The incoming class of 2029 football recruits will be the largest in at least 10 years. Since gaining 25 recruits in 2015, the team has averaged around 15 new players a year, with as few as 12 recruits in some years. But the class of 2029 will have at least 24 recruits, and Head Coach Phil Nicolaides anticipates a final total of 26 to 27 players after all students have committed.
No matter the quality of players, roster size is important to a football team.
“You have 22 starters, and that’s if everyone’s healthy,” Nicolaides explained. “And they’re all different positions. So, you have big guys, small guys, fast guys, slow guys, tall guys, short guys, and there’s different positions for all of them, guys that can throw, guys that can catch, guys that can’t catch, guys that can run forward, guys that can run backwards … You just need a lot of contributors.”
In addition to this diversity of skill and specializations, large rosters offer room for inevitable injuries.
“We’re competing against a lot of teams who have traditionally had, and continue to have, very big rosters with well over 100 students, which is kind of the norm across the landscape of Division III,” Nicolaides said.
Macalester’s roster last season had 64 players. Next season, there will be at least 69. That’s not a huge immediate jump, because the graduating senior class is larger than average at 20 players, but if recruitment stays at this level, the team can reach Nicolaides’ goal roster of 75 to 85 players.
That isn’t the 100 players that other teams have, but Nicolaides doesn’t see that as a specific need for the program or the school.
“With a lot of those schools, the school as a whole is leaning on the football team to drive enrollment,” Nicolaides said. “So, they’re saying, ‘Hey, we want our coaches to go recruit and bring in 40, 50, kids a year’ so that they can fill beds. … Macalester has such a strong academic reputation that they’re not leaning on me to bring in students.”
Aiming for fewer players means that recruitment at Macalester can be more personal. For Nicolaides, fit is incredibly important to recruitment. Players must be ready for robust academics and a diverse campus. They need to want the uphill battle that is improving a program that just went 0-and-10 for the season.
While some losses were close, many weren’t. The blunt story a no-win season tells isn’t helped by some close defeats. And the loss of highly productive players like Michael Nadeau ’24, Nick Bice ’24 and Michael Poker ’24 left gaps for the team to fill.
In some ways, the tough season hasn’t been a recruiting detriment. The “sell” the football program is making is not that players will come in to have wins handed to them, but that this is a place where they’ll work hard and earn their accomplishments. One of Nicolaides’ favorite questions to ask potential recruits is what they’ve had to work for, an example of when things haven’t been handed to them and they’ve persevered anyway.
“We’re trying to go out and find guys whose soul comes from a hard-earned place,” Nicolaides said, referencing the lyrics to Ryan Bingham’s “Southside of Heaven.” “They’ve been through tough things, and they’ve sacrificed, and they’ve struggled, and they’re going to come here, and they’re going to sacrifice, and they’re going to struggle.”
The past two years, recruiting classes have been small: 12 in the class of 2027 and 15 in the class of 2028. This is Nicolaides’ third year as head coach, and the second year of recruitment that he sees as really belonging to him. He identifies this year’s improvement in recruitment number as a result of focusing on fit and not investing time into players who aren’t a good match for the team and school, even if they’re talented players.
For Nicolaides, this fit means that the record they’re joining the team on is something that will motivate them.
“I think we have a lot of those guys coming in, who are kind of excited about joining a team that went 0-and-10, and seeing: How far can we move the needle in my four years?” Nicolaides said. “I know that’s how our first year class is looking at it right now. Our first year, we went 0-and-10. By our senior year, where are we going to be in this program? That’s exciting.”
