His leadership is very special. Everybody was in tune, and everyone agreed that he should be our captain. – Portland State running back David Jones, on Alex Kuresa
PORTLAND, Ore. — As Portland State head coach Bruce Barnum tallied the results of a preseason vote to determine the team’s offensive captain for the upcoming season, he couldn’t believe what he saw, so he conducted a recount.
Same result: Alex Kuresa.
“I went back through them like, ‘really?'” Barnum said, recalling his disbelief.
Barnum liked what he saw in his new junior college transfer, but he hadn’t named a starting quarterback yet when the voting had taken place and nothing was certain at that position as the Vikings prepared to open the regular season at Washington State.
But it wasn’t a difficult decision for the players to make.
“His leadership is very special,” Portland State senior running back David Jones said, about his teammate. “Everybody was in tune, and everyone agreed that he should be our captain.”
'Who is this guy?'
Kuresa’s odyssey to Portland State unofficially began in Ephraim, Utah, after completing the 2014 season as the quarterback at Snow College. While there, he led the Badgers with 2,151 yards passing and 24 touchdowns while completing 62 percent of his passes in the regular season, and he led the team in rushing as well. With Kuresa’s junior college career coming to an end, it was time to meet the suitors, and he soon faced an all-too-familiar scenario.
He came to Snow College to play quarterback, the position he played at Mountain Crest High and garnered Deseret News Mr. Football honors back in 2010. However, he wasn’t seen as a quarterback at the collegiate level. He committed to BYU, where coaches there flipped him to wide receiver. Coaches courting Kuresa following the 2014 season saw the same future.
Then came Portland State, which was in the midst of completing a 3-9 season and Barnum was an interim coach in the middle of transitioning to the permanent job.
Barnum is probably the first to admit he wasn’t exactly scouting for another quarterback for 2015 and didn’t visit Snow College to woo Kuresa during a recruiting trip late last year. The coach instead visited Ephraim with his mindset on trying to land another tight end for his program, which ultimately fell through.
“All of a sudden we saw Alex Kuresa, and it was kind of ‘who’s this guy?’ I kept watching him and kept watching him, called him that night and there was some back and forth,” Barnum said.
Of course, Kuresa had other things going on in his life at the time Barnum started recruiting him. He had just gotten married and part of the recruiting process now meant getting his wife, Madison, on board with Portland, Barnum joked.
All kidding aside, the Kuresas visited Portland State’s campus and knew it was the right fit.
“My wife and I came out on a recruiting trip and we absolutely loved it, and we’ve loved it ever since we got here,” Kuresa said.
Looking back at it now, Barnum knows how fortunate he is for that to come together.
“We lucked out and got him at Portland State University on our football team,” Barnum said. “He wanted to play quarterback, and I thank bejesus that other people wanted him to play other positions. We took him at quarterback — at a position I didn’t think we were bad at.”
Completing the turnaround
When Barnum took over as head coach last year, he knew he had to make some changes.
“I wanted to change the culture and expectations here,” he said, and credits guys like Kuresa for making that happen prior to the season.
As for Kuresa, the new guy spent time trying to learn the offense as soon as he could while also not overstepping boundaries with teammates in the locker room. With a shot at the starting job, he found those teammates were the best to learn from.
“I got involved with guys within the system and was able to pick it up and create some good relationships,” Kuresa said. “I feel like those were my biggest challenges coming into the season, and I was able to pull those off.”
It worked. Kuresa was named the team’s starter prior to the season opener at Washington State.
However, the Vikings were picked to finish 12th in the Big Sky preseason media poll and ninth in the coaches poll before the trip to Pullman, Washington. But as the final whistle blew, Kuresa ran up the steps of the Cougars’ stadium to hug Madison in an emotional moment that attracted national attention.
Kuresa threw for 61 yards and ran for 92 more and helped drive the Vikings down the field in the waning minutes to set up the go-ahead score as Portland State stunned Washington State 24-17. The Vikings won twice more before opening Big Sky Conference play with a 19-17 loss to North Dakota, and then picked off their next four opponents. That started with a 66-7 thrashing of FBS North Texas, which fired its coach immediately after the game. Eventually, Portland State finished the season 9-2 and right behind conference champion Southern Utah University in the conference standings.
When the NCAA FCS playoff bracket was released Nov. 22, the Vikings found themselves in as an at-large with the No. 6 seed and a bye week, with a home game set for this Saturday.
“It’s a very special moment for us to soak in,” Jones said. Portland State’s only other trip to the playoffs came in 2000.
Near the middle of the turnaround was Kuresa, who threw for 1,870 yards and 16 touchdowns and ran for 707 yards and seven more touchdowns on his way to becoming Big Sky Newcomer of the Year.
“He didn’t turn the ball over. He led not just our offense, (but) our team and now he’s got us in the playoffs,” Barnum said. “So somebody did a hell of a job coaching this kid.”
Portland State, with Kuresa under center, will take on Northern Iowa Saturday with a shot of winning its first-ever FCS playoff game.
While the Vikings have grown with Kuresa this year to become an FCS threat, the quarterback and captain said he has grown with Portland in terms of being a football player, husband and now a father.
“Being in Portland has been a blessing for me,” he said, of where his unusual college journey has taken him. “My wife and I love it because it’s kind of allowed us to develop a relationship of our own away from everyone else … It’s kind of allowed us to start our little family on our own and kind of create an identity for ourselves. Outside of football, I think that’s been a huge blessing for me and my family.”