Nicholls center Roussel perfectly fits mold of Colonels football player

From the moment Evan Roussel stepped onto the football field at Nicholls, he has basically been an All-Conference player and All-American candidate.

Nicholls had a spring season in Roussel’s first year in 2021, part of the lingering remnants of COVID. He started at center as a true freshman and was named to the All-Southland first team.

He followed that up in the fall of 2021 by being second-team All-Conference while gaining recognition on a pair of national Freshmen All-American teams. First-team All-Conference and Sophomore All-American honors came along in 2022.

Roussel is from good football stock. His father, Terry, played at Lutcher and LSU. His older brother, Ryan, played at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. His uncle, Lee, now the head coach at Riverside Academy and a former Colonel offensive line coach, recruited Evan to Nicholls.

“It’s just hard work and grinding. I have a really good situation here. I had to start quickly. I had no choice,” Roussel said of his quick success. “They kind of threw me into the fire and it made me realize I had to put in the work. I had to be the smart guy on the field. Especially at center, there is no choice. You had to learn. Coach Lee, I couldn’t tell how much of an impact he had on me from when I first got here.”

The fact Roussel had quick success at Nicholls should not come as a surprise. It’s been pretty much of a repeat from his high school days at St. Charles Catholic.

“As soon as he hit the school as a ninth grader, you could tell he was going to be a player. He had an intensity, that look in his eye. He loved the game of football, and that’s the bottom line,” recalled Frank Monica, the now-retired St. Charles Catholic and Louisiana High School Hall of Fame coach.

Roussel caught the eye of everyone as an offensive tackle, gaining the rare feat of being named district Most Valuable Player as a lineman.

“I think the district coaches saw how dominating he was as an offensive lineman – pancakes and all that,” Monica said. “But not only that, he had a real, real great motor. He was a very physical football player.

“He was great in the locker room as far as leadership. He never backed down from anybody. He never took a lazy step on the field. He was one of those guys who was a pleasure to coach.”

“I just came from a great program,” said Roussel. “They ran the ball really well. They really leaned on me to move the offense. I had great people around me, so it makes sense when you look at it.”

Roussel gave much of the credit for his success to Monica.

“Coach Monica is a great dude. He pushes you to your limits. He made you the best possible. He got the most out of you during games, even practice. Anything in life, he was there. He taught you how to be on time, how to get things done, and what type of guy you had to be in the real world,” Roussel said.

Admittedly, Monica, the old-school coach, wasn’t always the easiest guy to play for.

“It was tough at times, for sure,” Roussel said. “Once you get past all that, you realize what kind of impact he made on your life. Even people who have sons my age, they feel the impact of Coach Monica too because all the things that happened throughout their high school experience with Coach Monica.”

Roussel’s talent was such that he could have been a star on the opposite side of the ball, according to Monica.

“He really came in as a defensive lineman, but we needed an offensive lineman,” said Monica. “He came in and became the bell cow. He played our left tackle, and it was no secret we ran left 80 percent of the time.

“He could have been an all-district player on defense, too. In a specialty situation, a big game we wanted a matchup, we put him on the biggest and strongest guy on the other side. He understood that role. He understood the team value behind it. Every good football team has to have one or two of those guys, and if you don’t, you are struggling to compete.”

So, just what makes for a good center on offense?

“I think No. 1, it starts with the mind. You have to be smart. You have to have trust in everybody around you. You have to be a leader that brings everybody together. In the middle of the line, you have to be tough physically. It takes all compartments at center. It takes the mind, physicality. It takes all that stuff,” Roussel said,

When those who coached Roussel discuss his traits, his football IQ is at the top of the list.

“He was smart, he had the savvy. He understood the game,” Monica said. “You can’t say enough about him. It’s no surprise he became a starter as a freshman. He’s exactly what you want on your football team. If you had 22 like him, you would not be defeated.”

“He’s not loud and boisterous, but when you get him on the field, he really takes command. He’s smart. He knows the game. I don’t know where we would be without him under center snapping us the ball,” said Nicholls coach Tim Rebowe.

Having a player with All-Conference talent from the start, a casual observer might think Nicholls managed to steal a highly-recruited blue chipper because he was a local product. That was far from the case.

“It was my first, and only offer,” Roussel said of his Nicholls recruitment. “They took a chance on me at my height. I really appreciate those guys, Coach Rebowe. They made it feel like home. It was the best decision of my life.”

Despite the success, Roussel was lightly recruited because most schools didn’t think he was tall enough or big enough.

Under Rebowe, a former Destrehan High School coach, has built a playoff-contending team in recent years by recruiting players like Roussel out of the River Parishes who didn’t seem to measure up.

“It goes back to what we’ve done in the past couple of years. We’ve gone into the River Parishes, and if you go back, we’ve gotten the best players to come out of the River Parishes,” Rebowe said. “If you go back to Destrehan when you had Allen Pittman, Ahmani Martin from East St. John, Evan Roussel and Sully Laiche (from Lutcher). Up and down the river, we’ve gotten the best players out of there.

“I think Evan Roussel fits in that mold. It’s all because you get on them early, and then, some people don’t see the things that we see in them. Maybe he’s a bit undersized or a step slow. Hey, we’ll take ‘em, come play with us, and they help us win a lot of games.”

“Coach Rebowe has done a nice job of understanding that. It’s not about you ‘vitals.’ A lot of football coaches get caught up in the vitals,” said Monica. “You have some guys that look pretty on the hoof, but they can’t play dead in a western movie.

“You get these guys that are competitive, and they will find a way to make a play. They find a way to make a block. They find a way to make a tackle.”

They also find motivation in being overlooked.

“It kind of puts that chip on your shoulder to give you the edge to do what needs to be done,” said.

Nicholls has gotten off to a 0-3 start this season after facing the likes of Sacramento State, a Top 10 team in the FCS, along with TCU and Tulane, a pair of teams to play in major bowl games a year ago on the FBS level.

“When you look on paper, TCU, Tulane. Sacramento State’s really good team, too,” said Roussel. “I thought we played really well at times, but we just made too many mistakes, turnovers, special teams. Once you take that off the board and you fix those things, we could be really good.

“It’s all about this week, going 1-0. That’s the mindset for the rest of the year, go 1-0.”

Roussel was referring to the start of Southland Conference play when the Colonels travel to take on McNeese State on Saturday night in Lake Charles.

“McNeese is a tough opponent,” Roussel said. “It’s always tough to go play over there. I respect those guys a lot. It’s going to be Nicholls versus Nicholls. Just like everybody in the country, if you eliminate those turnovers and mistakes and we play together, the sky is the limit.”

What might that limit be?

“Conference championship, baby,” said Roussel. “That’s all there is. The playoffs, too.”