The Lead-Up to Game Time
The 2010 football season would be Coach Greg Schiano’s tenth at the helm of the Rutgers team, and while many Scarlet Knight fans appreciated how Coach had turned around a losing program that was once a national laughingstock, a vocal minority wanted to see a Big East conference championship year in and year out.
We didn’t know what to expect for the 2010 season. Some preseason pundits were saying that we could be in a “rebuilding year” despite 8–5 and 9–4 seasons in 2008 and 2009, while others believed we could be a Top 25 team and contend for the Big East championship.
Which way would the ball bounce?
I knew our defense would have to carry this team, but I thought our D was up to the task. We ranked right up there with the top programs during my sophomore year: we were No. 2 nationally in turnover margin, No. 4 in sacks, No. 15 against the run, No. 16 in scoring, and No. 18 in overall defense (out of 120 teams). Coach Schiano had us in an aggressive mind-set, and he liked to pull the trigger with blitzes. There was a great spirit on our side of the ball.
Although I had played nose guard throughout my sophomore year, Coach Schiano tweaked my position for the new season. He put me into a three-man rotation with Charlie Noonan, who played nose guard, and my roommate Scott Vallone, who played defensive tackle. The three of us would rotate between nose guard and defensive tackle.
Under this new system, Charlie and Scott would start off and play four or five plays, and then I would go in as a nose guard with Charlie coming off the field. Then I would rotate over to Scott’s position at defensive tackle and Charlie would come back in at nose guard. We were three men sharing two positions. It was innovative, kept us physically fresh, and forced opposing offenses to make adjustments for us.
Coach Schiano also decided to shake things up with the way we practiced. Every football team I had ever played on always practiced in the afternoon. Rutgers was no different. After morning classes, the players were expected to arrive at Hale Center at one o’clock, where a box lunch would be waiting for us in our lockers. We’d eat, get dressed, and go upstairs for a team meeting. Coach Schiano would talk about the practice the day before and what we needed to accomplish that day. Then we’d break up into a position meeting, where I gathered with other defensive linemen and defensive team coaches to watch film of our practice from the day before.
Talk about accountability. You could never loaf in practice.
Around 2:45, we’d start—warm-up, practice drills, offense versus defense scrimmage, and conditioning work. Depending on the weather, we either practiced outside or inside under a bubble dome. We’d usually wrap up by 5:15—or 5:30 at the latest—since a majority of players had night classes. After a dinner break, those who didn’t have night classes were expected to attend study hall and watch film of our next opponent.
There was no chance for downtime with that schedule. It was go-go-go until nine o’clock, when you could take a deep breath and wind down from the long day. It was a grind for the players.
Coach Schiano believed we were rushed throughout the day, and he was right. It did seem like we always had somewhere to go or somewhere to be. His solution: practice early in the morning.
Real early. As in starting-at-6-A.M. early. At first, my teammates couldn’t believe that Coach was doing this. College students weren’t used to getting up at the crack of dawn. We were all night owls, and we all had friends who pulled all-nighters.
But six o’clock was when we had to check in at the Hale Center for breakfast. After we were finished eating, we’d head downstairs to the locker room, where we would dress for our 7:15 team meeting. And then practice would follow the same schedule that we had for afternoons. We’d be off the field by 11:30 or 11:45.
Coach was always thinking proactively and outside the box. He also stressed the importance of giving back to the community, asking each team member to volunteer his time for a worthy cause.
Beau Bachety and Devon Watkis chose to volunteer their time visiting children at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick. They wore their scarlet Rutgers jerseys and called on brave children fighting life-threatening diseases like leukemia. Our players liked hanging out with the children, autographing Rutgers T-shirts, and posing for pictures. I hear they did an awesome job.
I chose the Special Olympics as my cause. During the summer leading into my junior season, I was among the twenty-six Scarlet Knights who helped kick off the 2010 Special Olympics with the opening ceremonies at the College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Each player walked with special athletes from the New Jersey county he came from: I was representing Middlesex County, so I accompanied a handful of participants from near my hometown. (If you were a Rutgers player from outside New Jersey, the organization assigned you to a county.)
Coach Schiano served as the honorary coach for Special Olympics and delivered an inspirational speech to open the games. Being part of the Special Olympics meant a lot to me because I felt we were changing lives. The participants looked up to me as an athlete in my red No. 52 jersey. Despite their physical limitations, they were willing to get out there and do their best. I loved their smiles, and from that summer on, I decided that I would always be a Special Olympics advocate.
Just one year later, Coach Schiano was unable to make the opening ceremonies because of a family conflict. I filled in for Coach and led the opening ceremony parade into the stadium, after which I addressed the athletes and their families from a stage lined with yellow mums.
This time, though, I spoke from my wheelchair.
Early Birds
There was a lot of grumbling among the players about moving practice to early mornings. When that alarm clock went off every day, I wanted to shoot the thing. But once I got going, got some breakfast in my stomach, and suited up for practice, I had a lot of energy to take on the day. And when the horn blew to mark the end of practice, that was the best feeling, too.
I didn’t have classes until 5 P.M., which gave me a good four to five hours to do whatever I wanted to do: go to study hall, watch game film of the other team, hang out with Rheanne, or go home and play FIFA—the video soccer game and my new favorite—on my Xbox 360. Or I could take a nap. There were days when I needed a refreshing snooze.
As a junior, I lived off-campus with Devon Watkis and Khaseem Greene, a linebacker from Elizabeth, New Jersey. We leased a house where I had my own bedroom and a nice queen-sized bed. Oh, and I should mention my first flat-screen TV, which Mom and Nicole got for me as an early birthday present. Getting our own place was a good way to teach me to manage my money because I had to help with the bills.
Even though there were changes in my life—practice times, my responsibilities on defense—one thing was constant for me with Rutgers football: my role on special teams. I heard Coach Schiano tell his assistants that my abilities on kickoff and kickoff return were assets that he didn’t want to take away from the team. I was our main man, the guy running down the field cracking heads and making a statement. I had always loved special teams and the camaraderie among us. There’s no other place I wanted to be when we were kicking off or receiving. Special teams were my forte.
The big question mark heading into my junior season was our offense. We struggled to move the ball in 2009, ranking far lower nationally than our stout defense. We were 89th in passing offense and 97th in total offense. It would be up to the defense to keep things close or hold on to a slim lead. In close games, special teams were often the difference between winning and losing, which is another reason why I took my responsibilities on the kickoff and kickoff return teams so seriously.
We started off the season with a soft touch on the schedule, a game against Norfolk State, a Division 1-AA school where the players are smaller and, presumably, not as talented. We played at home on a Thursday night before a big crowd, but we didn’t give our fans much to cheer about. Our offense couldn’t get untracked, and we were only leading 6–0 at the half.
We eventually put Norfolk State away, 31–0, but it wasn’t pretty. I played well on special teams and didn’t allow the Spartans any big runbacks on a half-dozen kickoff returns, but I didn’t play much on defense. I thought we were going to implement the new rotation, but my defensive coaches barely called my name.
The same thing happened against a lightly regarded Division 1 school, Florida International. We squeaked out a 19–14 win, but our offense continued to misfire. Although we won and had a 2–0 record, I was kind of down afterward since I didn’t get to contribute much on defense. Some rotation plan.
Two days later, Coach Schiano called me up to his office. At first, I wondered what I had done wrong, but Coach quickly put me at ease. “I was breaking down the film, and I realized that you’ve barely played this year. We’re going to fix that,” Coach said. He explained that our new defensive line coach didn’t understand the rotation system that he had installed into the game plan for Charlie, Scott, and myself.
“Don’t worry,” Coach said. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of action from here on out. We need you out there.”
It was great to hear Coach express confidence in me because I had started to question why I wasn’t playing. Now I could turn my full attention to our next opponent, North Carolina. The feeling on the Rutgers team was that this game against the Tar Heels would reveal how good we really were.
Our offense, led by quarterback Tom Savage, sputtered against North Carolina. We couldn’t run the ball, and our passing game couldn’t get untracked. Even though we led 10–7 at the half against North Carolina, we should have been ahead by two touchdowns. Time and again, the defense came up with big stops, producing turnovers to keep things close. I played a lot of snaps this time around.
We fell behind 17–13, but we were knocking on the door at the 6-yard line midway through the fourth quarter. Then disaster struck when Tom was intercepted on a poorly thrown pass on the 7-yard line. I rushed onto the field with the defense, and we held them to a three-and-out. A short punt had us back in business on the Tar Heels’ 34-yard line—great field position—but three incompletes and a sack meant we had to swallow a tough loss.
There was a lot of frustration in the locker room afterward because we had been pointing toward the North Carolina game since training camp started. It was like someone ripped the hearts out of our chests. We wanted to get back at them for whooping us on our home field my freshman year. But the plain truth is that we made too many mistakes, and they capitalized on them.
Then it was Groundhog Day all over again the following week: we lost our Homecoming Game to Tulane by a nearly identical score, 17–14. Once again we couldn’t run and couldn’t complete enough passes. Tom Savage was injured and replaced by true freshman quarterback Chas Dodd—meaning he didn’t redshirt during his first year of college. Tom performed well but threw a pick on our last drive of the game. The aggravation worsened when our kickoff return team sprung Joe Lefeged for a 95-yard return for a touchdown, but the scoring play was nullified by a holding penalty.
Coach had asked me the day before if I would join him, a couple of coaches, and two high school recruits from Pittsburgh after the game. This would be a great opportunity for me to do my part to build up the program at Rutgers. Following a steak dinner, Coach asked me to show the recruits around town.
I explained to the recruits that after we lose a tough game like that, nobody is in a mood to party. But we did drop by a party at a friend’s house, even though the mood was anything but celebratory.
“Do you guys want to go back to the hotel?” I asked after a short time.
“Sure,” said one recruit.
On the way back, I explained things this way: “When we win, it’s a good time around here, but when we lose, we really take it personally and get upset.”
“Yeah, we understand,” said the other recruit.
I dropped them off at the hotel and then went back home to sleep.
I’ll admit the Scarlet Knights were reeling after that pair of defeats. We could have been undefeated, but coulda and shoulda don’t count for much in football. We had to regroup quickly because we were playing the University of Connecticut on a Friday night on ESPN—and a national TV audience would be looking in.
Our great fans were always more crazy at televised night games, too. For the UConn game, they organized a “blackout,” which meant they would all arrive at Rutgers Stadium dressed in black T-shirts. There was something very intimidating about the wall of black the fans created in the stands. I knew our student section—some holding cardboard axes they used to “chop” after a big play—would be really fired up. I’ll take our “twelfth man” over any other student body.
We got things going our way in the first quarter with a quick stop on defense, which put the football into the hands of Chas Dodd, who was still subbing for the injured Tom Savage. Chas wasn’t afraid to take shots down the field; he was an aggressive playmaker who could make things happen. He was a competitor.
On the first set of downs, Chas dropped back and flung a 46-yard touchdown pass to give us a 7–0 lead—a great start for an offense that didn’t have many long bombs or long runs up to this point. Now we were kicking off. San San Te’s kick sailed toward the left—my side of the field.
I sprinted toward the end zone, but I had a double team coming at me. My job was to either split the double team, which means go through it, or stay to the outside. Instead I tried a fancy move and moved inside, but two blockers pushed me all the way inside, which opened up a huge hole. Next thing I knew, I heard their fans going crazy as UConn’s Nick Williams cut back through the hole and ran untouched on a 100-yard touchdown sprint. Just like that, it was 7–7, and our early lead was history.
I was fuming. A year earlier, UConn had another 100-yard run for a touchdown against us, and now this.
“Receiving team!” bellowed our special team coach, Robb Smith.
I was back on the field with the kickoff receiving team. I think everyone felt a bit ticked by UConn’s coast-to-coast touchdown run. This time it was our turn to create a running lane for Joe Lefeged. I had a key block that sprung him loose, and Joe nearly went all the way. He was chased down on UConn’s 14-yard line after dashing for 75 yards, and I remember running after him, screaming in delight after taking it back on UConn.
Rutgers versus UConn turned out to be one of those lead-changing contests between two well-matched teams. We found ourselves down a touchdown with under four minutes to go. Crunch time. Our young quarterback Chas Dodd stepped up and threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to tie the game 24–24, and then Chas connected on a 45-yard pass to set up the game-winning field goal. San San Te popped the ball through the uprights from 34 yards to give us our first lead with just 13 seconds left to play, and moments later we ran off the field with helmets high celebrating a 27–24 victory.
An epic home win like that made me feel a lot better, but I knew we couldn’t let mistakes on special teams happen again—not if we were going to make this a special season.
Army Rations
Coach Schiano was tough on me during the week of practice leading up to our next game against Army. But it wasn’t because of the long touchdown run by UConn following our kickoff.
Every year, Coach changed the defense whenever we played one of the service academies, Army or Navy. This time around, Coach wanted me to take a certain pivot step with my left or my right foot, depending on what side of the center I was on. It’s rather complicated to describe, but Coach instructed me to “read and react” to the direction the guard in front of me was going.
If their offensive guard went “out”—meaning he left his place on the line to block someone else—I had to resist the urge to follow him with my eyes but instead keep my vision focused on the gap he had just vacated. If the guard went “in,” meaning he stayed put and tried to block me, I had to ride him and win the position battle. If he veered up a little bit to take me in a different direction, then I would have to push him off and watch for the center coming back at me.
All these variations would happen in a half second, literally a blink of an eye. From this initial half-second read, I had to know exactly where to go. I wasn’t finding this part of the game easy. It was natural for my eyes to follow the guard because he was my man. But sometimes the guard was a decoy, and his job was to block me or keep me confused on where the play was going.
I studied these moves on film and thought I had them down, but in practice I had problems with my reads and pivoting my feet. Each time I made a mistake, Coach Schiano was all over me. He wasn’t upset, but he wasn’t letting anything slide.
Thankfully I was in much better shape by Thursday’s practice. I had watched enough film by then to know what to look for, so my pivot steps were much better. I knew I’d be ready to play on Saturday afternoon.
Our game against Army was a continuation of a series that began in 1891, and this would be the thirty-seventh time the two teams had met. Talk about evenly matched: our series was tied, 18–18. Even though this would be a home game for us, we wouldn’t be playing at Rutgers Stadium. Instead the game was set for the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The rationale behind playing at New Meadowlands—about an hour’s drive from Piscataway—was purely financial. The New Meadowlands Stadium Corporation offered Rutgers $2.7 million to bring the game to the new stadium, money that would help fund other sports programs at Rutgers—like Rheanne’s soccer team.
The reason that the word New was in front of Meadowlands was that the stadium had just opened a few months earlier. Built at a cost of $1.6 billion, the New Meadowlands Stadium was the home of the New York Jets and New York Giants and replaced the aging Giants Stadium, located on the same site. The new stadium seated 82,566 and came with all the bells and whistles. There were twenty giant high-def LED pylons at the north and east entrances that displayed videos of the players from both teams.
The Rutgers team stayed at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick, as per our custom every night before a home game. I usually roomed with Scott Vallone, but Coach Schiano wanted me to stay with Michael Larrow, a six-foot, three-inch, 258-pound defensive end who was a true freshman. The coaching staff asked me to mentor Michael, help him get mentally prepared for the game. He was still feeling his way with big-time Division I football.
Actually, I was a bit upset that my routine was thrown off. Not that I didn’t want to help Michael, but Scott and I had been football game roommates for a couple of seasons, and that was the pregame routine I was used to.
Breakfast wasn’t served until 8:30, so we were allowed to sleep in until 8 A.M., which, after nearly two months of early morning practice, felt like a luxury. I liked to keep breakfast light because there was always a pregame meal, so I had a toasted bagel with butter and a bowl of my favorite cereal, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. That would last me until our pregame meal at 10:15 A.M. Game time was set for 2 P.M.
There were the usual pregame nerves that morning—a mixture of excitement coupled with a focused attitude. We were going to war with a team that wanted to do the same thing we were trying to do—win a game.
After breakfast, we assembled in hotel conference rooms for our offense and defense meetings. Nothing unusual was discussed. Our defensive team coaches reviewed the adjustments we had made during the week for Army. They were having a good season: the Black Knights were riding high with a 4–2 record, while we were 3–2. It was the first time since 1993 that both teams entered the game with winning records.
Going into the game, Army was coming off a big 41–23 road win against Tulane—a team we had lost to two weeks previously—so the Battle of the Knights was a toss-up. With just one turnover in the last four games, Army was playing solid football. Their sophomore quarterback, Trent Steelman, who had started every game since he arrived at West Point, was a good asset for their team. Meanwhile, Chas Dodd was coming off his debut game against UConn and was playing with a great deal of confidence.
After our defensive team meeting, we had a fifteen-minute break before our pregame meal, so I went back to my room and opened my playbook to review our defensive formations and blitzes. I put on my headphones and listened to Lil Wayne on my iPod—I liked how hip-hop music pumped me up before big games, and Lil Wayne was one of my favorites.
A few minutes before 10:15 A.M., I went downstairs for our pregame meal. We were a little less than four hours before the opening kickoff—a time when you zone in. No more joking around or laughing. Cell phones turned off. Time to get locked and loaded.
I ate what I always did right before a game: lasagna, a piece of bread, and white rice. Carbo-loading. When I finished my last bite, I returned to my room to collect my belongings. Then we had a five-minute team meeting at 10:50, during which Coach Schiano gave us a motivational talk. As usual, he was really fired up.
“These guys aren’t your friends!” Coach bellowed. “They are out there to win a game just like you, and they are trained to go to war! So you better be ready at all times for anything because they will do anything to win!”
Got it, Coach.
After Coach Schiano was finished inspiring the troops, we boarded the team buses at 11 A.M. for the drive to New Meadowlands Stadium.
I was dressed in a coat and tie—attire that we usually wore for away games. Coach was always big about the spit and polish when we were on the road. “We are the class of college football,” he would always say. For home games, though, he wanted us in bright red Rutgers training outfits for the Scarlet Walk, but there was no Scarlet Walk at the Meadowlands. So, even though this was technically a home game for us, Coach Schiano was treating the game like an away contest.
As the buses pulled up to Giants Stadium—that’s what I still called the stadium, showing that old habits die hard—I saw all the amazing LED screens affixed to surfaces above the players’ entrance. The brilliant jumbo screens were the size of billboards and switched from one digital picture to another. I saw my teammate Antonio Lowery up there about twenty feet tall. He was one of our linebackers, one of our good players, but he was getting the star treatment. Wow, this is serious, I thought. We’re going to be playing in Giants Stadium.
I was excited for another reason: practically all my family was going to be there to watch me play. Normally players get only four complimentary seats, but when you added up the family and friends, I needed about twenty tickets. I got extra seats from out-of-state teammates who weren’t using their allotment.
On the family side, Mom was there; my sister, Nicole, and her fiancé, Kenrick Harrigan, and their son, Xavier; Auntie Cheryl and her husband, Uncle Ariel, plus their three kids: Jazmin, Aaron, and James; and my father, Donald McCloud. I appreciated that my dad was there. I didn’t see him much, but he was cordial with Mom, so he came with his brother, my Uncle Ricky, and my cousin Jackie Bonafide.
I had old friends from the neighborhood in my box, too. My old Pop Warner coach, Jack Nevins, came with his wife, Sue—the first time she would ever see me play at Rutgers—and their son John. The Liquori family sat in Mom’s section, too. I was practically raised on the heavenly pizza from Rocco’s Pizzeria, spun from the hands of Rocco Liquori. I grew up playing baseball with his son Alex.
Because of all the friends and family members, Mom went the extra step and hosted a tailgate party in the stadium parking lot before the game. Normally, she hopscotched to other tailgate parties when we played at home, where she hung out with Scott Vallone’s parents or Devon Watkins’s parents. But this time Uncle Ricky insisted on doing our own tailgate. Some folks brought the hot dogs and hamburgers, others brought the chips and dip, and some brought the beer and soda pop. They did things up right at Mom’s tailgate.
Mom left the tailgate early to watch us warm up inside the stadium. Scott Vallone and I had a tradition of taking the field around ninety minutes before kickoff in our “lowers”—pants and cleats—to stretch and limber up. Mom came down to the first row behind the Rutgers bench and tried to make eye contact with me. We had a little tradition worked out before every game: when our eyes met, she’d point at me, and I would nod my head.
I knew Mom would be out there, so I allowed my eyes to scan the nearly empty seats behind the Rutgers bench. That’s when I saw her happy face. When she noticed me looking in her direction, she waved her hand.
I nodded to her, and then I went about my business. I was already locked into the game.
An Early Lead
The New Meadowlands Stadium was about half filled (41,292 attended the game), but it didn’t feel that way. Fans occupied the field and mezzanine levels, leaving only the highest deck empty. Most in attendance were Rutgers fans; they were dressed in bright red and fired up to see us play on an NFL field.
My teammates were as keyed up to play in an NFL venue as our hard-core fans. Just before the opening kickoff, our defensive end Sorie Bayoh wielded an axe and ran around our sideline to pump us up. Even though our energy level was high, Army drew first blood with the Black Knights dominating the first half to take a 17–3 lead into the locker room. We only had ourselves to blame: a blocked punt by Army—a special teams play—and a recovery at our 12-yard line led to their first touchdown. Chas Dodd wasn’t getting the protection he needed, and we were making too many mistakes and getting hit with too many penalties.
There were some frustrated Scarlet Knights in the locker room at intermission, and Coach Schiano wasn’t in a gracious mood. He ripped into us about what we were doing wrong—missed assignments, lazy tackling, and ill-timed penalties. “There’s a whole half left, so we can’t worry about the fourth quarter now. We have to chop to each individual play one by one,” he said.
We kicked off to start the second half. Even though San San Te’s kick was short, we held Army’s return man Josh Jackson to a 17-yard runback. Then the Black Knights ran their triple option offense to perfection—three, four yards a pop—and advanced to our 24-yard line, with a third-and-four.
Army had rushed the ball down our throats eleven straight times, so you might say that I was expecting the run. Trent Steelman handed the ball off to Jared Hassin, and I was in the pile that stopped him for a one-yard gain.
Fourth-and-three from the 23 yard-line. Army was just outside their red zone. I expected the Black Knights to kick a field goal and take the three points, but their coach, Rich Ellerson, waved his offense back on the field. They were going for it. Perhaps Ellerson sensed that if Army made a first down, they’d work their way to the end zone. That would put us in a huge 24–3 hole, which would be a big ask for our young offense.
Then Steelman dropped back to pass! Our linebackers and corners were ready, and his pass fell incomplete.
That was the break we needed. Our offense mounted a twenty-one-play drive that took up the rest of the third quarter. I had never had such a long break in my life, sitting on the bench and resting up for the next series of downs.
I stood up, though, when Coach Schiano rolled his own set of dice on fourth down. It was fourth-and-two on Army’s 3-yard line, so technically we could still get a first down, but there was no doubt that Coach was going for six points.
Chas rolled to his right and hit Kordell Young in the end zone, and with the extra point, it was a one-score game, 17–10. All the momentum was on our side, and when our well-rested defense got a quick stop, the Scarlet Knights scored the tying touchdown with 5:16 to go on another Chas Dodd touchdown pass, this time to Mark Harrison.
“Kickoff team!” yelled Robb Smith, our special teams coach.
I jogged out on the field, reviewing the instructions my coaches had given me in the pregame meetings. The Army players were very precise and very tough on kickoff returns, which meant I could expect to be double-teamed. They were also aware from game film that I was one of the guys to watch out for.
“Go around to the outside and get right back in your lane,” Coach Smith told me. With his advice ringing in my ears, I knew exactly what to do to avoid the double-team. A tackle inside the 20-yard line would pin Army back deep in their own territory.
The time was 4:46 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, on October 16, 2010—a moment that will forever be etched in my mind.