The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1000643
JULY 2018 ■ 125 BY MATT CARTER I n a normal year, any of the top five other candidates for The Wolfpacker's Male Athlete of the Year would have been an easy selection. The group includes the ACC's Male Swimmer of the Year, Male Golfer of the Year and Wrestler of the Year, and a pair of indi- vidual national champions in swimming. The award, though, went to Brad- ley Chubb, the star defensive end on NC State's first top-25 football team since 2010. Chubb had most decorated season by a defensive player in Wolfpack history. His No. 9 is set to join the others en- shrined at Carter-Finley Stadium, and the patch originally designed to honor the previous most well-known No. 9, Mario Williams, will now be redone to include Chubb. This past fall, Chubb was voted by the Football Writers Association of America as the winner of the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, presented to the best defensive player in college football. The only other defensive player at NC State to ever earn a national award was David Amerson, when he won the 2011 Jack Tatum Award, which is given to the country's best defensive back. Chubb was also a consensus All-Amer- ican, just the seventh in school history and the second on the defensive side of the ball (tackle Dennis Byrd in 1967 was the other). Chubb was the second NCSU player to be named the ACC's Defensive Player of the Year, following linebacker Levar Fisher in 2000. And to cap the year, Chubb was cho- sen with the fifth overall pick in the NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos, becoming the fourth top-five selection from NC State. All of this for a player that arrived in Ra- leigh as a relatively unheralded, three-star wannabe linebacker. Former NC State star linebacker Danto- nio Burnette, more affectionately known around the program as "Thunder," was an assistant strength and conditioning coach then before becoming director of strength and conditioning in 2016. He had a front row seat for Chubb's transformation into a five-star defensive end. "You could tell that he had something about him," Burnette recalled. "He was very confident. He was a guy that always wanted to be at the front of the line any time we did any kind of competition. I automatically knew he was going to be a demo guy for me. "I always tell guys if you are a demo guy, you are a really good dude. You are going to more than likely be in a lot of the videos I put out because you are setting the standard of how we want things done. He was like that as a freshman." Chubb arrived at 6-4, 237 pounds, and Burnette insisted that he had the tools to stick at linebacker, noting he was prob- ably more athletic than those that were playing at that time. Picking up the play- book, though, was taking time, and he was getting bigger simultaneously. By the end of his freshman year he was pushing 245 pounds. That spring, Chubb was moved to de- fensive end and starting in the fall of 2015, his sophomore season, he was up to 265 pounds. "We knew that was going to happen. One of the things we do with our guys is a frame assessment, just looking at body types and projecting," Burnette noted. "They're in a program, they eat all the meals, they work with a full-time nutritionist and they are training the way we want them to train. "He kept getting bigger." It was during Chubb's sophomore season that Burnette recalled his first glimpse of MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR BRADLEY CHUBB FIVE-STAR PLAYER Underrated By Recruiting Services, Bradley Chubb Proved To Be A Gem In 2017, Chubb became just the seventh consensus All-American in school history and earned the Bronko Nagurski Trophy (given to the nation's best defensive player). PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN