Basketball player Adeoye gives Southeast Missouri State football team a try

After spending the winter months running up and down the basketball court in the Show Me Center, Aaron Adeoye spent Tuesday afternoon running up and down the field during spring football practice at the Rosengarten Athletic Complex.

It is the first time that Adeoye has strapped on football pads since 2011 when he was a three-year letterman at Marion High School in Marion, Illinois.

He played defensive end at Marion, where he also earned honorable mention all-state honors for basketball.

Adeoye played for the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team this season and started in 23 games, averaging 5.2 points and 4.1 rebounds per game.

The former 6-foot-7 forward is trying out as a 3-4 outside linebacker for the Southeast football team this spring after approaching Redhawks coach Tom Matukewicz about the possibility.

Matukewicz and Adeoye met face-to-face for the first time last week where the two talked about Adeoye trying out for the team.

"He had sent me some text messages early in the year, and I slow played it," Matukewicz said. "A lot of people want to play football but they don't realize how hard it is, and so I wanted to make sure he was really serious, so I played a little hard to get. And then he kept pursuing, and so that meeting ended up happening and so now it's exciting to see what he does."

Matukewicz went to Adeoye's high school coach Kerry Martin, who Matukewicz met and built a relationship with during his coaching days at SIU.

"He played for a guy I know extremely well, Kerry Martin at Marion High School, who is a phenomenal coach and a phenomenal person," Matukewicz said. "So I knew he was coached right, and Cary had great things to say, so I knew he was going to graduate -- academically he's all set. So we decided to give him a shot."

Defensive coordinator Bryce Saia said he and the staff are all for giving people chances and noted Adeoye is off to a good start.

Adeoye has only been going through individual drills in his first few practices, but Saia said that he would start participating in team drills next week.

"He's working with me as far as the outside linebackers and then he's working coach [Ricky] Coon, our D-line coach, on some pass-rush techniques," Saia said.

Adeoye even got in an extra individual rep with Saia when the rest of the outside linebackers ran to a team drill.

Saia and Coon both said Adeoye is an excellent athlete with the size and length the team wants in a pass rusher.

"He's very raw. I'm working with him mainly on the pass rush aspect of it," Coon said. "So he's down in one-on-one pass rush and some of our drills, and so he's got good natural ability. He's long, he's very athletic and those are things that are required from a great pass rusher, so we really like him coming off the edge. He's going to help our football team and that's probably the role he's going to help us in as a pass rusher, so so far he's been doing good."

Coon said Adeoye was like "a fish out of water" when he first practiced with the team Thursday.

"I walk in and he's in my meeting, and he's not supposed to be, and so it's things like that," Coon said. "Just kind of jumping in with both feet, and you've got to respect the kid for doing that. These other guys have been with us for a long time, and so he's jumped right in. The good thing is, is that I see improvement from day to day."

In just three practices, Coon said Adeoye is better than he was on Day 1, and he's done some good things in the team's one-on-one lineman drills.

Adeoye twice went against the Redhawks' current starting left tackle, sophomore Alex Snyder, during a one-on-one drill Thursday and used a speed rush to run around Snyder's outside shoulder without contact.

Coon said that Adeoye could really help the team as a situational pass rusher, meaning that he could be used on third down.

"Anytime you can rush [with] the pass rusher effectively, you're going to be good," Coon said. "I believe that's kind of where he's going to fit into our scheme is get him on the field on third down and let him go get the quarterback. And so if he's going to help our football team right away, I think that's the aspect that it's going to be in."

According to Saia, Adeoye making the team is a long way down the road and he still has more to show, but he is intriguing because of his tall 237-pound frame.

Even though Adeoye has played basketball for the last four years at three different colleges, including Ball State from 2011-2012, John A. Logan College from 2012-2013 and Southeast this past season, he's a raw talent in football.

"He's played football before, but it's obviously been a while," Coon said. "His strengths are his body type. He's tall, he's long, he's athletic, he's fast, and he's got all of the attributes. If you created a player on a video game, that's what they'd look like. So that's what he has going for him and just new to the whole thing -- just has to learn where to fit in and he'll be OK."