Physical transformation teases future potential for USC's Tuasivi Nomura

Four years ago, Tuasivi Nomura was in American Samoa, spending a year away from home, living with his father's relatives and connecting with his heritage.

He wasn't supposed to play football -- that was part of the idea. Nomura had broken his clavicle, requiring a metal bar and five screws, and was advised by his doctor to sit out a while and really give it ample time to heal.

"So I kind of wanted to send him down there not just to learn the culture but just to not do anything," his father Casey Nomura says. "But he ended up playing anyway."

As would become clear, it's hard enough to keep Nomura away from the football, let alone off the field entirely.

"I was bored. I couldn't go without playing. Especially, I went to go see a scrimmage of them playing and I was like, 'I just have to get in and play,'" the USC freshman linebacker recalls, telling the story earlier this summer.

But it wasn't the football he was used to back home in Corona.

The field was dirt and rocks. Equipment was old or lacking altogether, so kids would tape magazines around their arms for padding among other clever workarounds.

"People share helmets sometimes, people go to practice with no cleats, no shoes sometimes," Nomura says. "Some games kids, they put orange peels in their mouth as a mouth piece."

His mother, Haulani Keoho Nomura, offered to send him what he needed, but he declined.

"He said, 'No, mom, this is how it is over here and this is how I'm going to play,'" she remembers.

What Nomura lacked in familiar comforts he gained in perspective as he returned back home to California the following year and formally started on the path that would turn him into one of the more intriguing additions in USC's 2019 recruiting class.

"It gives you appreciation being out there because those kids, they all come out to work and play the sport out of love because they don't do it to be fancy or anything. They do it just because they want to," he says.

Nomura knew he had a love for football, and eventually he'd realize he had the potential to play in college as well. He and his family just had to convince somebody to give him that chance.

The winter after Nomura's junior season at Corona Centennial High School, as the family returned from the All-American Bowl combine in San Antonio, Texas, Casey Nomura got an idea to further boost his son's exposure to recruiters.

A big idea, that is.

"I would email every D-1 college. Maybe 2,500, 2000 [emails]," he says. "I made a template and just kept sending them, updating with information, just trying to get them to look. And out of all of that I maybe got 20 replies. …

"I got addicted to it. I just kept looking for a response, looking for a response -- no response."

Army took interest and gave Nomura his first offer soon after his junior season, but it wasn't until later that offseason that he really started to see his next-level potential recognized. He had accrued a handful of offers as he headed to USC's Rising Stars Camp hoping to make an impression at the school he had grown up supporting.

"I got MVP for linebacker at that camp. I had also got 5 or 6 scholarships that day, mostly Mountain West schools and stuff. … I didn't have USC," Nomura says. "Going to that camp mainly was to see if I could get USC, but they didn't come until after the season so they weren't really an option yet."

While the Trojans didn't give him an offer that day, linebackers coach/recruiting coordinator Johnny Nansen soon planted the seed nonetheless.

"They invited him back after he got MVP to a select-only camp. It was on the Tuesday after the Rising Stars," Casey Nomura says. "They asked me to bring him back, he did really well there and as we're standing outside Johnny Nansen came to us and said, 'Look, I don't want you leaving here thinking [you] didn't do well here. I think you're a very special kid.' And he told Clay [Helton], 'If something opens up, I want this kid.'"

Of course, USC would stumble to a 5-7 season and its recruiting efforts became more challenging. The Trojans suddenly had plenty of openings in the leadup to National Signing Day in February, and Nomura's recruitment went from on the radar to in the spotlight as he became one of the program's key targets down the stretch.

By that point, the Trojans were playing catchup. Iowa State was visiting Nomura every week, including a trip to Corona by head coach Matt Campbell. Louisville had gotten Nomura out to a late official visit and made a strong impression to push itself into the mix. And the family had connected well with UCLA and head coach Chip Kelly.

His dream school was now a real option, but the question became had the Trojans waited too long to make their move?

"I was uncertain until a couple days before signing day. I just wanted to make sure that it was the best fit for me because visiting a lot of the other schools I saw a fit for me there," he say, looking back on that process. "So I just had to sit back and evaluate everything, make sure I made the right choice."

The family would do that together, sitting down and comparing the pros and cons of each school. The tallies started piling up quickly for the Trojans.

Nomura's cousin Toa Lobendahn, USC's starting center last year, had shared a positive message about his experience with the program. Another cousin, redshirt sophomore outside linebacker Juliano Falaniko was still on the roster. The broader Polynesian history within the program was another appeal. The family also had a good connection with Nansen, whose parents live nearby to the Nomura's. And Nomura was close to Corona Centennial teammate Drake Jackson, who had already signed with the Trojans.

"After we listed them all out, USC had won by a landslide," Casey recalls.

Nomura's addition wouldn't move USC's recruiting ranking much (he was rated a 3-star prospect), but those closest to his football development felt that evaluation greatly belied his potential -- and that the Trojans were ultimately fortunate with their late interest.

"They came in late and Sivi's always dreamed of playing at USC so it worked out good -- for a school coming in late it worked out really good in their favor because he had been courted by some other schools that saw his potential a little bit earlier," Corona Centennial coach Matt Logan says. "And it was a hard decision for him because they had recruited him. Ultimately he went with his dream school."

To be fair to the recruiting rankings, a lot has changed for Nomura since his last football game. He was 195 pounds last season for Corona Centennial. By the time he moved to campus in June he was up to 225.

And he's indeed looking more and more like an underrated addition for the Trojans. After starting camp this month at outside linebacker, he's now getting work mostly inside as USC looks to stabilize its depth there.

While it's not expected he'll have a significant opportunity on defense this fall with more established players ahead of him, considering his rapid physical development over the last nine months it's easy to get excited for his future potential.

"He had a good junior year and was a little bit undersized, and as it typically goes with some Polynesian kids he's now 230 pounds," Logan noted earlier this month. "I'm glad that he's got the size that we all thought he would get and looking forward to seeing him do some good things. He's also super intelligent. Not only athletically, but mentally he can handle anything -- he's played safety, played outside backer, played rush end, did different things for us."

Nomura's delayed emergence as a college prospect makes sense in hindsight.

Beyond the late physical transformation, he spent that freshman season abroad in American Samoa, was denied his request to redo his freshman year upon his return back to Corona Centennial, also had to sit out five games the next season per transfer rules (because he didn't live with his parents during that year away), and he then sustained a painful pinched nerve in his neck just as he was emerging as a key contributor later that sophomore season.

He returned healthy for his pivotal junior season, but he was playing a new position at safety. The relatively slow start to his recruitment was stressful, Casey says, but he also knew colleges hadn't yet seen his son's true potential.

"He's a natural linebacker. He started off in the middle, but he got some speed so they moved him to safety and then to outside. But we've been running line reads at him since he was 7. We just figured he'd be successful there because he's comfortable there," he says.

Nomura would lead the team with 78 tackles as a senior last fall (according to MaxPreps), while tallying 7 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, 8 quarterback hurries, an interception, a forced fumble, a blocked punt and 2 pass breakups.

"He was playing slightly out of position his junior year for us. He was a safety, he's more of a nickel outside backer. So I think that was part of it. We kind of were telling people, you can't wait too long for him, he's going to explode. It seemed like as each week went by more people were taking notice," Corona Centennial defensive coordinator Dan Herring says.

"I think it's that he is nonstop. He's relentless. it doesn't matter if the play is going at him, the play is going away from him, until the whistle blows he's going full speed. When you think he's out of the play he's actually the one that makes it. It's a big blur of speed."

Nomura had established himself as a physical force in his emergence at Corona Centennial, but he is nonetheless a humble, soft-spoken guy and that manifested an interesting dichotomy on the field.

"He's a very polite kid, so he was knocking people out, he'd walk back up and go pick them up and pat them on the back," Casey says with a laugh. "… We made a lot of friends that way, even on opposite teams."

Again, back in the fall that physicality came in a smaller package. Nomura quickly put on the first 15-20 pounds soon after the season ended (with Casey feeding him extra meals and shakes). USC's official roster lists him at 6-foot-1, 210 pounds -- and the offseason strength and conditioning program may have had a subsequent impact -- but Nomura said in early June that he was up to 225 pounds.

When USC first started making its recruiting push for him late in the fall, he was told he might get his first look at nickel. Then it became outside linebacker. And how he's settled in at inside linebacker as part of his continuing evolution as a player.

An evolution that ultimately included one other notable change.

"He's stopped picking people up, so I don't know if somebody told him not to do it," Casey jokes.

Whatever he's doing seems to have made a strong first impression.

While Nomura is likely to open the season as a third-teamer, he's at least caught USC defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast's eye this preseason while establishing a nice foundation for his Trojans career.

"He's a guy that demonstrates an ability to run sideline to sideline. He's got very good key-and-diagnose [skills]. I like his ability," Pendergast said this week. "When he does read things, he gets there rather quickly and gets there with an attitude. And that's the way we like our linebackers to play."

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