to upgrade. We’re really excited about the opportunity to change the layout a little bit, where we can enter the field onto the scoreboard from the locker room, which is really going to be a cool little addition to game day, and obviously fan enjoyment. So that's always what we're trying to do, is give them a great experience on game day. And I think the new locker room will certainly allow that to happen.

JOHN: Well, that's something exciting to look forward to absolutely and I do want to throw out there really quickly. LU Football is very active on Facebook, Instagram, all the social media accounts, so everybody definitely follow them. And Coach Rossomando, thanks so much for joining on the podcast. Thanks for building this legacy here at Lamar, for choosing Lamar. We're definitely so glad to have you here on campus, and thanks for all you do for our student athletes as well.

COACH: Thank you. Excited to be part of this community. And you know, “Peck ‘Em!”

JOHN: As we wrap up the last episode of the year, please make sure to search LU Moment wherever you get your podcasts to keep up with the events, activities, programs and people right here at Lamar University. This is John Rollins your host, saying thank you for listening and Happy Holidays to all. We'll talk to you again in 2026!