08-25-2006, 06:17 AM
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OHIO STATE FOOTBALL
Fast learner is quick to impress
Friday, August 25, 2006
Doug Lesmerises
Plain Dealer Reporter
Columbus- Brandon Mitchell laughed. He couldn't help it. When Anderson Russell arrived to join the football team at Ohio State, it was that bad.
"He had no clue," said Mitchell, a senior expected to start at safety for the Buckeyes. "He didn't know anything. He had never played defensive back before."
After redshirting last season as a freshman, that clueless kid from Atlanta will likely line up as the Buckeyes' nickel back - or fifth defensive back - this season, finding the field on most passing downs.
Skilled and inexperienced, he epitomizes the Ohio State secondary, the plusses and the minuses wrapped up in the 19-year-old nicknamed "100 percent" by his teammates.
"He never takes a break; he's always going full-go," cornerback Malcolm Jenkins said. "Even if he's making a mistake, he's going 100 percent."
"What he sacrifices in terms of savvy or feel for the game," said his high school coach, Alan Chadwick, "he makes up for by going hard."
That gets you noticed. In spring practice, the 6-foot, 190-pound Russell was the breakout star.
At Monday's public practice, one of the first real cheers went up when No. 21 blocked a punt. Many of the 28,000 fans probably did not know for whom they were cheering.
"I knew I was making plays," Russell said of his practice performances, "but I was just playing to the best of my ability. I didn't think about it too much."
He doesn't need to think too much. With a 40-yard dash time of 4.37 seconds, Russell is one of the fastest players on the field. At Marist School in Atlanta, he was a running back in an option offense and scored two touchdowns in the War Eagles' Class AAAA state championship win his junior year.
On a team where almost no one played both ways, that was the limit of his experience.
"He was a great special-teams player for us, and he could have played some defense," Chadwick said. "It's just that we needed him so badly on offense."
Russell did have the right bloodlines for college ball. His father, Kevin, played defensive back at Tennessee State and was taken by the Philadelphia Eagles in the sixth round of the 1977 NFL Draft. His older brother, Brandon, was a receiver at North Carolina.
But Russell said the only other schools interested in him were Duke and Connecticut - not exactly powerhouse programs. Doc Spurgeon, a Marist assistant and long-time friend of Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, made sure the Buckeyes knew about the athletic ability that could be plugged into a new position.
Russell impressed coaches at a camp in Columbus before his senior year, and once he got to Ohio for good, the veterans in the secondary went to work on him. They were dealing with a player who didn't know how to backpedal into coverage when he showed up.
"It was real hard," said Russell, who comes across as shy as he is fast. "But I'm coming around. I've still got a lot of work to do."
He will probably make a few mistakes. He's just as likely to make some big plays. So when No. 21 pops somebody, you don't have to wonder who it is. That's just old "100 percent" doing what he does.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
dlesmerises@plaind.com, 216-999-4479
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