North Carolina State University Athletics
Herndon Does What Is Best For The Team
9/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 21, 2005
Raleigh, N.C. - At 24, Dwayne Herndon is a fifth-year senior, married with a child - in essence, a full-grown adult, still playing a game with 18- and 19-year-olds.
But Herndon admits that just 12 months ago, he wouldn't have been mature enough to do what the NC State football coaches asked him to do at the end of last season: move from defensive line to the offensive line, from the front-line of the nation's best defense to the relative obscurity of blocking.
"Nah, not a year ago," Herndon said. "I was still selfish. I wanted to hear my name called. I wanted to be seen."
But as soon as last season was over, the coaches convinced Herndon that he had a better chance of being seen and heard as a blocker than a defender. Plus, there was likely to be more of an opportunity to become a starter on offense, which was better than continuing to play behind veteran tackles like John McCargo, DeMario Pressley and Tank Tyler. Herndon had logged 658 career plays on the defensive line, but he was only a starter for six games, back in 2003.
Besides, Wolfpack coach Chuck Amato has had success in the past in moving defensive players to the offensive line. He did it in his second season with Shane Riggs, who played every game in 2001 on the offensive line. The next year, Sean Locklear did the same thing and ended up as a starter for two years. Rickey Fowler also switched sides on the line.
Each move helped bring experience, aggression and depth to the offensive line, and for Locklear it was a great career move. He performed well enough that in the 2004 NFL draft he was taken in the third round by the Seattle Seahawks, and when their season began last week, Locklear was the starting right tackle.
Those successes helped convince Herndon that moving to the offensive line could be good for him and the team both, even though he, like Locklear, resisted at first.
"No guy on defense wants to move to the offensive line," Herndon said. "The first thing you think of when you think offensive line is, `Oh, the fat guys.' You don't get your named called out. But that was a selfish concern.
"When I started to think about it, I figured out it was probably the best thing for the team."
So Herndon spent all of spring practice and pre-season camp learning his new position. He lost about 25 pounds and became quicker on his feet. He impressed offensive line coach Mike Barry with his willingness to spend hours over the summer watching film to learn his new position, something that wasn't so easy for someone whose only experience on offense was at fullback when he was at Southern Nash High School.
But he was a better defensive lineman, taking over where high school teammate Julius Peppers, now an all-star for the Carolina Panthers in the NFL, left off.
High school was a long time ago. Herndon graduated from Southern Nash in 2000, and signed with the Wolfpack. However, he needed a one-year detour to Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia before he re-signed again with Amato's program.
Now, as a fifth-year senior, Herndon is excited about his prospects for the future, something he says he didn't have when he completed his sophomore year of high school, when Herndon had a 0.9 grade point average and virtually no prospects of going to college.
But Southern Nash coach Brian Foster saw Herndon's potential and got him enrolled in advanced college classes. He kept him on a straight path, even opening his home to Herndon as a senior, when Herndon's mom was pregnant with his little brother. Foster helped Herndon study for the Scholastic Assessment Test, and even though he didn't make the requisite score coming out of high school, he did develop the study habits he needed to be successful at Fork Union and at NC State. He even graduated from high school with a 3.2 GPA.
Now, after four-and-a-half years of college, Herndon is poised to graduate with a degree in Parks, Tourism and Recreation Management.
"If it wasn't for Coach Foster, I wouldn't be here," Herndon said. "When I was in high school, I never thought I would graduate from college. I never thought I would even want to go to college. I wanted to stay at home and be like everybody else.
"Now, when I go home to Middlesex, I don't even want to stay an hour."
Herndon has certainly grown up since his high school days, though he does have something very important from his high school days with him in Raleigh. He and his wife Tiffany dated from the time they were in the seventh grade until they were juniors in high school.
After a few years apart, they reconnected after he went home following the Wolfpack's victory over Kansas in the 2003 Tangerine Bowl. They got married last year and had a son, Javiya, last October, making him one of eight married football players.
As the second oldest player on the team (defensive back J.J. Jones is older by two weeks), Herndon has brought a maturity to the offensive line that was lacking last year.
That doesn't mean he wasn't nervous on the first play against Virginia Tech, at least until he figured out that Hokie defensive lineman Jonathan Lewis isn't nearly as quick as John McCargo, who Herndon faces every day in practice.
"After that first play, I knew it was going to be OK," said Herndon, who performed despite getting a shoulder stinger in the first half.
Amato says Herndon is still a work in progress. But he and offensive line coach Mike Barry are pleased with how far he has come in a little over ninth months as an offensive guard.
"There were some days he was very frustrated, give-up frustrated," Barry said. "There were some days he said `I am at the end of my rope.' But he fought through it. He far exceeded my expectations against Virginia Tech. He didn't play perfect, but, boy, he did a whole bunch of things right." And that is yet another sign of Herndon's maturity.
