Photo by Adam Fried/The Diamondback

Sadly, I’m not Bill Simmons.

It would be really nice to have all the space in the world to expound upon the trials and tribulations of the Terp football team in The Diamondback’s print edition.

That means that I had to leave some pretty interesting parts of my nearly 18-minute conversation with Terp tackle Bruce Campbell from Wednesday on the cutting room floor- err..the cluttered floor of my Commons 5 apartment.

Here’s some of what didn’t make my feature column about the Terps’ ailing behemoth:

• Campbell genuinely believes that if he was healthy, things would be different for this team. While the Terps have played some close games this season and an improved running game might’ve helped them grind out a couple extra wins, it’s hard to believe that’s true. But it does say something about how limited Campbell feels he’s been at times this season. Remember it’s his left knee and right toe that have been bothering him, so that has to be tough. “[It’s] a difference I can’t even explain, for real-for real,” Campbell said. “I can’t even imagine if I was 100 percent how things would be going for me at least. And I think if one person gets it going, it would really help the offensive line and we’d be rolling.”

• Campbell is feeling just plain unlucky right now. That led to a nice discussion of how his size affects him with an injury like this. Campbell said he assumed since he’s so big, he shouldn’t be getting hurt this much. I remember earlier this season running back Davin Meggett joked he didn’t think Campbell could be slowed by a little anything. But the way things have gone, it’s hard for the big man to laugh about it. “I even had to take a look in the mirror and ask myself am I living my life wrong? Am I doing anything wrong?” Campbell said.
• After sitting out most of spring practice to focus on academics, Campbell was really ready to go for this season. When I asked him about it, he got pretty worked up, talking about being “an animal” with his summer workouts. However, he reported to camp at 317 pounds, the biggest he’s ever been in his life because of those extra workouts. That extra girth caused some knee tendinitis and made doing some things a little tougher for him from the get-go. He’s down to about 308 pounds right now.
• I didn’t get to include that sick play in a preseason scrimmage where Campbell picked up a dropped football and rumbled 25 yards down field before about three defenders finally wrestled him to the ground. When he’s healthy, he can truly be a monster.
• Campbell is one of three tackles to start as a true freshman for the Terps under coach Ralph Friedgen. The others are currently in the NFL: Jared Gaither (Ravens) and Stephon Heyer (Redskins).
• While I mentioned that the Terps have never had a tackle drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft, the last lineman to go in the first round was guard Ron Solt back in 1984. Solt played nine years in the NFL and made the 1987 Pro Bowl. Gaither was drafted in the fifth round of the 2007 supplemental draft after two seasons with the Terps. He’s the last Terp tackle to be drafted. That should change either this spring or next.

Actually, it’s a good thing I’m not Bill Simmons because this article might never have happened. The Sports Guy almost surely would’ve taken offense to the fact that the Connecticut-born Campbell was rocking a Boston Red Sox hat during our post-practice interview but later said he’s a big New York Yankees fan.

Luckily, I was fairly tolerant of this lapse in judgement and Campbell rewarded me with some great stuff.

Eric Detweiler is The Diamondback’s Terrapin Football Team columnist. He can be reached at edetweilerdbk@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/edetweiler.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.