Throughout the abysmal 2024 season, Trey White was a rock on the Aztec defense.

The star EDGE totaled 60 tackles, 38 of which were solo, while also racking up 12.5 sacks. The team captain recorded a sack in seven of the team’s 12 games on his way to earning All-Mountain West First Team honors.

When the season ended, many Aztecs entered the transfer portal. Danny O’Neil and Louis Brown are the top players to leave. Jordan Napier announced he would enter the portal but never officially did. In a change from last season, head coach Sean Lewis will welcome players back to the team after they enter the portal. Lewis and the staff re-offered Brady Anderson, who entered the portal at the beginning of the month.

Fear of a mass exodus ended when SDSU announced White would return for the 2025 campaign on December 6th. The reassurance White would return was a bright spot after a disappointing season.

White’s decision is not only huge for the defense this upcoming season but will also have grand implications for the coaching staff’s recruitment, specifically within San Diego. White was a star at Eastlake High School in Chula Vista and decided to stay home to try to bring a championship to The Mesa.

“San Diego is definitely the best place to be,” White said when asked about his recruiting pitch to local athletes. “We have a great coaching staff here that will develop you and bring the best out of you. We’re going to go to work and just put our heads down, and that’s really what makes the team a team. Going through hard things together that’s what really creates that bond. This coaching staff is amazing. They have great coaches at each position, so no matter what position you are, you’ll fit in great here, and you’ll have a great and bright future if you come to SDSU.”

White announced his commitment to SDSU on X (Twitter) back on October 20, 2021, with the caption “110% committed.” With his latest decision to stay for next season, he is a man of his word.

Signing day

College football has no offseason. SDSU’s coaching staff hit the ground running on December 4th as the team signed 18 players from the class of 2025. Lewis held a press conference on the singing day to highlight the additions to the team and point out his approach to talent acquisition.

“If you think about our recruiting philosophy (it’s) like throwing a stone into the lake,” Lewis said. “And where that stone hit is San Diego, and then the water ripples out from there. Jett (Thomas), Sidney (Dupuy), (and) Braylon (Cardwell) are at the epicenter of where that stone hits.”

“By singing these young men and being able to retain some of our hometown heroes that are on our current roster, I want everyone to know here in San Diego County: you don’t need to go far to have a first-class experience and to go compete at the highest level. To win championships, you just need to stay home and be a part of Aztec football.”

Three of the 18 players SDSU signed were local talent. Thomas prepped at La Jolla High, Dupuy went to Cathedral Catholic, and Braylon Caldwell starred at Mount Miguel.

Amid the transfer portal madness, Lewis reiterated how important it still is to bring in high school athletes.

“Our belief is that the high school class is the lifeline of our program. That is going to be like how the top NFL franchises build out their teams through the NFL draft,” Lewis said.

Big-time talent staying home and, most importantly, staying committed to SDSU throughout their college football careers will aid the team’s ability to recruit and retain talent from San Diego.

Players like White and Ross Ulugalu-Maseuli are creating a culture and path for others to follow. In today’s NIL college football world, players are filling the offseasons with players jumping ship for monetary gains.

If Lewis and his staff can continue to throw that stone in the San Diego area and make big waves signing the hometown heroes, then it could snowball from there into more and more players staying home to help SDSU win championships.

Impact

White staying home has a clear effect on the product on the field, as the defense will only benefit from him staying, but his impact off the field in the minds of young men making life-changing decisions will never fully be known.

Even before the news of White’s decision, his performance on the field on gamedays was already beneficial to the staff’s ability to recruit. They could show prospects what development looks like in their system.

There is no doubting the ability of the program to utilize the EDGE position. White was living proof of that last season. When the defense was on the field, fans and teammates knew White could be in the backfield in the blink of an eye.

“A lot of these guys were committed early on..so we were selling the vision of what could be, based off the previous track record of coach Schmidt and coach Aurich and what they had done within this scheme with edge rushers,” Lewis stated on White’s impact on recruiting. “Then, as the year went along, that vision and asking guys to have faith in our plan turned to you can trust this body of work and look at this evidence of what Trey is doing and show a kid this is what we’re talking about, and this is really what’s happening.”

The ability to sell a dream to recruits is always easier when someone lives that dream out in front of them to show what they could be.

The bright spot in a dark time for Aztec football was brought by one of its biggest stars. If Lewis and his coaching staff can use that light to convince San Diego prep athletes to enroll at SDSU and create a winning product on the football field, then White will have had as big an impact as anyone on the future of Aztec football in America’s Finest City.

Johnny Olivieri

Johnny is born and raised in San Diego and a diehard fan of all his hometown teams. He is an avid collector of sports memorabilia that help paint a picture of the history of sports in San Diego. He spends a lot of his time attending sports games across San Diego county and enjoys studying the history and spreading knowledge of San Diego’s diverse sports.