CONWAY -- While the Coastal Carolina football coaches will spend the next few weeks on the road filling out the program’s recruiting class to address the most glaring needs throughout the roster, the biggest addition to the 2012 team could be a player already plenty familiar to the squad.
The coaches are hopeful that tight end David Duran – a two-time first-team all-Big South selection – will get another opportunity to complete his senior season after being limited to four games this fall due to a shoulder injury.
The Chanticleers have initiated the process of requesting an extra year of eligibility for Duran, who had season-ending shoulder surgery, though they don’t expect to know anything until perhaps the end of next semester.
“That’s out of our hands, but all the preliminary stuff we’re getting back from our people [says] that everything looks good,” CCU offensive coordinator Kevin Brown said. “It looks like there’s a reasonable chance that he can get it.”
Duran aggravated a previous shoulder injury while stretching to make a catch in the third game at Georgia. He tried to play the next week at North Carolina A&T before later deciding to shut it down for the season.
Since transferring from Michigan State after his redshirt-freshman season, Duran has 58 catches for 820 yards with Coastal and is just one reception away from tying the Big South record for career catches by a tight end.
Needless to say, his return next season would be a huge boost for a team that will otherwise be counting on a young group of tight ends.
“There’s about five different things you’ve got to go through,” Brown said of the process. “It goes through [CCU director of athletic training Jeff] Pounds first. He’s got all his [records from] the Michigan State trainer. Then it goes to the conference office. They approve it, then it goes to the NCAA. So it’s a bunch of steps.
“It probably won’t be cleared until the end of next semester. So we won’t probably know for sure until the end of the year, but everything we’re getting [preliminarily is] saying it’s a good case for it.”
Henderson also hopeful
The Chants also hope to bring running back DeAngelo Henderson into the program.
The jewel of the team’s last recruiting class, Henderson never made it to campus due to an undisclosed academic hold-up that kept him from passing through the NCAA Clearinghouse.
But the Chants haven’t given up on bringing the Summerville High School standout to Conway.
“We’re still hopeful for him,” Brown said. “We’re still holding out for DeAngelo. He was at the Charleston Southern game with a big smile on himself. He looked like he doesn’t have any neck because his traps have gotten really big, so we’re excited about hopefully getting that taken care of academically, getting that shored up there and getting him on in there.”
Henderson, listed at 5-foot-8 and 190 pounds as of last February, rushed for 2,407 yards and 27 touchdowns while also catching 18 passes for 387 yards and four scores as a senior at Summerville. He was rated a three-star (out of five) prospect by Rivals.com.
“He’s close. Very close,” Brown said. “So we’re holding out hope. Those guys at Summerville are really helping him, and he’s working hard to get here.”
Status quo
CCU coach David Bennett said he does not anticipate making any staff changes before next season. Bennett replaced three assistant coaches after the 2009 season, but the staff has not turned over since then and he expects to maintain that continuity heading into 2012.
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