Dwayne Maddox just stepped onto the football team’s practice schedule late last spring. He graduated from high school early to join the Wolfpack and start practicing at the speed of the college game.
It’s a good thing for coach Tom O’Brien and State’s defense that he did. The true freshman had to fill in as starter for the injured Nate Irving against South Florida, one of the premier offensive teams in the nation.
But the South Florida game was a tough assignment for the entire linebacker core. Without Irving, an ACC Player of the Week and the team’s leader in tackles and interceptions, an inexperienced linebacker group had to step up.
“You look at all the plays Nate Irving has made for this football team, he’s gotten us off the field personally quite a few times,” O’Brien said.
Irving went down with an ankle injury two weeks ago against East Carolina. Now the star linebacker is out indefinitely, and the young Maddox has to fill in.
“I have to grow up fast,” Maddox said. “It’s not about being a freshman or a sophomore — it’s about making a play and playing your position.”
Maddox came to State as one of this season’s most prized recruits. Ranked as the No. 17 middle linebacker prospect in the nation by Scout.com, the Shelby native came to school early to get a head start. But according to O’Brien, the USF offense exploited the true freshman.
“They must have worked the same passes 20 different times,” O’Brien said of the USF offense. “He bites the first time where he shouldn’t be, so they throw it behind him. It’s just inexperience, not for lack of effort.”
Maddox is joined in the middle by redshirt junior Ray Michel and redshirt senior Robbie Leonard.
Michel played backup duty all of last season, and the coaching staff converted Leonard to linebacker from safety over the offseason.
“Nate Irving means a great deal to the team — he’s a really experienced player,” Michel said. “It’s going to be a little drought without him there.”
Michel said its tough to fill the void left by Irving, but the young players, like Maddox and fellow true freshman Sterling Lucas, are learning quickly.
“Dwayne Maddox and Sterling Lucas really stepped it up since they’ve been here,” he said. “They’re in their playbooks, watching film. So if I were to go down, I would have no worries because Sterling could come in and play just like a first string.”
Leonard now has started each game, and said he feels the learning curve is working more in his favor now. But for players like Maddox and Lucas, they’re still getting used to the pace of the college game.
“The speed is a lot different and the QB precision,” Maddox said. “They’re looking off defenders and are a lot more precise with their passes.”
Getting used to the schemes of complex offenses is another part of the learning curve. The coaching staff is working hard with the young linebackers and getting them used to the variety of routes they have to cover.
“They put somebody in front of you, but you have to back up because somebody’s coming in behind you,” O’Brien said of the drop-passes Maddox struggled with. “Make him throw it in front of you. But if you take the cheese and drop to the guy underneath, then they throw it behind you.”
