For Jirah Leaupepetele, Saturday night at Gesa Field is about more than Washington State opening Pac-12 play against Fresno State. It’s the first time he and his brother Jonah will be part of the same college game on opposite sides, a matchup that has been years in the making for a family that knows exactly how much it means.
Jirah tried to get a little help out of Jonah over the phone on Sunday afternoon, hoping for a clue or two on Fresno State’s plan. That didn’t go anywhere.
“But he wasn’t really trying to tell me anything,” Jirah laughed.
Even with Jonah listed as questionable on the first Pac-12 availability report, the family still expects him around the stadium. Jonah started Fresno State’s season opener at right guard and played 15 snaps in the Bulldogs’ loss to USC last month before getting hurt.
According to his father, Tony, he wasn’t cleared in time to play Saturday. Still, the Leaupepeteles are making the trip from Apple Valley, California, about 100 miles outside Los Angeles, with Tony and Rhonda planning to be there along with their other five children.
They won’t be alone. Tony said grandparents, nephews and nieces will also be in Pullman, and Jirah already had a message for the crowd.
“They better be wearing 98 in crimson and gray,” Jirah said with a smile.
For the family, the moment has been hard to wrap their heads around.
“It is surreal. It hasn’t really hit us,” Tony said.
“It’s a proud moment for me and my wife, and our kids that look up to their siblings, their older siblings… When this schedule came out, we were like, oh, we have to come to this game. This is a game we must come to.”
“I’m just very proud to see them live out their dreams and goals right now,” Rhonda added. “It’s exciting to hear all the smack talking.
We tell them like, hey, you guys are brothers still. But it’s all fun and games.”
Jirah has built himself into a key piece on Washington State’s defensive front after transferring from Eastern Washington, where he spent his first three seasons and totaled 24 tackles, including five solo, and one tackle for loss. Through four games with the Cougars, he has started three times, picked up his first sack as a Cougar in last weekend’s loss to Arizona, and now has eight tackles on the year.
Pro Football Focus credits him with three quarterback pressures this fall, and his 6-foot-3, 349-pound frame has made him hard to ignore. He has played 133 snaps in those first four games.
Jonah’s path has moved fast in a different way. He redshirted last year in his true freshman season at Fresno State, then earned the starting right guard job to begin this season, lining up for the Bulldogs’ first snaps in Week 1.
Even if Jonah can’t get on the field Saturday, the brothers know what the night represents.
“That’s my best friend right there,” Jirah said. “I love him to death, but we’re still on that field.
He’s across the line. He’s wearing a different color of jersey.
That’s the type of timing this is.”
Their parents say the two have long been different personalities. Jirah is the more strong-willed one, the one who makes a decision and goes after it.
Jonah, Rhonda said, is more reserved and takes his time weighing options. Jirah leans toward video games; Jonah prefers board games and puzzles.
Back in Apple Valley, that meant late-night gaming sessions for Jirah and Jonah’s familiar reminder from across the room: “Bro, I’m trying to sleep.”
They weren’t big trash-talkers in general, their parents said, but they always found plenty of chances to go at each other over the years, from youth football through high school and all the way to the CIF run in Jonah’s freshman year and Jirah’s junior season.
“That was kinda really his first year taking football seriously, and that’s when he decided it was something that he really wanted to do,” Jirah said. “Just seeing him grow into the player that he is, and the person that he has become now is just really great to see.”
So even if they never line up directly across from one another on Saturday, the brothers will share the same field, the same night and the same family spotlight. For Tony and Rhonda, and for the rest of the Leaupepetele crew, that’s the part that sticks.
“After, they’ll smack talk and then they’ll look back on it,” Tony said. “They’re excited just living in the moment as far as preparing with their team, and then talking about, man, my brother’s literally on the opposite side of the field, and I’m on this side of the field, and this is gonna be the first time that we’ll go against each other. Obviously, Jonah, he’s not gonna be playing, but it’s gonna mean something for them - a win or a loss.”
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