San Jose State’s sports information department reports two brothers on the Spartans’ football team have made unique, if not obscure, NCAA history.
Carl and Duke Ihenacho, known as the “Nacho Brothers,” are national co-leaders this week in two NCAA statistical categories.
Carl, a junior defensive end, shares the NCAA lead with tackles for loss with an average of two a game. Duke, a sophomore linebacker, is the co-leader in interceptions with seven through five games.
Sports information director Lawrence Fan said a survey he conducted of 120 major schools and the NCAA Statistics Service has yet to uncover another pair of brothers, either as teammates or on different teams, to share a statistical category lead at any point during the season.
Fan makes the claim with the qualifier, “to the best of our research.” The NCAA did not, until recent years, keep track of several statistical categories.
The Ihenacho brothers will be looking to pad their numbers tonight when San Jose State (5-2, 3-0) plays host to No. 13 Boise State (6-0, 2-0) in a showdown of league leaders in the Western Athletic Conference.
Carl and Duke Ihenacho (pronounced I-an-nacho) were late bloomers out of Gardena’s (California) Serra High. Duke didn’t try out for the football team until his junior season and talked his older brother into joining him.
“He said it was an experience we could go through together,” Carl said this week on a conference call. “He said if I don’t like it, I can quit.”
The brothers’ mother, Edith, had not allowed her boys to play Pop Warner football, but there came a point when Duke felt he had waited long enough.
“It was a decision I made myself,” Duke said. “I didn’t really ask her.”
Carl played well enough to earn a scholarship to San Jose State and, a year later, Duke followed his brother to the Bay Area.
“They had a limited football background,” San Jose State coach Dick Tomey said, “but Carl had the most limited background.”
The brothers never realized they might become a tiny part of college football trivia.
“I always sit down with my brother and talk to him, like, ‘Five years ago, could you have pictured us playing football, playing together, leading the NCAA in a category?’ ” Carl said. “We laugh about it.”
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