Bill Gross has gotten in trouble several times this season with Catholic football coach Dave Dunn. Not for penalties or lack of effort, but for going at it a little too hard in practice.
“He plays so freakin’ hard when he blitzes, he’s trying to kill the quarterback. I hate to do it, but at times in practice I’ve got to pull the reins in on him a little bit,” said Dunn. “I don’t mind if he’s hitting the running backs like that, but when he goes after Keith [Ricca] and John Jacobs like that in practice, he just wants to tear their head off. I’ve had to get on him a little bit about that.”
The Cardinals sophomore linebacker’s approach is consistent. Gross sees every practice and game as another chance to hit somebody; and he’s hit plenty this season.
After four games Gross is third in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and leads the Cardinals (3-1, 1-0 ODAC) with 37 tackles, one half-tackle more than his total last season and 17 more thanhis closest teammate.
Gross has five tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and two forced fumbles, a dramatic improvement after he was seventh on the Catholic defense in tackles as a freshman. The Cardinals’ dismal 2-8 finish in 2005 nearly led him to transfer before they replaced Tom Clark with Dunn.
“I had my release forms and I was ready to go,” said Gross, a native of Southampton, Pa. “I heard the news about Coach Dunn over Christmas break, and I thought I’d just give it another year.”
Last season, he also split time with junior linebacker Anthony Delborrell, alternating each series, and the coaching staff intended to use him in the same manner this fall.
But Gross was determined to win himself a spot. After registering 14 tackles in just 35 snaps in the Cardinals’ season-opening win over Shenandoah, Dunn had little choice but to find a place for him in the starting lineup.
“He’s literally all over the field. When we blitz him, he creates a ton of havoc. Our defense has played really hard this year, and he’s one of the many kids that have stepped up,” said Dunn. “When you blitz him, things just explode in front of him.”
With an ODAC-leading defense that has allowed just 173 yards per game — the Cardinals held Randolph-Macon to just 84 yards of total offense and kept them from crossing the Cardinals 20-yard line the entire game — it’s clear the team’s reception to Dunn’s way of doing things has been positive.
“In my opinion, last year Coach Clark was too soft,” said Gross. “My high school coach, he lit a fire … everyday. He’d chew me out when I had to be chewed out. Coach Clark would just tell you what you did, lackadaisical. Coach Dunn just basically lit a fire, he was like, ‘You guys can either go 0-10, or you can come out and prove yourselves and that you’re willing to play.’”
