Sep. 30—BROOKINGS — Nate Adams has gone from the Jacks to the Jacks.
An all-Southland pick at offensive tackle last year for the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks, Adams transferred to South Dakota State after the season and is now the sixth man on the Jackrabbits’ offensive line.
At 6-foot-7 and 330 pounds and with a long, black beard sticking out from under his facemask, Adams is hard to miss. And even though he’s not starting he’s making an impact for SDSU, imparting his knowledge as a college football veteran and pushing both the offensive and defensive lines in practice. If the Jacks suffer an injury at any point this year on the offensive line, Adams gives them another starter ready to step in.
Born in St. Louis, raised in Texas and having made his college debut at Hawaii before heading to Stephen F. Austin, Adams is in a new world in Brookings, and he recently spoke to Sioux Falls Live’s Matt Zimmer about his experiences going from Lumberjack to Jackrabbit.
MZ: You’re one of the new guys, what’s your experience been like being here for a couple months?
NA: It’s been great. I think you hear about the brotherhood, and you got the JFPA and everything, and it sounds like every team says it in America, but it truly is a family, and I think there wasn’t a time where I had to worry about being a transfer, especially an older transfer, I had to worry about stepping on toes or trying to find my place. Immediately it was, let’s go, you’re one of us, now let’s compete, and I’ve really appreciated that.
MZ: Well, and I’ve noticed watching in practice and games, yourself and a lot of other transfer seniors, guys that are new to this team, kind of stepping into some leadership roles, not being afraid to talk to guys about their experiences, because you’ve been around the block, right? You might be new here, but you have a lot of college football experience.
NA: Absolutely, and I think that’s one of the things that they told me coming in here, is they don’t just want me to play my last year and say see ya, they want me to play my last year, develop the future Jackrabbits, and help out as much as I can, and I take pride in helping bring guys along as much as I can. I don’t know everything, but like you said, it’s my fifth year so I know a little bit, and just sharing whatever I can.
MZ: What drew you to SDSU, how did you end up here?
NA: I think a big part of it was (offensive line coach Mike Bangtson), he was my offensive line coach at Stephen F. Austin in 2023, and having a year under him, knowing what he’s all about, and then trusting him when he told me what it was here.
Having a coach in recruiting that you can trust the word of is everything, and I didn’t really have to question what he was telling me. I came on a visit, and I could see it. I tell everybody, what I saw when I visited was guys in warm-ups going full speed through the stretch line. It may not sound huge, but to me as an older guy, seeing that and then having been places where you don’t see that, to me that was huge.
MZ: I was just going to say, and I’m certainly not asking you to bash Stephen F. Austin at all, but are there differences? How has it been different here?
NA: I think it’s different in several ways. The best way I guess you could say it is the attention to detail and the drive that everyone puts in, and I absolutely do not want to bash Stephen F. Austin. I’m so thankful for that place, those coaches, players, but not everyone on every team around the country has the same passions, has the same amount of drive for what they want to do, and I think here everybody’s as close to like-minded as you can get, and I think you really see that through the way we practice, the way that we work out.
All summer you could see it, and not necessarily that’s a negative thing elsewhere, but it’s definitely the drive that every individual has lines up here.
MZ: What about the cultural differences? I’ve spent some time in Texas, and there are some similarities between Texas and South Dakota, but obviously it’s different too. What’s that been like?
NA: It’s been good. Yeah, absolutely, there’s similarities. Especially in Nacogdoches, you’re in a small town Texas, the school’s right in the middle of two roads. So, going from a small town to a small town was very similar, kind of knowing everybody, knowing every place in town, stuff like that. I’d say also, so my extended family is actually from the Midwest. My mom was born in Chicago, my dad in St. Louis.
I was actually born in St. Louis, and so to me the Midwest always felt like grandma’s house. The only time we’d go up was holidays, and so I’ve got fond memories of it, and so going back and hanging with the guys, seeing people at the store, and seeing the quality of person here has been so nice and refreshing.
MZ: Didn’t you start your career in Hawaii? How’d you end up there?
NA: Just out of high school, it was COVID. Recruiting was crazy. Didn’t get to take any visits anywhere.
MZ: Yeah, but, like, it’s Hawaii.
NA: Yeah, I knew it couldn’t be that bad. I liked the coaches, I believed in what they were doing. It didn’t all work out with the staff and everything, but I’m super thankful for my time there, connections I made, and to learn about that culture, which was entirely different. I didn’t experience anything like that. But to learn about that, be in that, I was super thankful.
MZ: So are you going to be able to handle playing here in November, December? When it’s ten below out, potentially, in playoff games?
NA: I’m going to say yes. I’m going to go with a confident yes. And I think we’ll see how it goes. But I don’t think I’ve…this is the northernmost I’ve ever lived, for sure. Or ever visited, even. And so I haven’t seen it before, and every guy on the team tells me it’s going to be worse than I think.
But I’m okay with that. I think it’ll be…it’ll just be a challenge to the game, and I think there’s ways to get around it, but also doing something I haven’t done before, even if it, for lack of a better word, sucks. I think it’ll be fine.
