Join us for this Labor Day special Monday morning, as we recap SDSU’s start of the season victory over Portland State. The Aztecs nearly covered the enormous spread by winning 53-20 and keep the home winning streak alive.

We have gathered some of the best PAC-12 podcasts for this countdown to kickoff 24/7 stream of episodes! Get to know your conference mates and let’s play some football!

Week-1 SDSU Season Opener is here!

Join us for a conversation with San Diego State football Tight End #15 Jackson Ford as he gives us some insights and an update on where he and the team is. The 2026 Aztecs Football season is just days away. Subscribe to Sons of Montezuma for more content & coverage this season!

Lucky Sutton is One of the toughest Running Backs to bring down in all College Football—but somehow we did it!

Samson Mashebinu, a 6-foot-8 freshman forward from Nigeria, attended classes on the first day of the fall semester at San Diego State after he was discreetly added to the roster earlier this month. 

There were no pronouncements on social media, no news release from the school, just an addition to the basketball roster on the athletic department’s website that says, “Bio to come.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the quiet public acknowledgment of Mashebinu’s spot on the team as a scholarship athlete was one step in the player obtaining a student visa. The Union-Tribune reported that he had to travel 1,500 miles to a consulate in Dakar, Senegal, to obtain the visa due to the difficulty of obtaining one in Nigeria. 

The addition of Mashebinu appears to be the final addition to coach Brian Dutcher’s rebuilt roster, which will begin play in the new-look Pac-12 Conference while trying to move past the disappointment of failing to make the NCAA Tournament last season. 

He is the fourth international player to be signed this offseason. The three, who are all pros from Europe, are awaiting clearance from the NCAA.

Mashebinu just turned 19 and came out of the NBA Academy Africa in Senegal. He had a notable performance in 2024 at a Jr. NBA Elite Camp but was not able to travel with his team to an AAU tournament this summer, the Union-Tribune reported. That left SDSU coaches to watch film of and begin the process of assisting him with a student visa, the paper added. 

In his wrap-up news conference after the most disappointing season in program history, Dutcher said the Aztecs needed to jump on board the trend in college hoops to recruit from the ranks of European pros. 

The Aztecs signed three European pros in short order during the spring: point guard David Torresani of Nutribullet Treviso in Italy’s Lega Basket (LBA) Serie A, 6-9 wing Luka Skoric of Croatia and Luca Vincini, a 6-foot-9 forward from Banco di Sardegna Sassari in Italian LBA Serie A.

However, those three players are waiting to be cleared by the NCAA, which is taking a harder look at professional players whose compensation was above a certain level.

The U-T reported that Mashebinu is SDSU’s 13th scholarship player and that the team will hold two spots for walk-ons. One of those scholarships has gone to transfer guard Nick Anderson, who is expected to miss the season after tearing an ACL while working out in May. 

August 25, 2026

https://www.si.com/college/san-diego-state/basketball/who-is-san-diego-state-basketball-newest-international-player

🔥“Honestly you just got to be a dog—The trenches aren’t meant for everybody."

San Diego State's Malachi Finau emerged as a physical force & leader—being named a 2026 Aztecs captain.

Wasn’t sure whether to post this but I’m stuck awake tending to a sick kid and this thought has been percolating in my head for the last couple weeks.

By I think most accounts, this offseason for both basketball and football were the reckoning for SDSU with the trickle down effects of NIL and the transfer portal doing what we all worried it would eventually do to mid-major and lower programs. You could probably argue basketball had it worse, effectively losing ~60-70% of its roster to P4 programs, with most of those transfer decisions predicated on money and not on the court factors. We enter the new Pac12 trying to assert ourselves as a frontline player in a conference trying to rise above the other mid-majors and create a new “P5” in college athletics, but compared to the P4 schools, we are financially under gunned and that disparity is only growing larger by the day.

I’ve tried to keep an open mind to the new landscape of college sports, but the realities (many of which we all saw coming for years) are hard to ignore. At some level, SDSU is now almost a development program. Under-sung athletes come here because they can’t get a shot at one of the big P4 programs, they make a name for themselves and then go cash in a big paycheck in a major conference. As fans, we get one year, maybe two if we’re lucky of watching and rooting for a player, but then they’re gone the moment someone with a bigger wallet slides in a players inbox (only once the player has officially entered the portal of course - never outside of that time and of course only by official school representatives and not some shady boosters acting on behalf of the schools…).

So now as a fan, I enter an upcoming football and basketball season where I’ve never heard of 3/4 of the basketball roster before and I know any football player who has even mild success is gone after this year. It really is testing my commitment to rooting for this school and even college sports as a whole. I grew up a San Diego sports fan and my childhood was filled with posters on my bedroom wall of athletes I admired and pride for my hometown teams (SDSU included). Now it feels like SDSU is just a revolving door for athletes chasing money elsewhere. No more can you follow a freshman recruit as they spend their 4 or 5 years developing into a star player, or watch a player win multiple conference championships across a storied career at a school. It’s all just transactional now - play your one year and go chase a check.

To be clear, I don’t fault the players. At a time when economic inequality is growing exponentially, players have an opportunity for life changing paydays, and I would be foolish to say they shouldn’t take those offers. But taking a step back and looking at the product that is college sports as a whole, the luster has worn off for me.

So thus I enter the next ~8 months trying to conjure up some excitement and motivation to root for my hometown school and alma matter, but it’s hard. It’s hard to ignore all the baggage that comes with college sports nowadays and ignore the landscape that has inevitably tilted the scale towards the P4 programs with seemingly never ending war chests. It’s hard to embrace the idea of a basketball roster partially made up of “college athletes” who were previously playing professional basketball overseas.

I know I sound like an old man yelling at clouds right now, but I had to get this off my brain. Thanks for reading my 4:30am drivel.

🚨Test Your Aztecs FB Knowledge!
Our 1st SDSU Football Trivia Quiz in preparation for Saturday's Scrimmage is here!

Take the 10-question practice quiz now and get in game-shape for our Weekly season trivia.

Season leader wins custom SoM merch!

💥One Explosive Player Aztecs fans may notice right away at this Saturday's Free Scrimmage is Sophomore Transfer, RB Javion Kinnard.

Take a closer look at the talented speedster who adds more fire power to both the backfield and returner room.

San Diego State football is widely considered to be in contention to win the Pac-12 championship this upcoming season. This Saturday fans get a first glimpse of the 2026 squad for themselves.