North Carolina State University Athletics
Excited And Willing
8/21/2006 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
By Tim Peeler
The most frequently asked question of NC State football coach Chuck Amato and everyone around his program over the last three months has been: how on earth will you replace three first-round draft picks off the defensive line?
The answer that no one could fully comprehend is that Amato and his staff have already done it by recruiting talented replacements over the last couple of years. Just like he did for so many years at Florida State.
“How do you replace them?” Amato said. “With the people that are behind them. With a whole lot of hard work and effort from the good young kids we have here in the program. I am looking forward to the youth and ambition of that football team. The standard has been set for them.”
Besides, the Wolfpack effectively replaced one of those first-rounders last season, when defensive tackle John McCargo broke his ankle and was replaced by a rotation that included Tank Tyler, DeMario Pressley and Martrel Brown, all of whom return this year.
During that time, the Wolfpack was 5-1 and pitched a shutout in the Meineke Car Care Bowl victory over South Florida.
That’s not to say McCargo’s absence, or the play of the young trio of defensive tackles, was the reason for that turnaround.
The emergence of a dangerous freshman duo at tailback, Andre Brown and Toney Baker, and the steady play of quarterback Marcus Stone had something to do with it as well.
But anyone who thinks that the Wolfpack’s defense, which has been ranked in the nation’s top 10 in total defense the last two years and in the top 15 three of the last four years, will be completely decimated by the departure of No. 1 overall pick Mario Williams, 22nd pick Manny Lawson and 26th pick McCargo hasn’t been paying attention.
With Tyler, Pressley and Brown in the middle, the Wolfpack has three experienced tackles, two of whom are versatile and athletic enough to move outside to end. Both Pressley and Brown played there in the spring.
“Johnny Mac [McCargo] is a great football player, but we have some great football players still here,” said second-year defensive coordinator Steve Dunlap. “They did the job for us at the end of last season.”
Both Willie Young and junior college transfer Littleton Wright sat out last season to watch and learn behind Williams and Lawson. Young was a monster in the spring, and Wright showed flashes of what made him a JUCO All-American. In addition, fifth-year senior John Amanchukwu played well after moving from offensive line to defensive tackle to defensive end over the course of the last 12 months.
And there is still the possibility that Raymond Brooks, a prep All-American and high school teammate of Darrell Blackman, could return from his academic difficulties of last season and contribute at defensive end.
“Both Willie and Littleton have been waiting their turn to play,” Dunlap said. “They are inexperienced. We will just have to wait and see how fast they develop and how things will shake out.”
Dunlap isn’t nearly as worried about his defensive front maintaining its dominance as much as he’s concerned about who will step in at the linebacker position, where the Wolfpack lost starters Oliver Hoyte and Stephen Tulloch.
Tulloch was an unexpected loss, even though he had a breakout junior season in which he led the Wolfpack and was second in the ACC with 134 tackles. He went to the Tennessee Titans in the third round of the NFL Draft.
“There is really no planning for losing three juniors off the defensive side of the ball,” Dunlap said. “We are a little thin overall on the line and at linebacker, there is no question about it. But is the cupboard bare? Not at all.”
Two upperclassmen with starting experience, fifth-year senior Pat Lowery and junior LeRue Rumph, return at linebacker. Lowery is the defense’s leader at his middle linebacker spot, while Rumph is being pushed by fellow junior James Martin II at the strongside position.
On the weakside, the coaches are counting on senior Reggie Davis, who converted to linebacker late in spring practice and performed well enough in two scrimmages that he enters fall camp listed as a starter. He’ll be challenged by redshirt freshman Ray Michel and junior Guerlin Dervil. Junior Ernest Jones has experience in the linebacking corps, and the coaches like the potential of redshirt freshman Avery Vogt.
Dunlap doesn’t expect to fully know what he has in terms of skill at the linebacker position until the Wolfpack’s season opener against defending Division I-AA champion Appalachian State on Sept. 2.
“It is going to be a great experiment, with people getting moved around a little bit during the preseason,” Dunlap said. “This next month is just going to be vital from an experience standpoint and for us coaches to get the right people in the right places where they can be productive.”
As much as he likes his older guys, Dunlap especially likes what he saw from Michel and Vogt in the spring.
“They are just developing,” he said. “Every day they get just a little bit better. It’s just no telling how they are going to play.”
Fortunately for the Wolfpack, Dunlap doesn’t have similar questions about the defensive backfield. All of last year’s regulars minus cornerback Marcus Hudson, who was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers are back.
Senior rover Garland Heath, who has a knack for making big plays, joins fifth-year senior cornerback A.J. Davis as the leaders of a secondary that was ranked 26th in the nation in passing defense last year.
Amato is confident that his team’s experience on special teams will be a big plus. The Pack returns senior John Deraney to handle all kicking duties, a two-year starting long-snapper in fifth-year senior William Lee and one of the nation’s most dangerous kickoff return specialists in junior Darrell Blackman.
Blackman led the ACC and was sixth in the nation in kickoff returns last year, averaging 29.1 yards per return. He also averaged more than 10 yards per punt return, sharing those duties with the departed Tramain Hall. Blackman will likely be the primary punt returner this season.
On offense, Amato expects his team to be similar in style and production to what it was during the second half of the season, when the coaching staff made the decision to switch starting quarterbacks, replacing senior Jay Davis with sophomore Marcus Stone.
The Wolfpack had a more ground-oriented attack, thanks to the emergence of tailback Andre Brown and the development of Toney Baker. Stone did not put up spectacular numbers, but he helped cut back on the team’s turnovers and did not make many costly mistakes.
Stone will be responsible for taking over the offense, and through the summer he has handled those duties without any problems.
“He is the leader of this football team,” Amato said at the ACC Football Kickoff. “Last year, he started six games. This summer he did an outstanding job of realizing that he has to do a lot on his own, in terms of working out and film study and other things that have to do with leadership.
“He talked with some of the guys who have been in that position before, like Philip Rivers, and he has been a bear at it. He is going into this season with a certain demeanor about him. His presence means a lot to his teammates.”
With so many talented tailbacks Brown, Baker and redshirt freshman Jamelle Eugene Stone will have plenty of options in the backfield. He has a new target in the receiving corps now that Blackman has moved from tailback to Z-receiver.
The Wolfpack will look to develop its depth on the offensive line and in the receiving corps during pre-fall camp, but it has seasoned veterans at both positions, including senior center Leroy Harris, senior tackle James Newby and senior X-receiver Lamart Barrett.
Amato goes into the season with great expectations, despite the prediction by the media in attendance at the Football Kickoff that his team would finish fifth in the ACC’s Atlantic Division. He figures they should have picked the Wolfpack lower, based on all the losses.
The coach also knows that his team feasted on the momentum it had at the end of last season, when it turned around what could have been a disastrous season following a 2-4 start. The Wolfpack won five out of its last six, won its fourth bowl game under Amato’s direction and now has five winning records in the last six seasons.
“I like the way we went through the spring and through the offseason,” Amato said. “We really fed off what happened at the end of last season. In the spring, everybody was excited and willing to do different things. We had young men moving positions, from running back to wide receiver, from running back to linebacker, from defensive end to defensive tackle and back.
“We now just have to make sure as we go through preseason camp that we get all the right pegs in the right spots.”
Tim Peeler is a features writer for www.GoPack.com and a frequent contributor to The Wolfpacker. You may contact him at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
"Reprinted with permission from "The Wolfpacker" and Coman Publishing Company."
