Coe, Williams give Garner a lot of depth on DL
GREENVILLE | Last season, Travis Williams had four starters among his linebackers despite often having just two on the field at one time.
This season, Rodney Garner is touting his six defensive line starters to fill four spots, which includes the versatile Nick Coe and senior Andrew Williams. Coe is expected to backup Marlon Davidson at defensive end. But the third-year sophomore can also play Buck linebacker and defensive tackle.
“A guy with his skill set, I think we take advantage of it,” Garner said. “When we came here six years ago, the emphasis was on improving the athleticism of the room. That’s always been the goal, to have guys that can do multiple things. That’s the good thing about Derrick Brown, he played end as a true freshman. Marlon, rabbits, he goes inside.
“Having those guys that are interchangeable is definitely more advantageous for us and it creates stress hopefully on our opponent with not being able to ID where they’re going to be and in certain situations being able to line them up in different positions to try to create some mismatches.”
Williams will rotate in at defensive tackle behind Brown and Dontavius Russell. The trio should receive a similar number of snaps.
“If he’s conscious of his pad level, then he’s a power man and he can help us,” said Garner of Williams. "He can create knock back, create a new line-of-scrimmage and he’s a very valuable piece to what we’re doing. Andrew, to me, is one of the starters. Those six guys you could put them in a bag, shake them up and throw them out there any way you want to.”
Sophomore Buck linebacker T.D. Moultry rounds out the six starters. Garner also has a talented group of backups that will play this fall including Big Kat Bryant at Buck or defensive end, along with Tyrone Truesdell, Daquan Newkirk, Alec Jackson, Gary Walker and Jaunta’vius Johnson at defensive tackle or end. He’ll also have three true freshmen to work with in Richard Jibunor at Buck, Caleb Johnson at defensive end and Coyniss Miller at defensive tackle.
Most, if not all, will play this fall. Especially when you take into account the new redshirt rule, which allows football players to play in up to four games and not lose a year of eligibility.
“You want to have multiple guys so that if a guy gets nicked up, the next guy can step in and be ready to play. I just really believe in playing multiple guys,” Garner said. “If you look at it over time, you’ll see it pays dividends.
“If a kid is just sitting there on the bench and never playing but now something happens and you throw him out there, he’s never been in the fire and you don’t know how he’s going to react or what’s going to happen to him. Now these guys have already been on the big stage. You’ve seen them do it. They’ve got video evidence. It’s not going to be too overwhelming on them.”