Freshman Andersen says relationship with God landed him with Pitt football team

A man named Myles stood on the side of the road in Yosemite National Park. A car approached, and he waved for it to stop.

Trey Andersen and his companions decided to pull the car to the side of the road.

“(Myles) said, ‘I need help,’ ” Andersen recalled.

“ ‘What do you need help with?’ We thought it was something physical,” he said.

The answer might have shocked some people, but not Andersen and his fellow missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

“He said, ‘I’m trying to find God.’ ”

That’s just one of the many experiences that shaped Andersen — mentally and spiritually — during his two-year mission in Fresno, Calif., before he signed a letter of intent two months ago to play football at Pitt. He is one of nine recruits from Pitt’s class of 2021 who enrolled early to jump-start their college careers.

Andersen said he and his colleagues connected multiple times with Myles “to teach him how to come closer to God.”

During his two-year mission, Andersen said his aim was to serve the community, talk to people about God and bring light into the world, help people on that path.”

It’s his relationship with God that Andersen said helped him land at Pitt after growing up in Eagle Mountain, Utah.

“I believe if God didn’t help me get to Pitt, it would have never happened,” he said.

Perhaps Andersen’s journey to Pitt sounds like a coincidence, but he is convinced it’s more than that.

His recruitment started last year when Andersen’s father, Jason, a former NFL center and later a high school and college coach, went to a coaches’ convention in Nashville, Tenn., looking for a job. There, he connected with Joe Germaine, a former teammate with the Kansas City Chiefs.

At the same time, Germaine was meeting with Pitt tight ends coach Tim Salem. Germaine, a quarterback, played for Salem at Ohio State in the late 1990s.

Jason Andersen’s phone rang. It was Trey. Coincidence? Not in Andersen’s eyes.

“That’s where Coach Salem and I connected and they started actively recruiting me,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my dad ran into Coach Salem at a coaches’ convention in Nashville — and we live in Utah — and I called at the same time,” he said. “I truly believe that God needed me here for a purpose. I believe it plays into everything I do in this life.”

Andersen was committed to BYU, but Salem and coach Pat Narduzzi lured him to Pitt. Soon after returning from his mission in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, he enrolled last month.

During winter conditioning drills, Andersen is learning to play tight end, his position at Lehi (Utah) High School, and offensive line, a position he never has played.

“I need to start gaining weight if I want to play offensive tackle,” he said, noting he is at 247 pounds. “They want to put that on me organically and naturally, rather than just shoving all that bad weight on me.”

He said he lost weight after testing positive for covid-19, but he is past that now and is putting on pounds by working out, weightlifting and eating.

“I take two meals home,” he said. “I always keep my mouth busy. If I’m not talking, I’m eating. They take good care of us here. They make sure we’re fed.”

Andersen is one of three offensive linemen from Pitt’s class of 2021 who enrolled early. He joins Terrence Rankl of Massillon, Ohio, and Terrence Enos Jr. of Redford, Mich.

Rankl said learning to play offensive line on the college level so soon after high school is like “drinking water out of a fire hydrant. It’s a lot of information at once.”

“But coaches make sure you have everything you need.”

Leaving high school early wasn’t as difficult now as it might have been before the pandemic, he said. “With (the coronavirus), it’s not the same as any other senior year … it’s made it difficult for seniors in general,” he said. “I’m not missing anything.”

He also is trying to gain weight from 295, eventually perhaps to 320.

“I’ve been eating six, seven peanut butter and jellys,” he said.

“I feel really skinny. I still feel like I’m at 270. When I hit the weight room, it turns into muscle weight, more than fat.”

Enos, a guard, is trying to lose a little weight from 325 and monitors his portions at meals.

He said the biggest difference he has noticed in college is the pace of life, not just on the football field.

“It’s a lot faster than high school,” he said. “That’s one thing I have to get used to, even off the field, just being on time everywhere.”

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