Averett offensive coordinator
J.D. Shaw grabbed a Sharpie from his office and wrote “
LOGAN SMYTH” in big black letters on the brand new football.
“Don’t lose this one, too,” Shaw yelled out to Smyth, who was in the vacant hallway of the Cougars’ field house during a hot summer day in late July.
The senior continued to explain how the previous ball that he had been given had gone missing while he and some other players were working out just a few days earlier.
“We were throwing routes and we were using my ball,” Smyth recalled.
Head coach
Mike Dunlevy, who heard the conversation from his office, popped his head around the corner and assigned Smyth 200 yards of rolling, one of the team’s common forms of punishment where players lay on the ground and roll goal line to goal line down the practice field.
“I didn’t lose it,” Smyth said earlier this week, referring to the original ball that was given to him. “One of the other players took it by accident.”
Still, Smyth understood that he had let the ball get out of his possession, breaking the rules of his assignment. Early this summer, when the coaching staff decided to move Smyth from linebacker to running back, they gave him a ball with his name written on it. His only instructions: keep it with him at all times.
“They made me carry it everywhere, especially when I came here (to the field house),” Smyth said. “If I didn’t have my ball, I had to do up-downs on the spot. I always had to have it. I even conditioned with it in my hand just to get used to running with it.”
Now a member of the offense, it’s Smyth’s duty to hold onto the ball. That task will be crucial during games if the Cougars want to have a shot at winning the USA South Conference championship, a mission that begins Saturday with their non-conference season-opener against Hampden-Sydney College at 1 p.m. at the Cougar Den.
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The Averett coaching staff found itself with quite the predicament during the offseason. Dontavious Watson, the Cougars’ top running back a year ago, finished his eligibility last fall after rushing 127 times for 608 yards and eight touchdowns — all team highs. And several other freshmen tailbacks that saw time in 2009 didn’t return. There wasn’t a single running back left on the roster.
“Coach Dunlevy and I had a lot of discussions on who we thought could fill that void for us, especially with the veteran offensive line we have back,” Shaw said. “You don’t want to hang your hat on an unknown commodity. We hadn’t started camp yet, so you don’t want to say a freshman is going to start for you when you don’t even know who that person is.”
They turned to their list of upperclassmen. Who could change positions and not cause a massive ripple effect? Who would be the right fit?
“The guy that came to the front of the conversation was Logan,” Shaw said. “He’s athletic, he’s one of the fastest guys on the team and he was an outstanding high school running back. When he came in as a freshman, we had actually discussed it then as well. But we ended up putting him on defense because we felt that was where he could make the biggest impact.”
Smyth made his mark as one of the team’s top linebackers after breaking into the playing rotation during his freshman season and starting the past two years. As a junior, he was third on the team in total tackles and tied for the team lead with three sacks. For his career, Smyth has 125.5 tackles, 7.5 sacks, 21 tackles for loss, four fumble recoveries and an interception. Normally that type of production would be hard to replace, but the Cougars are extremely talented and deep at linebacker.
“If we didn’t think we had depth at linebacker, it wouldn’t have been as easy of a choice to move him to running back,” Dunlevy said. “But since we did, it made it a lot easier.”
Smyth was a logical choice given the success he had in high school at nearby Chatham. Smyth, a 2006 Danville Register & Bee All-Metro First Team selection, racked up 936 yards rushing and eight touchdowns on 103 carries for just over a 9-yard-per-carry average during his senior season at Chatham.
Before he was approached about the switch, Smyth knew there was a possibility he could be asked to change positions. The coaching staff gave him a couple of days to mull it over, and Smyth decided to make the move for his senior season.
“He’s been happy to make that move,” Shaw said. “He’s a team guy. He’s had his bumps and bruises at the position and it’s been a learning process, but I think he’s comfortable now. We feel like it is a positive to have a guy out there who maybe hasn’t had a lot of college carries but is a mature player.”
Smyth is making the adjustment well. It helps that he’s around 220 pounds — about 60 pounds heavier than when he was taking handoffs in high school.
“It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be,” Smyth says as he reclines back in the chair he’s sitting in. “I got informed about it early in the summer, so I had time to get into it and change my mindset to the offensive side of the ball. It’s definitely different. You go from trying to make defensive plays to trying to run away from the defense.
“I wouldn’t say I’m totally there yet, but I’m working on it. … The rest will come as I go on,” he says with a sense of confidence.
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The quickly fading sunset glistens off the top of his helmet. Smyth’s eyes survey the opposition, analyzing its every move. “HIKE!” In the blink of an eye, Smyth has taken the handoff and has cut outside to the right. He follows his blockers and jets up the field with a burst of speed before his teammates wrap him up for a split second before the whistle blows the play dead.
Shaw showers his newly transformed weapon with praise as the players trot back to the huddle. This time, Smyth walks off to the side in his tattered No. 26 practice jersey as he gets a needed breather.
In his place steps up a noticeably thicker individual. At 240 pounds — more than 20 pounds heavier than the good-sized Smyth —
James Wilson takes his position in the backfield.
“James is a very large individual and he is good at what he does,” Smyth says as he describes his fellow running back teammate. “They like to call me and James ‘Thunder and Lightning.’”
Smyth likes to use his speed to break his runs outside. Wilson, however, is the type of back that punishes defensive lines inside.
“James may not be as fast as Logan is, but I don’t know in camp if there’s been a time where the first person to make contact with him has brought him down,” Shaw says as the smile on his face grows wide.
When camp began in early August, Smyth new his backups would be arriving in the form of many freshmen. What he didn’t expect — or the Averett coaching staff, for that matter — was Wilson to arrive at their doorstep. A former player at Division II Concord University in West Virginia, Wilson transferred into Averett this fall for his final season of eligibility.
In two seasons (2006 and 2008) at Concord, Wilson gained over 300 yards and scored five touchdowns on 114 carries. He immediately brought the Averett running game added depth, but more importantly needed experience. And for Smyth, it delivered a small weight off his shoulders. No longer would he have to worry about carrying the Cougars’ rushing attack.
“I thought it was definitely a relief,” Smyth said. “James is a great athlete and it is definitely a positive to have us both in the backfield.”
As preseason practice unfolded, several freshmen have also moved into the mix, including
Clayton Navarre, a 5-foot-8, 180-pound back out of Benedictine High School in Richmond.
“We feel pretty good about that position — a lot better than we did coming into camp,” Shaw says with a relieved look.
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Smyth walks through the blue double doors of the field house empty-handed. His personal football is nowhere in sight. This time, Smyth isn’t in trouble for not having it. Days away from the team’s first game, the coaches have since relaxed their stance on the ball.
“I have one in my locker that they still like me to have around as much as possible,” Smyth notes.
As much as Smyth embraced the idea of carrying around a football at all times, his family may have enjoyed it even more. Smyth says his parents constantly poked fun at him, asking him if he was going to sit down with his football and watch television and talk to it as if the duo were Tom Hanks’ character and the volleyball from the 2000 movie “Cast Away.”
Smyth lets out a small laugh when asked if he cuddled with it at night like a child sleeping with a teddy bear.
“That’s funny,” Smyth says with a smile. “My mom actually would lay it on my bed every night as kind of a joke just to make sure that I always had it around.”