“I couldn’t ask for a better spot” | Masoli’s winding road returns to West Coast
Written by Nic Hauka– Mental toughness is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in the athletic world. If you ask football coaches what their interpretation of the term is, they’ll likely tell you it’s how individuals respond to adverse situations. Jeremiah Masoli is no stranger to adversity. It’s easy to break in tough times, but Masoli never has. Each and every time his will has been tested, he’s battled through and come out the other side a stronger, wiser man. Now that his winding road has brought him back closer to home on the West Coast, Masoli can reflect on the triumphs and adversity he’s had to endure.
Coming out of high school, you’d think a future collegiate standout like Masoli would have teams flooding his mailbox with scholarship offers. That was not the future pro’s reality.
“In 2006, it wasn’t as easy to be seen. You had to really stand out, and I didn’t have a lot of interest,” remembered Masoli.
One team that initially showed interest in Masoli was the San Diego Toreros football program, an FCS Division 1 school led by head coach Jim Harbaugh. Unfortunately, Harbaugh left for Stanford and talks with the Toreros got quiet. With no Division 1 offers to accept, Masoli enrolled at the City College of San Francisco.
While at junior college, Masoli learned how to read defences better, put together some great tape to send to scouts and won a National Championship along the way. All of a sudden, Masoli had a plethora of offers. After weighing his options, Masoli packed his bags and headed to Eugene, Oregon, to play for the Ducks.
Ducks Come Calling
Masoli had made the jump from JUCO to a Division 1 school on the rise. That jump in the quality of competition took some time to get used to.
“Coming off the national JUCO, you know, you feel like you’re just gonna come in and dominate right away, but that wasn’t the case. I made a ton of plays and showed what I could do. But I remember saying to myself, man, I gotta catch up,” he recalled.
Masoli did eventually catch up to the speed of the Pac-10, but with the Ducks being the new hottest ticket in college football, Masoli had to work through a crowded quarterback room. The former Duck remembers there being nearly ten quarterbacks on Oregon’s roster. Masoli kept improving and stayed ready. After some injuries and struggles from fellow teammates, Masoli finally got his shot as the Ducks’ starting quarterback.
In his first two seasons as a starter, Masoli set a program record for most rushing yards for a quarterback in a single season, while leading the Ducks to a Holiday Bowl and a Pac-10 title. The quarterback had gone from having no offers to play Division 1 football and excelling as the starter for a national title contender. His Senior season looked to be the end to a remarkable collegiate underdog story, but as the page was flipped, so was Masoli’s life.
Two events in the quarterback’s personal life led to him being suspended and then dismissed from the Oregon Ducks football program. Masoli was now tasked with finding a new home for his senior campaign. Luckily for him, the Ole Miss Rebels came calling and gave Masoli a second chance.
The transition to Mississippi wasn’t an easy one for the senior quarterback. Masoli needed to adjust to things on and off the field at his new campus.
“It was a great challenge for me. The transition wasn’t easy. Going from the offence that I was in, to the offence that I went to,” he said.
“Half the time I was trying to familiarize myself with where I was at with campus, taking classes, just getting a feel for the area, you know, you meet so many new people and you want to make a good impression. It was an interesting transition for sure.”
Masoli did what he could to adapt as quickly as possible, but having to learn a brand-new playbook while navigating an unfamiliar atmosphere led to Masoli taking a small step back in his last year of college football.
Masoli Answers Call To Canada
With Masoli failing to elevate his play in his senior year, he wasn’t picked in the 2011 NFL Draft. After a short stint with the San Francisco 49ers and then the UFL’s Omaha Nighthawks, Masoli headed to the CFL after signing with the Edmonton Elks organization.
“My first season in Edmonton was a little discouraging for me. Being that far away from home in another country and just trying to figure out the game as a quarterback and not being able to get any live reps and kind of figure it out for yourself,” said Masoli.
“I’m pretty tight with my family. My younger siblings were playing sports as well. So I felt bad missing a lot of that, not being there to help them get through their journey,” he recalled.
“I was with my now-wife, but it was just tough being away with different time zones. At the end of the day, you kind of just have to look in the mirror and give yourself a little check. Do you really want this? Is this what you really want? Because you’ve got an option, right?” he continued.
“There are choices. I could have always come back home to California, gotten a coaching job, gotten a regular job, whatever it may be. But, I know how much football means to me and what it’s done for me in my life,” he said.
Homesick, far from family and buried on the Elks’ depth chart, Masoli took the option to keep fighting, like he’s done so many times before. His patience and perseverance would pay off for him once again when he was traded to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2013.
“Once I got traded, it reignited my love and the flame for the game. And it didn’t really matter what was going to happen. I was riding it out until the wheels fell off and just really gave it my all,” Masoli recalled.
“It was a test. You know, how much you really love the game, how much you love working out, how much you’re gonna dedicate and sacrifice to a game that might not love you back,” he said.
Masoli learned and patiently waited for his opportunity while in Hamilton. In 2016, he finally got his chance to start with number one quarterback Zach Collaros sidelined for the first six games of the season. He led the Tiger-Cats to a 3-3 record in that time before Collaros returned from injury.
In 2017, the Tiger-Cats started the season 0-8, which led to the firing of head coach Kent Austin. June Jones became Hamilton’s head coach and gave Masoli the keys to the car. After being relegated to a backup role since entering the league, Masoli was finally a starter in the CFL, six years after his pro career began in Edmonton.
“It definitely felt great to show off for my family, represent my last name like that and have the opportunity and the honour of leading an organization and representing the city and their fan base,” he said.
Masoli led Hamilton to the Eastern Final as a full-time starter in 2018, falling short to the Ottawa Redblacks with a berth to the Grey Cup on the line. He had helped Hamilton go from 6-12 and missing the playoffs, to 8-10 and one win away from being on the league’s biggest stage. Masoli threw for 5,209 yards and 28 touchdowns while picking up 473 on the ground, finishing second in Most Outstanding Player voting and earning an East Division All-Star nod for his stellar play.
Hamilton and Ottawa | The Roller Coaster Years
The 2019 season started and Masoli and Hamilton picked up where they left off, winning four of their first five games, when disaster struck. In a tilt against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Masoli went down with a non-contact ACL injury, ending his season. He was out for the rest of the year and was forced to watch from the sidelines as the Tiger-Cats fell just short in the 2019 Grey Cup.
“That was tough. That was definitely tough. We had something special cooking there. I feel like we kind of seasoned it right to where, you know, we weren’t peaking at the beginning of the season,” he remembered.
“You work so hard to be in shape and be physically ready to take this. Take the beating, or the toll that comes with being a CFL player. Just to have it end on a non-contact injury was the toughest thing for me to deal with.”
With the 2020 season cancelled due to COVID-19, Masoli had extra time to rehab his injury and get ready for the 2021 season. After splitting time with Dane Evans that season, Masoli lost his starting job. All he could do was watch as his team made the Grey Cup, taking on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers without him starting under center.
He watched from the sidelines as the Tiger-Cats were in the midst of a tight defensive battle with their opposition. Midway through the second quarter, Masoli was forced to take off his headset and put on his helmet as starter Dane Evans went down with an injury and was unable to continue the game.
Masoli took the field in relief and had the Tiger-Cats in position to win the game with 13 seconds left. Down 25-22 at the six-yard line, he faded back to pass and delivered what appeared to be the game-winning touchdown pass. That ball that headed just inside the right pylon was broken up at the last second by the fingertip of a Blue Bombers defensive back, forcing the Tiger-Cats to kick the game-timing field goal that took the game to overtime, where Winnipeg would eventually prevail. Masoli credits the lessons he’d learned in years before being ready for that moment.
“If I were a lot younger and more immature, I probably wouldn’t show up to work that week the way I did. Going through everything you learn, that football is just a team sport, right? Ultimately, I don’t care if you’re a quarterback or anybody else. You got a group of guys dependent on you,” he said.
“We call each other brothers and we have this football family to where, you know, if I want to be selfish, I’m sure some of the guys would understand, but it’s bigger than that. It was bigger than myself,’ Masoli stated.
The next season, in 2022, Masoli signed with the Ottawa Redblacks and was given another shot to be a CFL franchise’s starter. The next two seasons would put his mental fortitude to the test like never before. Masoli would play a combined five games in his next two seasons. His 2022 campaign ended just four games into the year after a controversial low hit in Saskatchewan resulted in a devastating leg injury. After rehabbing to make it back for 2023, Masoli ruptured his Achilles tendon in his first game back, and his year was over once again.
“I just feel like these tests and these challenges and these adversities are just an opportunity to kind of show who you are and the strength of your faith, whether that’s in God or yourself or just the good nature of what you want to be like a better version of yourself,” he said.
“It was a lot tougher day by day for me. My first injury, having an infection in it, and I was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. You know, you don’t take it for granted just walking around,” he continued.
“I probably came back too early. I feel like I probably rushed my rehab back the year after, but it was all in an effort to support the team. I know I have great football inside of me. I still got great plays left to be made, I wasn’t comfortable just sitting out in rehab anymore,” Masoli reflected.
“I didn’t have enough patience for it. I learned from that, and the next year, I made sure I took my full six-game IR to be 100%,” he said.
Back To The West Coast
Masoli fought to get healthy again and started five games last season in his final year with the Redblacks. Now, after properly rehabbing and taking time to get to 100%, he feels better than he has in years and will stay ready if his number is called after signing in BC. He already feels right at home following a stint working out in North Vancouver with Nathan Rourke, Chase Brice and a few of the Lions receivers.
“I haven’t been taking a bunch of hits and really haven’t had the grind of the CFL season like that, but last year just confirmed for me that, and even now, you know, I’ve had so much time. My knee, my Achilles, I really don’t feel any of that stuff anymore. My body feels great. It feels a lot better than it has in a long time,” said Masoli.
“I just feel so blessed and fortunate to still be a part of this league and to be on the West Coast with the Lions, I couldn’t ask for a better spot. I’m so excited to get with this group and see what I can bring to help them because we’ve got a real opportunity with a lot of talent on the team. We just got to come together and forge that bond.”
“Usually in the CFL you gotta have two to get there and I’m not saying I’m gonna be the second guy because we got talent on the roster, but if the spotlight calls, you know, I’ll be ready.”
The JUCO quarterback with no Division 1 offers has come a long way in his career. He’s had it all, then lost it on multiple occasions due to things in and out of his power. What he’s always been able to control is how he’s responded to what life has thrown at him. He’s been tested and challenged at every turn in his football journey. He’s bent but never broken because Jeremiah Masoli refuses to give in.