Pete Rossomando has over three decades of experience coaching college football. Yet, he’s never seen anything like the era of the transfer portal and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL).

“Every day, a guy will come up to me and let me know they received a (direct message) from a Group of Five school,” Rossomando said. “There’s no shame right now. It’s sad because we’re in spring practice, and other schools are reaching out to our guys, even the players that haven’t thought about entering the portal.”

But don’t expect to hear excuses from Lamar’s head coach. Instead, he focuses on working within the current system to ensure his team is ready to compete each season. After all, the coaching veteran has seen coaches come and go for years and keeps a list of potential replacements for each position group at all times. He encourages his assistant coaches to take the same approach with the portal.

“I tell our coaches all the time that if they get caught with their pants down, that’s on them,” Rossomando said. “You need to have a board that includes some guys already in the portal that you’re communicating with, because we’re going to lose some guys that we don’t expect to lose.”

Rossomando has won at every stop during his career and has a unique ability to adjust to the constantly changing world of college football. His first two seasons in Beaumont produced historic results for the football program. The Cardinals' 7-5 record in 2024 secured the program’s first back-to-back winning seasons in 57 years.

Granted, the Cardinals discontinued their football program from 1990 to 2009. Still, Lamar football has not finished higher than third in the conference since 1974. They have finished third in the Southland Conference standings each of Rossomando’s two years, and only four times total since restarting the program in 2010.

Even more impressive is how Rossomando and his staff turned this program around while facing tough FCS programs. The first three games of his tenure were against perennial FCS powers Idaho and South Dakota, as well as FBS Louisiana-Monroe. The Cardinals won six of their next eight games following that brutal opening stretch and were one win from sharing the program’s first conference title since 1971.

Last season, Lamar opened at FBS Texas State before winning its next three home games, including a one-point victory over No. 20 Weber State, followed by a road trip against No. 7 Central Arkansas.

While consecutive winning records are proof that the Cardinals' program is headed in the right direction, Rossomando says the program has yet to meet the standards set by the university's President, Dr. Jaime Taylor, and Vice President and Director of Athletics, Jeff O’Malley. Their expectations are winning conference titles, which would be an extraordinary feat for a program that last won an outright conference championship in 1965.

Lamar will once again face a challenging non-conference schedule this year, featuring home games against South Dakota and Central Arkansas, as well as a trip to FBS North Texas. Whether the Cardinals bring the Southland trophy to Beaumont will largely be determined by their final four games at UIW, home against Southeastern Louisiana, at Stephen F. Austin, and home against McNeese State in the regular season finale.

“You have to win some of those games. That’s the key. It’s always good to test your guys to get them ready for conference play,” Rossomando said. “We have to win the conference because that’s what our president and AD want, and we have a lot of work ahead of us to win a conference title.”

Winning a conference title and earning an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs will be challenging in a Southland Conference that has seen significant improvement in recent years. The president and athletic director may settle for an at-large playoff bid this year, considering how far this program has risen under Rossomando.

Cory’s Take

What Rossomando has accomplished at Lamar is remarkable. The Cardinals' roster is drastically improved and took another step forward during the offseason. Lamar will be strong along the line of scrimmage, and the team returns a veteran group of offensive linemen. Rossomando noted that the defensive line is deeper, bigger, and more physical than it was in previous seasons.

Whether that leads to a Southland Conference title will depend on Lamar’s final two road games of the regular season against powerhouse UIW and a Stephen F. Austin squad that expects to contend for the conference championship and an at-large bid to the playoffs. Still, Lamar’s playoff hopes could come down to winning the “Battle of the Border” against McNeese to end the season.

- Written by Cory Hogue