Football: UL’s McGuire wastes no time delivering

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, September 19, 2013

Due to confusion over whether 2012 was his junior or senior season, Vandebilt Catholic coach Brad Villavaso’s mailbox still is getting stuffed with recruiting letters – and his voicemail still gets filled with recruiting messages – intended for Elijah McGuire.

One problem.

The kid already is playing at UL, and already making waves with the 1-2 Ragin’ Cajuns.

“I tell them, ‘If you want to recruit him, you need to call Mark Hudspeth,’ ” Villavaso said.

Good luck trying to pry McGuire from Hudspeth, UL’s third-season coach.

In just the third game of his true-freshman season, last Saturday’s 70-7 win over Nicholls State of the FCS Southland Conference, McGuire – son of Marion McGuire, and born in Houma as the youngest of six children – merely ran nine times for three touchdowns and a game-high 138 yards.

That made him just the 11th true freshman in UL history to rush for 100-plus yards in a game.

A hallmark 42-yard TD run in the third quarter — dragging in his wake Colonels defender Treavon Evans, who fruitlessly tugged on his No. 22 jersey – already has a place in UL lore.

With 19 carries, the reserve running back is averaging a team-high 8.7 yards per rush.

But with junior Alonzo Harris UL’s starter, McGuire has Hudspeth and his Cajun coaching staff pondering creative ways to get him the ball as they prepare to visit Akron of the MAC on Saturday night.

“He is,” Hudspeth said when asked this week if Harris still is his No. 1, “but we’re gonna try to get (McGuire) some more touches wherever we can.”

The fact he’s getting any at all at UL is a tale of trust and patience in the pursuit of a largely overlooked recruit who arguably belongs at a high-level SEC program rather than one in the Sun Belt Conference.

All this despite the fact McGuire led all Louisiana high school runners in rushing with 2,603 yards on 223 carries and producing 31 touchdowns while playing quarterback for an 11-2 team on the bayou.

“I know exactly what it looks like,” Villavaso said of what McGuire did Saturday. “That’s the guy we watched, the same guy doing the same stuff.”

The Cajuns landed McGuire largely because they did what others wouldn’t.

“A lot of it more than anything was probably academics,” Hudspeth said. “We stayed with him, and we felt like we had a plan from the start.

“He followed through with everything he had to do to get eligible … whether it’s core classes, all those things. He had a lot of catching up to do.”

When McGuire was in eighth grade, according to Villavaso, he didn’t meet residential eligibility requirements that would have permitted him to play for Vandebilt Catholic’s varsity team.

Yet it was clear to him then that McGuire “was the best athlete we had” – in the whole school.

So he played only in eighth-grade games, which apparently wasn’t very fair – to him, or the competition.

Villavaso recalls one game in which McGuire ran four times for 350 yards and four touchdowns. Like so many other times that season, he was removed after only a few carries.

“Every time he touched it he went in the end zone, it seemed like. … he just ran away,” Villavaso said. “We knew then he was gonna be really good.”

By last year, after an injury-hampered 2011 season, he was beyond good.

But that was on the field.

Off of it, he lacked core classes and an ACT score that would put him on track to be NCAA-eligible when national signing day arrived last February.

McGuire, however, was too old to play in what academically would have been a 2013 senior season.

“That probably gave him a little more motivation to get his work done,” Hudspeth said.

McGuire dedicated himself to getting qualified and making this season his first in college.

“To anybody who didn’t know the kid personally and didn’t know about his character, you would probably say, ‘Well, this kid can’t this done in this amount of time,’ ” said UL offensive line coach Mitch Rodrigue, McGuire’s primary recruiter.

“But,” Rodrigue added, “it’s a tribute to him and his school and his counselors that he was able to get to work, and they put him in the right classes, and put him on track to graduate.”

“The most incredible thing about this boy is he finished college prep school in three years,” Villavaso said. “He knew he needed to get on his studies. I told him, ‘If you can do in the school building what you do on the field, you can make it.’ And he was incredible.”

McGuire doubled up on core courses, and – only after signing with the Cajuns – he scored a more-than-acceptable 22 on the ACT.

“We made a plan for him,” Villavaso said. “I told him it was gonna be hard as hell, but, ‘You’re gonna be lost in the shuffle if you don’t do it. … You’ve got to be totally committed.’

“I am telling you: The boy committed to it. … It was unreal what he did.”

Villavaso sensed McGuire had it in him.

The coach told recruiters – many of them friends – they needed to understand that.

“They all looked at his grades and said, ‘I don’t know how he’s gonna do it,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘Whichever one of y’all waits on him, you’re gonna get a dynamic player.’ ”

UL waited.

Not everyone did.

“All the others who did not wait, like LSU and other schools, I said, ‘You’re gonna miss out,’ ” Villavaso said. “(The Cajuns) believed in me. They believed in Elijah.”

The Cajuns’ trust stems largely from familiarity with Villavaso, whose two stints as head coach at Vandebilt Catholic were split by time as an Ole Miss graduate assistant from 2007-08.

He and Rodrigue played together at Nicholls State, and one ex-teammate knew what the other had as soon as he started to follow him.

Rodrigue, Hudspeth and Villavaso also were all assistant coaches together at Nicholls State in the mid-1990s, when the Colonels’ defensive coordinator was current UL outside linebackers coach David Saunders.

“You turn on the tape, and obviously you see a fabulous athlete and a dynamic football player,” Rodrigue said. “But when you get to meet the kid, when you get to meet him personally, you find out there’s a lot more.

“There’s a desire, a lot of potential, a lot of heart, a lot of character.”

Rodrigue said UL’s decision was based on “the relationship I had with (Villavaso), and him telling me, ‘Hey Mitch, he’s gonna get it done; don’t back off; I promise you, in the end he’ll get his grades and he’ll do what he’s supposed to do.’ ”

Such decisions are case-by-case, Hudspeth suggested.

“If you like the player, you evaluate his transcript and see if he’s gonna be eligible,” he said. “Then you’ve got to decide if you think this player is gonna make it – because you can’t afford to offer somebody that may not.

“That happens sometimes, but you don’t want it to happen very often. And he (McGuire) was that good. We were willing to take a chance with him.

“A lot of times if you’re an out-of-state coach coming in you don’t really have time to dig around academically,” he added. “We’re close enough that we could … thoroughly evaluate, and we just felt like we could make it happen.”

The Cajuns are oh-so-glad they did.

“He’s a very talented young man,” Hudspeth said.

The UL coach says he knew what he had “probably the first day” of preseason training camp last month.

“It doesn’t take long to find players,” he said.

The telltale sign in this case: “Just that burst of speed.”

“He changes gears,” Hudspeth said, “and just slingshots himself through the line of scrimmage.

“He’s got the ability to put his foot in the ground and change direction with one step. He doesn’t chop his feet to go the other way … and he has great vision and lateral movement.

“Another thing we noticed early was his ball skills,” added Hudspeth, who watched McGuire catch a 31-yard wheel-route toss to the 1-yard line from quarterback Terrance Broadway in a season-opening loss at Arkansas. “His ball skills (are) phenomenal.”

Villavaso, who is sure McGuire is SEC talent, knows about all of it.

“When he sticks his foot in the ground, he’s going the other way at the same speed. … His power and his agility were just out of this world for us,” he said. “He has the ability to make people miss and at the same time has the power to run through tackles.”

Though Hudspeth required just one day, running backs coach Marquase Lovings needed longer.

“The second scrimmage he started really coming around and understanding what was going on,” the running backs coach said. “That first scrimmage, he put the ball on the ground a couple times.

“But that second scrimmage you started to see him change directions, make people miss, the explosion from one cut to another. You started seeing some things that really made you go, ‘Wow, this guy can help us right now.’ ”

That said, Lovings and the Cajuns didn’t want to overload McGuire.

He had three carries for 12 yards at Arkansas, seven for 17 yards in a loss at Kansas State, then the nine against Nicholls State.

“I never want to put him in a position where’s he’s unsuccessful, or he’s not successful, on the field, because he’s just a freshman,” Lovings said. “His mind’s very young. And he’s eager to do stuff. But you always, with a guy that’s very young, never want to hurt his confidence.

“The second thing is knowing what he’s doing,” Lovings added. “God gave him physical tools that you and me don’t have. But … now he has to just put (together) the mental part of knowing where to go and how we want it done.”

Teammates seem certain he can.

“Elijah, he made some big runs for us Saturday. Like Coach Hudspeth (would say), ‘Big, big-time runs,’ ” starting offensive tackle Mykhael Quave said. “The future for him – the sky’s the limit.

“For him to start pressing the play play-side, and then cut it back when he sees a hole open, even if it’s a small hole, barely enough room for him to get through – he’s getting through those holes. The first three steps, boom, boom, boom, and he’s out and starting to break. That, from a freshman, is amazing.”

As Lovings sees it, vision separates good running backs from great ones.

Despite flawed eyesight that prompted him to get glasses for off-field use in high school, McGuire has it.

“You can be a snail or a cheetah. But if you see the hole, you’ll get through there,” Lovings said. “And he sees it. He’s a cheetah, but he has great vision. He has great, great vision.”

Lovings understands that the more McGuire is seen, temptation to make comparisons is ratcheted.

Fans and coaches alike bandy about names of NFL retirees.

But he tries to steer clear.

“That’s probably too early,” Lovings said. “I think I’ve got to treat Elijah like Elijah. Elijah can be only the best Elijah can be, and that’s what we’re trying to do every day with him.

“Each times he steps on the field he’s getting better and better. So I’m gonna just focus on him continuing to evolve.”

Still, Lovings understands the lure.

“He created that conversation with his play on Saturday,” he said. “People, they’re obviously going, ‘Who is that kid?’ or ‘Wow, look at him’ and maybe make comparisons.

“I think as a human being he’s got to remain humble and come out here to work. Because that was one game vs. an opponent we were better than.

“Now (Akron) is an opponent that is probably even-matched with us. Let’s go out and do the same thing,” he added. “Then the next step is a big-time game. Will he show up in a big-time game, in a big-time atmosphere, for a Sun Belt championship or a big-time Sun Belt game? … We’re gonna continue to make those steps. But I think the reality is it’s just one game.”

Lovings’ other reality is that McGuire isn’t his only running back.

Harris was 2011 Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, and the power back ran for 881 yards last season, including 120 with two touchdowns in UL’s 2012 New Orleans Bowl-win over East Carolina.

“I have trust in that guy,” Lovings said. “He’s started for us 20-some-odd games, and the first play (against Nicholls State) he went for 65 yards (and a TD).

“It’s starting to be really dangerous back there, if you miss a tackle as a defensive player. Because both of those guys are capable of striking out any distance.”

Then there’s Torrey Pierce, who had two touchdowns against Nicholls State, and Effrem Reed, relegated to a mostly third-down role after being UL’s No. 2 rusher in 2012.

“There’s something special going on in my room,” Lovings said.

“The guys have to humble themselves and really buy into the team concept of what we’re trying to do. That’s what’s going to win a Sun Belt championship.”

If there’s one thing McGuire is not shy on, it apparently is humility.

Hudspeth doesn’t allow true freshmen to be interviewed.

But McGuire did talk to a local paper, the Tri-Parish Times, last summer.

“Back in my early days, I really didn’t understand what it took to get the school side of it down,” he said then. “I would always procrastinate or try to just wing it without doing the work. When I really looked at it like I did my sports and said to myself, ‘Yo, Elijah, you have to work at this to be good at it,’ that is when I got the results I wanted.

“I just thank God so much for giving me all of the blessings that I have in my life. Throughout my whole time at Vandebilt, I had so many people who just always had my back no matter what. … For the rest of my life, I’ll stay grateful to those people.”

More than the academics, and even more than his athletic accomplishments, it’s off-field actions that maybe most endear McGuire to Villavaso.

The Vandebilt Catholic coach proudly shares an anecdote about McGuire being praised by a UL coach for being the kid who picks up stray dining-hall trays rather than one of the ones leaving his on the table.

“Thank God for Mark (Hudspeth) and all those guys over there,” he said, “that they believed in him.”