The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/535299
78 ■ THE WOLFPACKER FOOTBALL PREVIEW 2015 BY MATT CARTER P atience. Process. Building. Teaching. Those are words that defensive line coach and run-game coordinator for defense Ryan Nielsen uses constantly when assessing his unit in the lead-up to the 2015 season. There is another word, too: Talented. A major reason for the cautious approach is the overwhelming youth on the defensive line. The Pack lost three crucial seniors from last year's team: end Art Norman, and tackles T.Y. McGill and Thomas Teal. That has left Nielsen with just one senior and one junior among the scholarship defensive linemen. The rest are freshmen and sophomores. "A focal point of ours is staying positive with the guys," Nielsen said. "We've got some talented players, we've just got to be patient with them and continue teaching and coaching them daily." Compounding the challenges of the youthful roster were a rash of injuries that forced several key players to miss all or most of spring practices, including the lone two upperclass- men in fifth-year senior end Mike Rose and junior tackle Monty Nelson. Sophomore tackle Justin Jones joined those two in missing all 15 spring practices, and redshirt freshman end Deonte Holden went down after a few workouts. Thus it is not surprising, as Nielsen noted, that spring practices had its ups and downs. "Honestly it started out pretty slow," Nielsen admitted. "After our first few practices, it wasn't very good. We had three guys that have never started a football game before on the first team and a bunch of guys that have never played on the second team. Over the first three practices and coaching them how we wanted to play technique football, that was new to them, and that's to be expected. "When practice four hit, they seemed to be more comfortable, seemed to grasp the transformation and what we were asking them to do over repetitions because after three practices that was a lot of reps for a lot of new guys. After three practices it started to click. I'm not saying we were the Green Bay Pack- ers after practice four, but you could see confidence just building; fundamentals and techniques were building and improving, and it took off from there." DEFENSIVE LINE BUILDING PROCESS A Young But Talented Front Will Require Patience ■ By The Numbers 1 Number of scholarship senior de- fensive linemen on the roster. 1 Number of scholarship junior de- fensive linemen on the roster. 15 Number of scholarship fresh- men and sophomore defensive linemen on the roster. Sophomore defensive tackle B.J. Hill will look to build off an impressive rookie season in which he recorded 40 tackles, including 7.5 for loss and 1.5 sacks, while making five starts. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN