I’ve started calling Mario Williams “Moses.”
Just like Moses did some 3,300 years ago, Williams is leading a mass exodus of his people out of the desert – yeah, I said desert.
“Let my people go!” Moses said in the 1998 Dream Works picture, Prince of Egypt.
Hey! Slow down, Moses! This may not be the land of milk and honey, but we’ve got….we’ve still got….um…Andre Brown and Toney Baker.
Three standout juniors are following Williams to the NFL Draft – defensive tackle John McCargo, offensive lineman Derek Morris and bowl MVP linebacker Stephen Tulloch.
Pair with the loss of that quartet the loss of nine contributing seniors.
No more Marcus Hudson. Gulp.
No more Manny Lawson. Argh.
No more Oliver Hoyte. Sigh.
No more T.J. Williams. Ouch.
No more Jay Davis. Yippee.
No more Tramain Hall and Brian Clark. Onomatopoeia.
Think of it this way – the players responsible for 51.2 percent of the team’s tackles in 2005 won’t return next season. The guys who claimed 89 percent of the team’s sacks – hasta luego. And the three guys who posted 65.2 percent of the Wolfpack’s receiving yards last season (Williams, Hall and Clark) will be doing something other than playing football – at least for N.C. State – in a year.
Great.
Williams left – or so it appears – because he looks to be a top-5 pick in the NFL Draft. I can’t blame a man for leaving school for $35 million. I’d do it.
Tulloch left school as a result of the national coverage he got in the bowl game. NFL scouts from around the league were at that game, and they saw what he did against South Florida. Seeing as he was the 12th-most prolific tackler in America last season, some NFL team should draft the third-year player.
Clemson coach Tommy Bowden said he thought McCargo could be a first-round pick, but that was nearly three months ago. Since then, McCargo has missed time with an injury. Nevertheless, he has the talent to play in the NFL.
Morris is by far the most intriguing early-exiting member of the Pack this season. Earlier this week, he told me the NFL evaluation on him projected him in the fourth or fifth round, and he was happy with it. I believe him. Morris is a good guy, and I suspect his departure is a reflection of the way some fans treated him as he struggled with penalties this season.
The junior defection the team is witnessing this off-season is a mirage. The juniors aren’t trying to escape a bad or lame duck coach.
As Morris said Monday, they are just chasing something.
“It’s some of these guys’ dream to play at the next level,” Morris said. “Some people might not understand that, and I don’t know what to say to people who don’t understand. It’s just a dream.”