Central Michigan University Athletics
Cherocci Leads Solid Group of Linebackers
4/18/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
During spring practice, each assistant coach will be "Mic'd Up" for a practice and do an exculsive interview with CMUChippewas.com. Today's featured coach is Kyle Nystrom.
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – From position to position, there aren’t a significant number of holes to fill personnel-wise on the Central Michigan University football team.
The vast majority of the starters from last year’s 6-6 team return, as do several key backups.
One spot where there are shoes to fill – significant ones, at that – is in the linebacking corps, where Shamari Benton, CMU’s second-leading tackler in each of the past two seasons, has graduated.
Benton combined with Justin Cherocci to form a solid and dependable duo in the middle over the past two years. Both earned third-team All-Mid-American Conference honors in 2013.
Cherocci, CMU’s top tackler in each of the past two seasons, is back for his senior season in what is unfolding as an outstanding collegiate career.
A year ago, he was named CMU’s Defensive Upfront Co-Player of the Year and was the MAC’s top tackler. As a sophomore, he earned team Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors when he was fifth in the MAC and 19th nationally with 132 total tackles. If he remains healthy and compiles the same kind of numbers he has over the past two seasons, he will leave his mark as one of the top 10 tacklers in CMU history.
“He’s got a different sense about him,” Nystrom said. “He doesn’t talk a whole lot, but he’ll start grabbing things and moving forward when he has to.
“He’s just a guy that’s hard to block. He’s just got a knack, he slips things, and he’s been playing long enough that he’s got a pretty good understanding of how we address the scheme, where our fits are, our wall concepts and our underneath coverage.
“It’ll be big for him to do what he did last year, repeat as the leading tackler in the league. That’ll be up to him.”
A trio of players, all with significant game experience, will join Cherocci in senior Cody Lopez and juniors Nathan Ricketts and Tim Hamilton.
“All those guys will play,” said Nystrom, who is in his fifth season as the assistant head coach/special teams/linebackers coach. “How much they play is up to them. We’ll put the best guys out there, the ones who will produce, the ones who will make the plays.
“The top four linebackers? They should all be able to play and win you games. Absolutely.”
Redshirt freshman Jeff Perry has joined the linebacking corps, moving from safety and adding depth at the position.
“He’s going to be a good player,” Nystrom said. “He’s from Morris, Ill. They grow them up tough there. Every kid I’ve ever had from Morris, they were tough. He’ll be a real good linebacker and he’s a 4.0 student so it doesn’t take him long to pick stuff up.
“He’s not going to have to play next year, but the faster he’s ready to play, the better everybody is.
“Our first two years we felt good about two, maybe three guys, and after that we would be ‘Oh boy, hold on.’ Now, you don’t feel that way. You feel pretty good about everybody who’s back there. They’ve been around the horn enough now, all four of those guys, and Jeff will get to that point.”
Another vast improvement in the half-decade that Enos has been in charge of the program is simple physical strength. Nystrom, who has been there every step of the way, has taken note.
“When we first got here we had two guys on the roster who benched over 400 pounds,” he said. “When I was at other schools, we had guys come in out of high school benching over 400 pounds. Now we’re at over 60 players over 400.
“So we look different, physically. Now we look like D1 team. Now we’ve got to go prove it. We can talk all we want, but we’ve got to go play when the season starts, and we’re all aiming to get to that point by practicing hard and going against each other out here.”
The linebacking crops, Nystrom said, will also be helped by improved play from the defensive front.
“We’re much better than we’ve been up front in the four years that we’ve been here,” he said. “We’re stout in there and we can make plays in there, we can beat blocks, we can beat one-on-ones, we can hold a gap when we have to. Those guys have done a good job up inside.”
