Ian Seau, nephew of late NFL legend Junior, commits to Nevada Wolf Pack
Photo courtesy East County College Sports
Junior college All-American and three-star recruit Ian Seau has officially flipped his commitment from San Diego State to Nevada.
First, we will touch on the particulars of Grossmont Community College’s Seau and his new school, and then onto why such a commitment is so incredibly noteworthy.
At 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, Seau possesses the strength and quickness to succeed as a linebacker at the next level, or he has the frame to put on weight and move to defensive end in his two remaining years of eligibility with Nevada. He was named a junior college All-State and All-American after collecting 19 sacks, the most of any JUCO player in the state of California.
San Diego State has very recently gained some semblance of stabilization after making the decision to rescind its commitment to the Big East in favor of the ever-strengthening Mountain West. On the other hand, Nevada had been under the same Chris Ault regime for 28 years.
The College Football Hall of Famer invented the ‘pistol formation’ and had a 233-109-1 record during his tenure. However, he retired following yet another successful run in 2012.
Thus, the flipping of this studly pass-rushing linebacker must be credited to Nevada’s hire as its new head coach, Brian Polian.
Polian is the son of Bill, a longtime NFL executive who won a Super Bowl ring with the Indianapolis Colts. The familial pedigree is there, but Brian’s resume is already legitimate in its own right. After spending five years at Notre Dame, he spent two with Stanford and was the special teams coach for Texas A&M in 2012.
Thus, in spite of his relatively very young age, as Brian Polian is only 38, the young man was a hot name around head coaching circles as teams worked to replace either fired or retired head men.
Especially because the young man can recruit.
He is considered widely responsible for bringing Manti Te’o from the sunny skies of Hawaii to the frigid temperatures and hallowed halls of Notre Dame. The young men he helped bring to Stanford, including redshirt freshman quarterback Kevin Hogan, led the Cardinal to the program’s first Rose Bowl win in more than forty years.
Finally, Polian proved he can handle recruiting while also juggling the countless other responsibilities of a head coach. Getting players into the film room, the weight room, making sure they are academically eligible, working with his assistant coaches, preparing for spring practices, glad-handling boosters and administrators are just a few of the major tasks for which Polian is now responsible.
However, he still managed to make time for Ian Seau, the nephew of the late NFL superstar Junior, who spent 20 years in the league. Recently, Junior Seau tragically turned a gun upon himself and committed suicide, turning his family and the football world upside down in the process.
The Seau family has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NFL, claiming that the league was negligible in their reaction to their discovery of the direct correlation existing between big hits and serious brain damage. After his death, Seau’s brain was donated to medical research. It was discovered that the linebacker suffered from a severe level of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
Now, yet another of the Seau bloodline is headed into major college football, and most likely a shot in the NFL.
It will be up to Brian Polian to make sure that Ian Seau and his 19 sacks for Grossman in 2012 is not only successful, but safe.
For both young men, football is a family affair, and now they will have the chance to be successful at the next level, together.
