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Playmakers abound in 2001 class
LUT WILLIAMS How do you top 437 rushing yards by one player in one game? How about passing for 551 yards and four TDs in the same contest? These were some of the performances last weekend by black college football players. They were more than just outstanding they were record-breaking. After a year in which black college football produced the NCAA Div. I (Florida A&M's Jacquay Nunnally) and Div II (Virginia State's Damon Thompson) career receptions leaders, it looks like there's more where they came from. North Carolina A&T running back Maurice Hicks set the single-game Mid Eastern Athletic Conference and NCAA Div. I rushing record when he rumbled for the aforementioned 437 yards this weekend in a 52-42 loss to Morgan State. But breaking records is nothing new for Hicks. The senior set and then broke the MEAC single-game mark last year when he rambled for 259 yards vs. Hampton and then came back to get 353 (and six TDs) against South Carolina State. He finished last year with 1,497 rushing yards and 15 TDs. His 176.5 yards per game this season tops all Div. I-AA rushers.
And speaking of sophomores, Jackson State's Robert Kent put up the 595 yard passing total and the six touchdowns Saturday in a loss to Alabama State. Kent, who as a freshman threw 27 touchdown passes in just eight games, has 18 TDs so far this season in just four games. That's a pace that would give him 49 or 50 on the season, the second best total in NCAA history just behind Mississippi Valley State's Willie "Satellite" Totten's 1984 record 56 and ahead of Alcorn State's Steve McNair's 44 in 1994. Kent currently leads all of I-AA in touchdown passes and total offense (421.5 ypg.). His counterpart 'Saturday was ASU's Darnell Kennedy, who led his team to a 61-58 win over JSU. Kennedy finished last year as the black college total offense leader (322.3 ypg.). He's just rounding into form after missing the first game of the season with academic troubles. He's second in the SWAC in passing yards at 195.3 per game. For versatility, perhaps no one is better in black college football this year than another sophomore, Bethune-Cookman quarterback, Allen Suber. The youngster is making it easy for Wildcat faithful to forget about dazzling QB PaTell Troutman, who departed last season after four very productive years. Suber is passing for 221 yards per game and running for another 63. Those 284 yards per game place him first in MEAC total offense stats and 14th in I-AA. As for the receivers, obviously Kent has to have someone catching the missiles he's being throwing, and that's no other than T. C. Taylor, the guy who started the three games at QB for JSU last year before Kent took over. At 6-5, 224 pounds, Taylor is big, but also fast (4.4 in the 40). He's used that combination to haul in 32 passes in four games for 534 yards and eight TDs. Taylor's currently at the head of a talented class of senior receivers. Teammate Lawrence Story (6-6, 205) also has pro-like tools (4.5 in 40). After a slow start, Story has 23 catches in four games. Southern's dynamic duo of 6-5 Michael Hayes and 6-3 Devin Lewis was cut in half when Hayes was knocked out for the year in the Jaguars first game. Lewis has soldiered on without Hayes, catching 27 passes for 551 yards in five games. He has six TDs and leads all black college receivers with 20.4 yards per reception.
OTHERS MAKING PLAYS Orlando Wiley, Sr., RB, Fort Valley State has rushed for over 200 yards twice this season and is among the top five in Div. II with 162.3 rushing yards per game. Brad Hill, Jr., RB, Grambling has put life into the Tigers' running attack with 126.5 yards per game and nine TDs in four games. Shannon Harris, Sr., QB, Tennessee State has averaged 250 passing yards per game while leading TSU to a 4-0 start. Bobby Wilson, Jr., RB, Tuskegee, is averaging 135 yards rushing per game and has scored six TDs in four games. © 2001 Azeez Communications, Inc.
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And
how can you pass for 595 yards, six touchdowns and still lose? You get upstaged
by the opposing quarterback's five TD tosses in the same game.
The
quarterback that overshadowed Hicks this weekend was little-known Lejominick
Washington of Morgan State. All this 6-4, 200-pound sophomore from Magnolia,
N. J., did was pass for 551 yards, the second-best total in MEAC history. He added
three rushing touchdowns and a two-point conversion to have a hand in 44 of his
team's 52 points. Washington's not even in the MEAC's passing stats yet.
