MORGANTOWN — Middle linebackers are to football what lions are to the jungle.
Simply put, they are the king of beasts.
Think of the names throughout history — Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert, Ray Nitschke and West Virginia’s own Sam Huff.
They act tough. They talk tough. They live tough.
They are tough.
It is a position that inflicts pain and it is a position that endures pain.
Ask Reed Williams.
He’s the latest in a long line of middle backers who deliver aches and feels them as well.
Lately, most of the pain has been his, but he now the end of the college road and, perhaps, his football career is in sight and hurting or not, he’s going to go after it the way only a middle linebacker would.
“You may have to tie me to the bleachers, rip off my legs, but I’m going to be out there as much as I can,” he said.
A year ago he had to redshirt when surgery to heal both his shoulders — a middle linebacker can’t hurt just one — failed to be complete, leaving in pain and unable to defend himself on the field.
This year he has come back but the constant pounding, from two-a-days in camp, from practice and from now a season that is eight games old, has him back in pain, limiting his repetitions last week as he readied for and played in the South Florida game.
“You wish you could put the season on pause, but you can’t, obviously,” he said.
The games go on.
Coach Bill Stewart is looking out for Williams’ future.
“If he is healthy, he will play every snap,” Stewart said, speaking of Saturday’s meeting with Louisville and beyond. “He is his own best doctor right now.”
And right now Williams says he feels fine, that the pain has subsided.
It must have, for they have begun to tease him again.
“They’re saying I’m old, that I’m made of glass,” Williams said, laughing at the thought. They wouldn’t be saying that if he were really suffering.
But five years is a long time to pound away on your body, especially on shoulders that been dislodged, on joints that have been stretched and pulled and torn.
“I know when I had my shoulders knocked down and separated, you just have to play,” said Stewart. “You have to suck it up and that is what he has done. People have to understand, we are going to Game 9. We hit hard, and it is a hard game. People get hurt.”
There is a difference between being hurt and being injured.
You can play hurt. You can’t play when you are injured.
And so it is they are trying to stretch out Williams’ availability in the middle. When the South Florida game started he was just playing third downs, passing downs. Then it was second and third downs. By the fourth quarter he was in on all three downs.”
He was playing hurt.
“I have confidence I can finish a game,” Williams said. “I only have a couple of games left here. I’m going to try to play every play I can.”
It isn’t that there is no confidence in his backup. Quite to the contrary, Anthony Leonard was a monster in replacing him against South Florida. He is big and strong and fast and going to be a truly fine player.
But Williams is the senior, the leader, a man who has that certain something that the great ones have.
“I know overall Reed is a better linebacker,” Leonard said. “He has the feel for where the ball is going to be. He just knows where the ball is going to be. He has a knack for the ball.”
This comes with experience. It comes with intelligence. It comes, to be honest, more naturally than through work.
It is that little extra advantage that the great players have, the wide receiver making that one extra move, the running back seeing where players will be rather than where they are.
It’s the same in every sport, a boxer sensing when a punch is coming before it is thrown, a batter knowing that he’s getting a fastball or a pitcher knowing he’s looking for one.
Williams understands the situation.
“The good thing is I have a powerful backup. Anthony Leonard played great Friday night. I’ll play when I can. It will be hard to keep me off the field over the next four games. I don’t have many left, so I’ll try to take full advantage,” he said.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN: Williams fighting for playing time
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