To understand what is going on at East Tennessee State right now, you’re going to have to be able to reflect … and project. The Bucs are one of the most unique stories in the FCS this year.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Hear ETSU coach Randy Sanders and Wofford coach Josh Conklin talk to HERO Sports' Brian McLaughlin below this story or on the FCS Coaches Corner page[divider]
Right now, there are 11 “Redshirt Seniors” who can look back to 2014 when they signed on to restart a football program and hit practice dummies and themselves for an entire fall. That’s the reflection part.
When it comes to projecting, you need to put yourself in the mindset of these same seniors and try to envision being in their shoes in say, 40 years. What moments will they look back on? Will it be playing a football game at NASCAR’s Bristol Motor Speedway? Or could it be battling the mighty Tennessee Volunteers at Rocky Top – the iconic towering stadium on the Tennessee River that every young football player who grows up in the Volunteer State dreams of playing on?
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Or maybe it’s the fact these seniors already have clinched a winning regular season for ETSU for the first time in nearly two decades? The Bucs went a decade without football from 2004-14, with the last winning season coming when the current seniors were toddlers and the current freshmen weren’t even walking yet – 2001.
All of the above is and will be memorable – but what they’ll likely remember most is the next month of the 2018 season, and whether the 6-1 Bucs can finish what they’ve started. They’ve won close ball games, are undefeated against the FCS – and this weekend they’ll have to go through a tough (and ticked off) Wofford team if they want to inch closer to a potential Southern Conference title and the first FCS Playoff spot at the school in 22 years.
Three of those 11 seniors talked about it with HERO Sports.
“I always joke around with (quarterback) Austin (Herink) that we could probably write a pretty good book about how bizarre this has been,” LB Austin Gatewood said. “Not too many people can say they played a college football game in a NASCAR stadium. Looking back 40 years from now, I think we’ll still say this wasn’t your typical college football experience. It’s been awesome so far, and I’m excited I can tell my kids and my grandkids one day about these experiences.”
ETSU started from scratch in the truest sense. In 2014, it did something that a couple of other FCS programs were doing around the same time. Kennesaw State was starting up a program and had one full fall of drilling without a game. Mercer restarted its football program after a nearly 70-year hiatus. Stetson opted to go the non-scholarship route, but did many of the same things to get the engine firing with football after its own 60-year hiatus.
It was tough at all of the schools. Freshmen were asked to hit and hit and hit with no reward of hitting somebody wearing a different color … with zero fans cheering in the stands. What is this, the Twilight Zone? Hello? Is anybody there? The glory of Saturdays didn’t happen in 2014, but all of the sweating and bruises and running … yeah, that part was still happening.
It made this group tougher. Maybe even meaner, in a good way — if there is a good way to be mean.
If you know anything about Johnson City, Tenn., you also know all about the nearby Appalachian Mountains. And if you know anything about the Appalachians, you know what granite is. Mining is a whole lot like recruiting. You mine football talent like you mine one of the toughest stones out there, and you hope those rocks – and recruits — can stand up to the pressures and struggles.
ETSU’s “Granite Boys” didn’t have any upperclassmen to give them guidance. Their first season in 2015, they took it on the chin in games at Montana State, and against an NEC team like St. Francis. They are teams the Bucs can clearly play with if not beat today.
The Granite Boys held firm, and today are enjoying the benefits of sticking around and weathering it all.
“Honestly, we really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into at that time,” said starting center Matt Pyke, who has started every single game of ETSU's second stint – 40 to be exact. “We were all going to learn what college football was all about at the exact same time. It’s all kind of a weird feeling. It feels like I just got here but at the same time sometimes it feels like I’ve been here forever. There are a lot of memories here.”
[credit] Dakota Hamilton/ETSU Athletics[/credit]
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Linebacker Dylan Weigel, who might as well be renamed Mr. Tackle, led the nation in solo tackles that first year. That’s right … not just ETSU, not just the SoCon, the country. He was a redshirt freshman atop the leaderboard way back in 2015. It’s not like it was anything new for the guy, as he set high school records at Pickerington North HS in Ohio for career tackles and single-season. Well, he’s replicated that feat in college at ETSU. He and Pyke are past 40 career starts and they still have half a season plus a potential postseason to go.
“It’s nice to be able to ask questions, and that was one of the toughest things for me when we got here is not having that, not having upperclassmen to help us learn how college practices are supposed to be,” Weigel said. “Now we’re able to kind of show these freshman and younger guys what it’s like.”
That has been one of the nice things about this year’s ETSU team. While there is definitely a key, grizzled core of upperclassmen helping set the tone, there is also a ton of talent with the underclassmen. That blend has translated into success.
The “old men” on the team just sit back and smile when they think about how far things have come.
“I like to joke with (defensive coordinator) Coach (Billy) Taylor,” Gatewood said. “I tell him we are just like a bunch of 2001 Toyota Forerunners with a lot of mileage but we’re still running. I mean, you have guys like us, and then you have younger guys like Tyree Robinson doing backflips out there with so much energy. We just feel like those old trucks with 200,000 miles, but we’re still out there.
“And I’m excited to see how much better we can get.”[divider]
The 11 "Granite Boys"
Cory Colder – RB
Dylan Dockery – TE
Alonzo Francois – LB
Austin Gatewood – LB
Asley Haynes – OL
Austin Herink – QB
Keanu James – DB
Adam Mullins – LS
Matt Pyke – OL
Mike Scates – OL
Dylan Weigel – LB
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Listen to "Coaches Corner: East Tennessee State Coach Randy Sanders" on Spreaker.
Listen to "Coaches Corner: Wofford Coach Josh Conklin" on Spreaker.