For someone who was rumored to be unhappy and supposedly looking to transfer after last season’s 3-9 debacle, junior cornerback Raeshon McNeil sure didn’t let it affect him in the classroom or on the football field last spring.
In the classroom during the 2008 spring semester, McNeil posted what has been advertised as the highest grade-point average – 3.5 in industrial design – among this year’s 22 projected starters on offense and defense. This isn’t a complete surprise, as he always has been scholastically inclined, graduating with a weighted 4.2 GPA in high school and even choosing architecture as his major at Notre Dame. The word during his recruitment was it would be unrealistic to think a player could excel in both football and the ultra-demanding five-year architecture major. Ultimately, McNeil reluctantly changed his major to industrial design and aspires to go into automotive design once his football playing days are concluded.
“It was tough because that was really big part of choosing where I wanted to go,” said McNeil of changing his major. “(Industrial design) is so broad and can go so many different ways. Academics were the main part of choosing Notre Dame. I wouldn’t say (majoring in architecture and playing football) is unrealistic, but I would say it is really tough. It’s really about what time you’re willing to put into it. It’s a lot of studio hours – that’s the tough part because pretty much half of my day is taken up by football.”
McNeil also enjoyed a quality spring at cornerback, pushing fifth-year senior Terrail Lambert for the starting role at right cornerback while junior classmate Darrin Walls distinguished himself as the team’s top cover man at the more challenging left side. In the Blue-Gold Game, McNeil was one of the more visible players on defense, recording an 11-yard sack of Jimmy Clausen on a third-down blitz during the game’s first series, breaking up a couple of passes, including one in the red zone, and providing solid coverage while Clausen finished 10 of 27 through the air. McNeil’s feistiness even instigated a skirmish in the end zone after Harrison Smith returned an interception for a 15-yard score.
Smith, safety Kyle McCarthy, guard Chris Stewart, defensive end Morrice Richardson and McNeil were rated as BGI’s top 5 players at the end of spring who emerged from the shadows after no previous starting experience. A standout in the 2006 U.S. Army All-American game, McNeil is primed to elevate his game the way recent junior defensive backs such as David Bruton in 2007 or Lambert in 2006 did. Sophomore Gary Gray and freshman Robert Blanton also will be vying for action, but according to Charlie Weis, McNeil’s game experience as a nickel back in meaningful situations provides a notable advantage.
Now that Walls won’t be with the team in 2008 while taking care of personal/classroom issues, McNeil has shifted from right cornerback to Walls’ left side and will be the likely starter in the Sept. 6 opener versus San Diego State.
“I think I’m definitely ready to make an impact,” McNeil said. “At this level, things are happening a lot faster. This game is more mental than physical, especially out at corner. You really have to have your mind right, and it takes a little time…You’re no longer the fastest and biggest guy. Sometimes a guy is a lot faster and a little more athletic. You have to mentally think how you’re going to play certain people to play to your strengths.
“A lot of high school players, especially high-profile players, think you’re going to dominate just like high school, but it’s a totally different game. I just played my role, learned techniques, I feel it’s made me a better player. Coming from high school, you don’t really know what it’s about. You get to camp and they start throwing all these things at you, you realize it’s a little different. Game-time is definitely different. My first game I remember getting out there (versus Penn State in 2006) and the very first play, it seemed the play was over before I even knew it. It went so fast. You hear about it, but it’s really different once you’ve been out there.”
Weis referred to McNeil as having “a big personality,” and the junior from Cooleemee, N.C. doesn’t disagree.
“I feel like I always try to show my personality,” McNeil said. “At the cornerback position especially, you have to have a little attitude, you have to have a little spunk, you have to have something behind you playing out there because it’s tough to play out there. If you don’t have a little fight about yourself, you’re not going to survive out there.
“I like to speak my mind…but sometimes you have to hold back, bite your tongue, give respect where respect is due.”
One such situation was his relationship with second-year defensive coordinator Corwin Brown, who also took over as the defensive backs coach this spring after instructing the linebackers in 2007. The new coach’s intensity and appetite for hard-nosed play didn’t always sit well with McNeil, who has had a cerebral style. After starting at Purdue in Game 5 as the nickel back, McNeil saw his playing time diminish midway through the season while classmate Munir Prince and fifth-year senior Ambrose Wooden saw more action in multi-defensive back sets. But by the end of the season, McNeil began working his way back in to the mix – and it was Prince who eventually transferred (to Missouri), not McNeil.
“We have a real good relationship now,” said McNeil of Brown. “We bumped heads a couple of times last year, but we’ve worked things out. He had a really strong personality, I had a really strong personality…we realized that and are on the same page now. I felt during the middle of the season I kind of hit a snag, I wasn’t playing quite as well as the beginning of the season, which kind of bumped me down. Toward the end, I started picking it up again.
“Last spring I felt good. Maybe there were just not an understanding of how I am and how he was. All of that is in the past.”
His concentration is on the present and future – one that he hopes will include best friend and former roommate Walls in 2009. The two enrolled at Notre Dame in 2006 and were heralded as the best corner duo recruited by the Irish since 1990 with Jeff Burris and Tom Carter. Moving into a starting role because of Walls’ absence is not how McNeil planned his ascent.
“I felt terrible,” said McNeil upon hearing that Walls would not be with the 2008 squad. “I would much rather have him here. He’s probably my best friend here. We were roommates at games and during the summer. I can’t wait for him to get back. I talk to him almost every day. He’s definitely planning to return. It’s tough to not have him out there. Darrin was one our best cover corners, easily.”
McNeil acknowledges he will need to work on his man coverage more on the left side (the right side for the offense), especially with more plans to pressure the quarterback with blitz packages to take some pressure off the line. The flip side is it places a greater onus on the secondary and leaves it more susceptible to the big play.
“Darrin played on the left side, where I am right now (after being on right),” McNeil said. “That’s where most quarterback go. Most quarterbacks are right-handed and you get a lot more balls thrown that way.”
Just another challenge for a student-athlete who has “designs” on a better 2008.
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