Feeling like home
Texas native Olivas comfortable within Leopards program
Marco Olivas made a routine visit to his Twitter account one day last year and discovered he had a new “follower:” Rich Yahner, Linebackers Coach — Lafayette College.
“I thought, what is this place?” Olivas said Tuesday, smiling. “Being from Texas, I had no idea.”
So, he went to Google and Wikipedia to research this strange college that was suddenly showing at least some interest in him as a football player.
“The first thing I saw was the Lafayette-Lehigh rivalry, the longest [in terms of games played] in college football,” Olivas said. “I thought, hmm, that’s interesting.”
An official visit on a cold January weekend “just felt right … like I should be here,” he said. “The history … an insane education … it was a great opportunity and I had to hop on.”
Fast-forward almost a year later. Olivas, a 6-foot-2, 220pound freshman linebacker from Fossil Ridge High in Fort Worth, Texas, is named rookie of the week in the Patriot League for recording 17 tackles — 13 of them solos — after he was inserted into the lineup when leading tackler Major Jordan was injured in the second quarter of a game against Penn.
That effort came one week after Olivas, as a fill-in for injured linebacker-defensive end Keith Earle, assisted on 12 tackles against Albany.
Olivas is one of an extensive list of young players who have seen more-than-expected playing time as Lafayette has faced numerous injuries this season. The depleted Leopards have lost all five games in 2019 and eight in a row going back into the final month of 2018.
Now coach John Garrett’s team is coming off a bye week in which he said the Leopards had two objectives: “First, win the next game, and next, win the Patriot League championship. Both things are right out there in front of us. The bye week message was to prepare and improve,” Garrett said Tuesday during the weekly media luncheon.
Princeton, which happens to be Garrett’s alma mater and has as its defensive coordinator Steve Verbit, who was on the Tigers staff when Garrett was playing there in the 1980s (he’s now in his 35th season), is 3-0, averaging 42 points a game on offense and allowing an average of 13.3 on defense. Garrett also faced Princeton and head coach Bob Surace in 2017, when the Tigers won 38-17.
Lafayette is 2-33-2 in games played on Princeton’s home field, so the visit to Palmer Stadium at 7 p.m. Friday (ESPNU) doesn’t figure to be a happy one — except, perhaps, for Garrett’s memories. But Garrett assured a questioner Tuesday that the thought of protecting players for the league season “has nothing to do with it.
“We have had some injuries, so the bye week was good for those guys to heal,” he said. “But more importantly, it’s to get rest for the players who have had to play a ton because of those injuries and also a time to prepare your players who don’t play a lot in case they have to play. One objective of the bye weeks was to prep for Princeton but also to get enough rest so can be fresh for second half of season.”
Garrett gave no indication of any player or players who might be in the lineup this week, and the weekly game notes included no depth chart. Lafayette followers should be prepared for that by now, but in this case, Princeton also supplied no two-deep from its end.
Olivas, however, is ready to do his thing.
When his number was called against Penn, Olivas said, “I was a little nervous at first,” going into a position with which he was not totally comfortable. “But then you realize you’re just playing football. You have to fly to the ball, get your fundamentals down and rely on your technique.”
He has played in every game and has a total of 36 tackles, second only to Jordan’s 39.
Olivas had 17 tackles in one high school game during his junior year, when his team went 10-0 to win a district title. He also led the district in tackles his senior season, although Fossil Ridge was only 6-5. He said he was actively recruited by Dartmouth of the Ivy League, the Air Force Academy and Davidson College. He plans to major in civil and environmental engineering.
His mother, Sylvia, purchased a subscription to watch streams of some Lafayette games and watches others on the Lafayette Sports Network feeds on goleopards.com.
His dad, Rick, made the trip up to Easton for the Penn game. He couldn’t have made a better choice.
If Garrett will be somewhat conflicted coaching against his alma mater, the same can be said for Marvin Clecidor, who is co-defensive coordinator at Princeton. A 2009 Lafayette grad, Clecidor played on Patriot League championship teams in 2005 and 2006.