Area of Concern for Western Carolina Coach Spells Big Day for Jefferson, Sanders

Arkansas is not the team to line up again when worried whether the Catamounts have mastered this particular skill

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Aug 11, 2023 1:57 AM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Tucked behind a stand of pine trees with a few hardwoods mixed in just off State Route 107 in the mountains of North Carolina sits Western Carolina University.

Technically the town in which it resides is called Cullowhee, a few miles to the Southeast of Maggie Valley, a town that once housed a Dogpatch USA like theme park called Ghost Town in the Sky where people from the area could ride a chairlift to the top of a mountain to watch Old West shootouts and take a ride on the Red Devil. Cullowhee is so small that the university basically is the town. Counting everyone associated with the school, the town is the same size as Warren for those of you in the southern part of Arkansas, or slightly larger than Berryville for those of you in the north.

It's the kind of place where there's nothing for a coach to do except lose himself in football, which may not exactly be the best thing for Catamounts head coach Kerwin Bell. The former South Florida offensive coordinator said in a video posted on catamountsports.com that the No. 1 focus for his defense is learning how to tackle. A lot of time has apparently been spent on working on technique.

Struggling with tackling three weeks before the season opener with an SEC team is never a good sign for any school, much less an FCS program. Struggling with such a basic skill with Arkansas on the other side of the ball is the stuff of nightmares. It takes a lot for the Razorbacks to gain the respect of the national media, but quarterback KJ Jefferson and running back Raheim "Rocket" Sanders have done just that. The two are on pretty much every watch list for which a player at their position can be eligible.

However, it's the list that doesn't come with a trophy that is going to keep Bell up at night. The SEC is known as a rough and tumble league, and Takeo Spikes, one of the toughest linebackers to ever play in the conference, knows rough and tumble when he sees it. That's why the SEC Network tasked him to come up with the five players in the league whom even the baddest of players will have a hard time tackling, and 40% of that list will be standing in the backfield against Western Carolina in Little Rock Labor Day Weekend.

Highlight after highlight shows that when the 6-foot-3, 240 pound Jefferson looks like he's about to be taken down, the play has just started. It's truly reached a point of absurdity over time. There's a highlight around the 2:20 mark that should be played on loop in the Western Carolina locker room, along with a montage of Jefferson finishing plays falling forward while being hit by multiple players at once.

It also probably does Bell's health no favors to see reports that Sanders, who put up numbers on par with eventual Doak Walker Award winner Bijan Robinson of Texas, has gained weight while also increasing his speed. Of course there was room for doubt that reports were just unfounded preseason hype until this video dropped earlier this week.

The idea that the man who almost single-handedly ran through Alabama to erase a 28-point deficit, plowing over defensive greats like Tide linebacker Will Anderson along the way, has even more power and speed to go with his 6-foot-2, 240 pound frame must terrify the Western Carolina defense. The Catamounts' practice highlights show smaller, slower, less powerful backs running though weak tackles over and over. Seeing highlight reels like this and knowing it's going to be even harder this season isn't going to excite the Western Carolina linebacking corps, much less the defensive backs who have to catch their slack.

"We need to tackle better, I'll just go back to that," Bell said. "That comes with just swarming to the ball. I like the way we showed that in our first live practice."

Unfortunately for the Catamounts, there's just no way to practice, even in the limited live tackling sessions teams can have these days, for the sheer power, speed and elusiveness of Jefferson and Sanders. If there's one bright side for Bell, it's that offensive coordinator Dan Enos will be looking to establish Jefferson as more of a passer while working on reads and limiting his quarterback's exposure to the injuries suffered the past couple of years that hampered the Hogs at times.

However, even with the adjustments to the offensive philosophy, a game against two of the most powerful runners in all of college football on a steaming hot day in early September is no way to find out if your FCS team learned how to tackle during its pleasant 70-degree preseason workouts.