Temple University Athletics
Q & A with Football's Rob Ritrovato
10.5.18 | Football
PHILADELPHIA- Rob 'Nitro' Ritrovato was a walk-on Temple football player turned single-digit starter on scholarship. Call it a miracle or even a tradition, Ritrovato probably doesn't care; he knows what he's doing. This is Nitro's senior season and last as an Owl, so I had the chance to sit down with #4 to ask him a couple of questions.
Where did the nickname Nitro come from?
"When I first came here people got me and Nick Sharga confused cause we both had ridiculously long hair. I did that on purpose though to stand out as a walk on, cause you want to get noticed some how or stand out. When I started showing up on tape, people started calling me names like Sylvester Stallone, Sly, and then someone pulled up a picture of the guy Nitro from American Gladiators and it stuck."
Is that the coolest nickname on the team? If not whose is?
"I mean obviously I'm gonna say mine is the coolest, but I think a close second is Frankie Juice. I think I still take the cake for sure."
Did you always see yourself growing up to become a Scholarship Division 1 football player?
"To be completely honest, after my junior year of high school I talked to my head coach and he said he thought I could be a really good player in Division 1 AA and that that was a good division for me. It didn't exactly motivate me to go Division 1 either, I was looking at it as my direction to go with football at the time. I was fine with being a scholarship player on a lower level. Then, in my senior season, I got a high ankle sprain in my second game. After that I played in other games but was never really 100 percent. I was really just a shell of myself. I wasn't able to perform at my best with recruiters watching me, and that was tough for me. I knew I was still capable of playing FBS or FCS football though."
How'd you end up at Temple then?
"I actually had two official visits with two other Division 1AA schools, and then they asked if I still wanted to come in and visit, but I wouldn't be able to attend on scholarship. I thought it'd be best to move past them after that. It came down to some Division II schools really for me towards the end of the process, but then I heard from Temple. They said my tape was mostly lost in the shuffle throughout the recruiting process but they wanted me to come walk-on. They told me they have a tradition of bringing in walk-ons and non-scholarship players that end up doing great things for the program and said if I thought I was tough enough to come and do it. This was in the fall, and I was still figuring everything out, but when I went into wrestling season that year I saw how much success I had on the team after only wrestling for two years. Then I kind of had a revelation. I thought if I could come so far in a sport I've only played for two years, then I could give Division 1Â football a shot. I just told myself 'I've been playing football my whole life, I know what I'm doing.'"Â
Did that recruiting process give you a "you against the world" outlook?
"I was always motivated by people who didn't believe in me, but I would say I was more motivated by the things I have accomplished and by the things I know I can accomplish, if I truly set my mind to it. I knew at the time that Temple was a great school, too. I was just motivated to go and play football, and the rest kind of wrote itself."
You're a redshirt senior and have played positions like linebacker, fullback, running back and special teams for four years here. What position do you have the most fun with? What position taught you the most and was the most influential in making you a single-digit player?
"Most fun with… definitely running back. Getting to carry the ball is… every kid grows up wanting to play quarterback or running back, so playing at that position is a dream come true. For what influenced me the most… I think it was just really myself and seeing the guys who have played before me like Kenneth Harper, John Christopher, Tyler Matakevich, and Nick Sharga. Seeing guys like that and how they conduct themselves on a day-to-day basis made me want to be seen as the guy that's active in that way. I always thought I had a little bit of grit to me and that was definitely going to need to happen if I was to become a single-digit player at a place like this."
Is that grit why you like special teams so much?
"Yeah, I guess. Special teams have always been important to me. I played in five games my freshman year, mostly on special teams, and I was playing just because of my effort. I always made sure I showed up, showed up against big names in practice, and the coaches liked the tape and trusted to put me out there. I got hurt and wasn't able to make it back out there that year, but that experience was great. Â I love special teams, I love running down kickoffs, I love setting blocks up for Isaiah [Wright] and the boys, being part of multiple blocked kicks this year; it's been a great experience."
You guys are getting ready to play ECU this week for your second conference game of the year. In your opinion, what's the most important part of week-to-week preparation that you do to get ready for gameday?
"So I sat down on Wednesday in my apartment to look at cut ups and started looking at special teams since I get most of my reps there and I take a lot of pride in them. Â Against Boston College, I was watching the kickoff tape and they're doing a different kind of double team on the 4, which is where I was, and then a fullback coming to double on the 3, which is where Isaiah Graham-Mobley was. So I saw that and thought, "I'm six-foot, 240-pounds, and IGM is 6-2, 215-pounds", and think I'm better suited to take on that double team from the fullback than Isaiah is. I see it, text coach Foley, he thinks it's a great idea, and we set it up to be the positions for the game."
And then you guys made a huge play?
"That play on the kickoff return I was actually offsides and the refs called it, but they still wanted to return it. So we kicked off again and I ended up causing the fumble and Isaiah picks up the ball and scored."
Getting your scholarship last year was probably a big changing point in your position on the team. What went into you getting to that moment?
"A lot of hard work that paid off. It felt amazing, it was a great experience, and it was something I worked for all three years I've been here. I can't thank Coach Collins enough to bestow that on me, and the way he did it… Coach Collins has to do everything times 100, and if he does it he's doing it big."
How'd he give you that scholarship?
"It was Friday on a bye week last year, and it was late at night and everyone wanted to go home and relax for the weekend. We were in a meeting, and a phone went off and everyone's mad and thinking we're getting in trouble. It ended up being coach Lucas's phone and it was my mom. Then Coach Collins told me to stand up and said I was on full scholarship and it was a really cool moment."
Ritrovato has had quite the career at Temple, from being a walk-on turned scholarship single-digit and playing multiple positions on both sides of the ball, and he is grateful for the opportunity to play the game he loves at such a high level. He hopes to end his senior season on a high note with another bowl win but he says you have to take the season one day at a time and game-by-game.  Â
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