Three-year starting end tackles new position
Breaking the news to Jeremy Navarre that he was changing positions was easy for Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen. He simply penciled in the name of his three-year starting defensive end at tackle.
“The idea was never brought to me. It just happened,” said Navarre. “First day of spring ball my name was at defensive tackle on the depth chart. I knew it was coming.”
After the graduation of two-year starting tackles Carlos Feliciano (6-5, 315) and Dre Moore (6-4, 311), Navarre knew his days at defensive end, where he had started 35 straight games, were numbered.
He also could have suspected by observing the trend in college football. With his move inside, the 6-3, 270-pound Navarre will help make the Maryland defense smaller, quicker, and better suited to combat the increasingly-popular spread offense.
“It’s a game of speed now,” said Navarre. “With everybody running the spread, the defensive ends are more like outside linebackers now. To be a smaller guy inside, I hope it pays off.”
Navarre knows what it’s like to change positions and overcome a size deficiency. In his freshman year out of Harford County power Joppatowne High, Navarre, then 230 pounds, approached Friedgen, asking to be moved from fullback to defensive end.
“I tried to tell him, we really need a fullback. We’ve got a lot of defensive ends,” said Friedgen. “He said, ‘I don’t care. I want to play defensive end.’ In two weeks he was starting at defensive end.”
This year, Friedgen will lean heavily on Navarre. Heading into Saturday’s opening game against Delaware, one of his major areas of concern is the defensive line. An injury to junior tackle Travis Ivey, who will be out this week, weakens an already-thin unit.
Friedgen can always count on his iron man, Navarre.
“I’d like to have 22 Jeremy Navarres,” said Friedgen. [He] comes out, doesn’t say a whole lot, lines up every play, plays as hard as he can every play, tough guy, a tremendous competitor.”
UP NEXT
Delaware at Maryland
When » Saturday, 3:45
Where » Chevy Chase Bank Field at Byrd Stadium
TV » ESPNU
