Canadian lineman Mateas hoping to stand out at Penn State

Football was calling Alex Mateas, with his quick feet and now 6-foot-3-inch, 310-pound stature.
Raised playing soccer and basketball, Mateas outgrew those sports. Carleton University basketball coach Dave Smart, Mateas’ former summer AAU coach, noticed Mateas’ footwork.

His agility made him think football was Mateas’ future, but it was Smart’s nephew, Rob Smart, who prodded Mateas to take up the new sport. Mateas had never considered playing football before then.

“He could’ve still played basketball but would’ve leveled off in high school,” Dave Smart said. “I’m not surprised he worked himself to the next level of football.”

Athletically, football wasn’t a challenge. Within one year of taking up football, the 17-year-old Mateas possessed the skills to practice with the Ottawa Sooners of the Canadian Junior Football League even though an age restriction prevented him from playing in games. The first time Mateas’ former coaches at Ottawa, Tristano Raponi and Steve Campagna, saw Mateas’ kick slide — the 45-degree, three-step drop an offensive tackle makes in a pass set — they knew Mateas was going to go far in the sport. Not even knowing what a kick slide was, Mateas perfected it on his second try.

“One of the best I’ve seen in 15 years of coaching,” Campagna said.
Mateas has always been ahead of the presumptive learning curve in football. The game’s feel and footwork came natural, as did his stature. Outside of the Canadian border, he’ll now face a challenge he never had to encounter in football before. Not only will he be competing against more than 20 other Penn State linemen for a starting spot over the next five years, but he’ll also deal with the perception of inferiority that comes with being a player in the Canadian leagues, one maybe already facing the lineman, who will redshirt this fall, according to his Canadien coaches.

The CJFL acts as a developmental league for the Canadian Football League, the highest professional level in the country. In the 2010 CFL Draft, Raponi noted five CJFL players were picked. Raponi believes the CJFL carries more talent than the highest levels of U.S. high school football and junior colleges. He even thinks Mateas has more talent and potential than Seantrel Henderson, the consensus No. 1 offensive tackle in the 2010 recruiting class who committed to Miami (Fla.) following NCAA sanctions at USC.

If true, Penn State stole a player from many recruiters not aware of a diamond in the rough. Recruiting services didn’t rank Mateas, and it wasn’t until May, after several Nittany Lions left the team, that Penn State presented an offer to him. Mateas grabbed the attention of the coaching staff, albeit after calling the Nittany Lion coaches and sending a portfolio highlighting his academic and athletic abilities. The University of Connecticut also made an offer to Mateas and other schools — such as Virginia, North Carolina and the University of Buffalo — showed interest.

But who’s to say Mateas won’t just ride the bench during his Penn State football career, confirming recruiters and scouting services right — that Canada because it’s not the U.S., where the highest level of football is played and where the game was invented, has an inferior system? Who’s not to say Penn State offered Mateas a scholarship simply to take a risk, and that he’s here to help fill a sudden surplus of scholarships?

Mateas’ former coaches would disagree with that reasoning. His competitiveness and athleticism got him to the NCAA Division I level. Whether it’s power lifting, soccer, basketball or football, he could never settle as the No. 2 guy.

“He always competed at a level higher than [his own],” Raponi said.
Mateas always played against people older than him and according to Raponi, would’ve been named first-team All-Canadian if the older players didn’t get first preference. Instead, he took home second-team honors.

Campagna said about three-to-four players go from the CJFL to the NCAA each year. So the question remains whether Mateas is the exception, a CJFL player with NCAA talent rarely seen in Canada’s developmental leagues or if he’s a victim of a stereotypical U.S. culture, that shuns Canadian players because the U.S. football system believes them to be inferior.

The conclusion may be more opinion than fact. U.S. high schools are NCAA football’s main feeder source, and Mateas bucked the trend while dealing with the lack of pedigree that goes along with Canadian leagues.

He’ll still need to deal with the stereotype until he proves his ability on the college fields, but as his coaches noted, football always came easy to him and he’s always been ahead of the curve. Once his kick slide gets exposed on a national scale, more eyes may be opened.
“Wow, he doesn’t even know what that is,” said Raponi on first witnessing the kick slide. “Right away, I said this kid’s going somewhere.”

[url]http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2010/09/03/canadian_lineman_mateas_hoping.aspx