Welcome Adam Groppi - Interim Head Football Coach

The College of the Siskiyous athletic department announced Thursday that Tyler Knudsen is stepping down as the head football coach and will remain on staff as a full-time assistant football coach and faculty member. Former Eagle player and assistant coach Adam Groppi has accepted the position as interim head football coach faculty.

Groppi had recently returned to COS for an assistant coach faculty position after two successful seasons as head coach at his alma mater, Weed High School. He was with the Eagle team during spring practices and said he’s excited to take on the role of head coach. He quickly began what figures to be a busy schedule between now and the start of training camp in early August. He had a zoom meeting scheduled with returning players Friday morning before an on-campus visit with recruits in the afternoon. He said he is also beginning to work on finalizing the football staff for the 2024 season.

Knudsen and Groppi were both assistant coaches under former head coach and current athletic director Charlie Roche during the Eagles’ glory years from 2013 to 2017, when they reached the postseason four out of five years and made it to the state play-offs in 2017.

“Adam is an alumnus and did a great job at Weed High School for two years, leading them back to the playoffs,” Roche said of Groppi. “He was an assistant for me along with Tyler, and he’s taught here. He’s young and fired up. It’s always good to have someone who’s been around the program and is familiar with all phases of the job: he was a player here, an assistant coach, and he knows the community well.”

Knudsen, who took over the Eagle head coaching job in 2020 after seven years as the team’s defensive coordinator, will continue teaching kinesiology, health, and physical education. He said moving back into an assistant coach position will give him more flexibility for spending time with his family, wife Michelle and seven-year-old son Drew.

He believes he’ll be better able to help the program as an assistant after being the head coach. “I see myself supporting the head coach and his vision of the program, continuing to work with our players to help them develop on and off the field, and supporting the greater COS faculty and community,” Knudsen said. “I am proud of what the 27 returners accomplished this spring and I look forward to adding a talented recruiting class and achieving great things this fall. I look forward to seeing all we will accomplish under Coach Groppi’s leadership.”

“Tyler had the difficult task of leading this program through the COVID pandemic,” Roche said of Knudsen. “He has worked very hard to guide the program in the right direction. I think this new role will allow Coach Knudsen to continue helping the program in a different way. He should be proud of the work that he put in during the last 4 seasons. I know he will continue to work hard to help in every way possible.”

Groppi played football for the Eagles in 2004-05, then played at Southern Oregon before returning as an assistant coach for six years under Roche and two seasons under Knudsen. He has a master’s degree in exercise science with an emphasis on health promotion and wellness and lives in Weed with wife Amyanne, who also works at the college.

During the past two seasons as head football coach at Weed High School, Groppi’s Cougar teams made the playoffs and earned home playoff games both years, something they hadn’t done for 20 years before that.

In recent years, Groppi was inducted into the Weed High School Athletic Hall of Fame as both an individual and a member of the Cougar football teams that he played on during his junior and senior years.

Having more returning players than the past two years is a result of rebuilding efforts after the reduced on-campus housing during two COVID years, Knudsen said. “We’ve worked to rebuild the program back to where it was pre-pandemic. These returning players will be the backbone and foundation, and we expect to have a successful season with those guys leading us.”

By Steve Gerace