By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — It starts as he boards the bus each week for the stadium and, Chris Neild knows, it will happen again as he and his West Virginia University Mountaineer teammates drive out of Lakeview Resort and head toward Milan Puskar Stadium for their annual rumble with Marshall.
“Butterflies,” Neild says. “I get them on the bus on the way over. They go away when we get nearer the stadium.”
That’s right, Chris Neild may be 300 pounds — “298,” he corrects, but that was before dinner — and he still gets butterflies before a football game.
Or is it really butterflies?
“There’s enough room for bats to be flying around in there,” the Mountaineer nose guard says with the kind of hearty laugh that only someone his size can have.
Whatever, butterfly or bat, it’s still a sign that he is human.
There are those who play against him who would doubt it, for he is quietly putting together a season that is as big as he is.
The West Virginia defensive line has been playing with Scooter Berry’s arm tied behind their back, the defensive tackle having gone down three games ago with a shoulder injury that is still not yet 100 percent.
Players such as Josh Taylor and Jorge Wright and Julian Miller have had to rise up to cover the loss, although you really can’t ever cover for what Berry brings in the form of big-play ability and leadership.
“It’s a burden not having him out there, but we can fill the void,” Neild said.
They are filling it mainly because Neild has been able to expand his game.
“I can only tell you that Chris Neild is playing like you should play the game,” coach Bill Stewart said this week. “He is having fun, he is leading and he is playing hard.”
Let us put a asterisk there at playing hard, for you can’t imagine just how hard he is playing. Stewart got an idea of it at halftime of the East Carolina game when he saw Neild going at it with his jersey half ripped off, tearing it off at halftime for another.
“He is relentless in his effort,” the coach said.
Neild, it turns out, goes through jerseys the way Owen Schmitt used to go through facemasks.
It’s two a game now, mostly because of what he goes through in the dirtiest, most thankless job in all of football, that of a nose guard.
You are attacked — and that is the proper word — by two players on every play. There is no glory, for it isn’t often you make a tackle, but then that isn’t your job.
“I understand my role as part of the defense,” Neild said. “I know it’s my job to create space for the linebackers to make plays. That’s what I do. If I have two guys on me, I know someone’s free.”
Offensive linemen will do whatever they can get away with to get Neild out of the way so Reed Williams can be blocked.
And what they do isn’t always legal. Those shirts aren’t ripping by themselves. Someone is hanging onto them quite tightly.
“I don’t know. Maybe I breathe too heavily, but I get my jerseys ripped,” he said, quite sarcastically. “It gets dirty at my position. There’s two and three guys on me. It gets physical.”
And sometimes it gets personal.
“I take it personal getting locked up on a block and having the guard come and cut me (at the knees). That really ticks me off. It doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does, it gets personal.”
See, it doesn’t matter how strong you are, for you are really no stronger than an ACL, if you want to stay on the field.
The holding? Well, that’s just a frustration that comes with the position.
“I don’t like to get held,” Neild said. “I try my best to escape that, but it happens. I just got to keep moving.”
Maybe once a game it’s called by the officials, but how many times does it happen in a game?
Neild looked around the room in Puskar Center, a room filled with media, coaches and players.
“You could probably count all the fingers in this room right now and not have enough. It happens a lot,” he said.
This week Neild is going to have to do an extra special job of freeing up the linebackers, for Marshall comes to town with the nation’s No. 2 running back, Darius Marshall, who averages 140-plus yards a game.
Can West Virginia stop him?
Last year, he gained 45 against the Mountaineers.
It’s highly possible he’ll have some butterflies on the way to the stadium, too.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
