Porras hopes to spark instant Rice-like turnaround for Challengers

Defensive back Paul Porras was part of the class that turned Rice University from an also-ran into a bowl-playing team. Facing a much tighter timeframe, he’s now looking to help the Asahi Soft Drinks Challengers salvage a season gone awry.

The Challengers go into the fifth-week clash with their corporate cousin Asahi Beer Silver Star on Sunday desperately seeking a win as they face the very real possibility of being the Super 9 team that becomes the odd-man out of the eight-team playoffs.

“Next game it’s really win or you’re out,” Porras said following the Challengers’ 35-0 loss to the Obic Seagulls on Oct. 10 that left them 1-3. “It’s us and [the Nojima Sagamihara] Rise at the bottom of the barrel. I’m not here to lose by any means. I came out here to win, so it’s been frustrating. But at the end of the day, we have to move forward. We can’t look back anymore.”

With the Rise dropping to 1-4 last Sunday and facing a tough regular season-finale against the unbeaten Fujitsu Frontiers, the door to the playoffs is open for the Challengers if they can win one of their two remaining games. After taking on Asahi Beer in a “home” game at Baycom Athletics Stadium in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, they finish up against the IBM BigBlue on Oct. 30.

But Asahi Soft Drinks will have to put more fizz in their game if they are to get past a Silver Star team led by dynamic quarterback Mason Mills and grinding running back Takuya Yanagisawa.

“We have to keep our eyes on him, on his speed and his arm,” Porras said of Mills. “I think the biggest thing is to create pressure. This game [against Obic], the quarterbacks, all three of them that were in, they were sitting in the pocket waiting to find a gap in our zone, or waiting for a receiver to get open on a scramble. Because we’re too busy looking at the quarterback, and all of sudden, a receiver gets open at the last second. So it’s more discipline than anything.”

Head coach Naohito Matsumoto, in his second year at the helm, said the team will come up with a game plan to counter Mills. The problem is that, with the short turnaround between games, the players will only be able to have two practices in preparation.

“We can’t practice on the Saturday before the game,” Matsumoto says. “In two practices, we have to come up with a way to adjust to [Mills]. The coaches will be prepared; it’s a matter of whether the players can be. It’s difficult.”

Porras and the Challengers’ secondary will have their hands full trying to stop the accurate Mills, who has completed 75 of 104 passes for 912 yards and eight touchdowns, with just one interception. Yuta Hayashi and Kenta Ozawa are among the top receivers in the league, with 27 and 23 receptions, respectively.

The Asahi Soft Drinks offense, with the exception of a 35-0 win over the Nagoya Cyclones, their lone Battle 9 opponent, scored just 17 points in the three losses, despite adding burly tight end Darwin Rogers, out of Arizona State, to an attack that includes wide receiver Donnie King.

That puts even more pressure on the defense to contain the Silver Star, who are 2-2 and coming off an overtime win over Nojima.

“We need to play more aggressive,” Porras says. “We hustle to the ball alright, it’s just that we need to be more aggressive on the pass. I think the biggest thing for us is creating turnovers. You can’t win a game if you have zero turnovers, especially against a pass-happy offense, and we can’t get any points on the board.”

Making the jump to Japan

As he does his best to stand out on the field, Porras has certainly made himself noticeable off it. It’s not enough that he, along with Rogers, are among the few foreigners living in Amagasaki, the industrial town between Osaka and Kobe. The 25-year-old Scottsdale, Ariz., native wanted to stick out even more—which he has done with a bushy red beard that he has grown since moving to Japan.

“I’m always the guy who wants to stand out. If you ever look at my social media, I’m very different. I want to be able to do whatever I want, wear whatever I want. I’m comfortable in my own skin,” Porras says.

“For me, this is all a facade. I just wear a beard, because I don’t want to like every Joe Schmoe shaving their face. In college, everyone’s clean cut. You can’t have a beard in your profile picture for the team. You have a certain image. It was like getting out of the military. I just let my beard go.”

It was at Rice University, located in Houston, that Porras experienced something he wasn’t used to—losing, and sitting on the bench. His Saguaro High School team, he says, went 44-1 and won three Arizona state championships while he was there. In his redshirt freshman year at Rice, the team went 2-10, then went 4-8 in both of the next two seasons. But then he and his fellow Class of 2014 members stepped in and gave the program a boost.

“Fortunately we turned the program around. A lot of the [older] players were like academics first, football second. They weren’t even worried about winning or losing. But my class, we had like 23 deep, we’re there to win. We brought winners in. You got to have that winning mentality.”

After becoming a starter his sophomore year, he regularly was among the leading tacklers on the team, and also earned Conference USA All-Academic Team honors.

“He’s a good guy,” Matsumoto says. “He’s also very smart. For me, it was important to bring an exemplary American player like that to Japan, it’s important for Japanese football.  His ability is high, and getting an American player who it wouldn’t be a surprise to see in the NFL, it gets attention. But it’s important to get a young player who will be a good influence on Japan football and Japanese football players.”

In 2013, Rice went 7-6 and earned a spot in the Armed Forces Bowl, where the Owls defeated the Air Force 33-14. The next year, Porras and his teammates really turned it up a notch and the team compiled a 10-4 record. They went to the Liberty Bowl, where they lost 44-7 to a Missisissippi State team led by current Dallas Cowboys rookie QB Dak Prescott.

Porras, who would later earn tryouts with NFL and Canadian League teams, says he wants his attitude to rub off on his Asahi Soft Drinks teammates.

“That’s definitely what I’ve been trying to bring, that winning mentality,” he says. “Coming out here and just being very positive, encouraging.”

Porras, whose father is a college coach and former quarterback in the Canadian Football League and brother played at Stanford, says he knew nothing about Japan, much less its football league, when he was first contacted about possibly coming here.

Porras says he was training along with Rogers in Arizona for a tryout in the CFL when his conditioning trainer Don Abram was contacted by Reggie Mitchell, a former star with the Rise, who asked if he had any players interested in playing overseas.

“I’m looking to play anywhere at this point,” recalls Porras, who had been cut by the Denver Broncos and had drawn interest from Arena and Canadian league teams. “I was this close, like very close, to just calling it quits. I gave it one more leap of faith and came out here on a whim.”

Matsumoto flew out for a combine at which Rogers was also invited, and decided to accept both of them. Ironically, it was not the first time the paths of Porras and Rogers had crossed. Two years before, Rogers joined Porras in Houston for a Pro Day to work out for NFL scouts, little knowing they would be reunited half a world away.

Porras says the transition to life in Japan was difficult at first, as he lost nearly 7 kilograms due to a stomach virus, and still struggles with the language barrier. He is getting used to certain quirks, like having to turn off his phone in the subway.

“Obviously, there’s different ways to go about just living their everyday life. Honestly, I’ve had a great time. I think the weirdest thing for Darwin and me is being stared at all the time.”

And he knows the best way to stand out is, facial hair aside, to start winning.

—Ken Marantz for the X-League