Chants’ safeties ready for bigger opportunity in retooled defense

This month of buildup before the start of the college football season is when the coaches and players usually answer most of the lingering questions from the offseason, finding out who can fill what void while generally getting a good sense for how all the pieces best fit together.

But one answer it seems the Chanticleers aren’t going to have anytime soon is an understanding of what exactly they can expect from senior safety Richie Sampson.

Working his way back from the second season-ending shoulder injury of his collegiate career, Sampson returned to light practice last week, but head coach Joe Moglia has said it is probably unlikely he’ll be ready for the start of the season.

So defensive backs coach Curt Baldus has approached this camp with the expectation that he needs to find two new starting safeties for the fall.

“That’s the thought process,” he said. “We don’t know for sure what [Sampson is] going to be able to do and when he’s going to be perfect so we’re planning to get everybody as ready as they can be.”

Fortunately for the Chants, if that indeed proves to be the need, they have a ready-made duo eager to step into those roles.

Sophomore Kerron Johnson and senior Kelvin Deveaux have built a rapport with each other the last couple years during their climb up the depth chart, and with veteran safeties Pernell Williams and Imir Sanders moving on after last season and Sampson – one of the team’s best players when healthy – in flux, those two have positioned themselves as the favorites to take over at the position this fall.

“We definitely lost some good guys that played a big role. But the good thing about it is when I came in as a freshman, me and Kelvin, we’ve worked together since the Chant team, the scout team all the way up,” Johnson said. “So me and him, our communication and our bonding is flawless. … We can look at each other and just feel what’s going on there.”

Johnson has followed a traditional trajectory since arriving at Coastal Carolina, red-shirting his first year before earning a role on special teams and some backup work at safety last season. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound product of Woodbury, N.J., played in all 14 games and was twice named the Chants’ special teams player of the week.

Deveaux, meanwhile, arrived from Abbeville as a walk-on and after sitting out his first year at Coastal Carolina has gradually earned his role. Listed at 5-foot-10, 190 pounds, he saw limited action in seven games last year and eight the previous season.

“I really thank my lord and savior for blessing me because the journey wasn’t easy,” he said after practice Saturday morning. “[There’s] a couple times when it got rough, but I thank him for the process and that’s one thing I really had to learn – just trust the process and keep going.”

Moreover, he feels he’s put his time in and earned this chance he has now in camp.

“I feel like I’ve been making great strides since before I got to this point because to reach this point where I’m at, you don’t just show up to camp and think, ‘I want to start,’” he said. “It’s been a mindset that I’ve had coming from last season, playing behind the great guys that I played behind like Pernell, Imir and Richie. Learning from them and taking my offseason seriously, those things really got me to the point where I’m at now.”

Baldus wasn’t ready to say the depth chart is set at safety with senior Tyrell Brown, true freshman Michael Billings out of Georgetown and junior college transfer Zach Kelley competing for playing time as well, but he acknowledged that Johnson and Deveaux are in the lead for those jobs with Sampson’s availability still an unknown.

“They are leading right now, but it’s not locked in,” Baldus said. “We haven’t played a lot of games with any of the guys who are competing right now so it’s going to be an ongoing process. I don’t think anybody has totally stepped away with the job right now.

“That’s one of the strengths of our group right now is that we have more guys who are closer to being ready to play. In the past it’s been more clear-cut; we’ve got a lot more who are pushing now and some of them are younger and newer guys so they’re taking big steps each day. It’s going to be an ongoing process to see what we really have and how quickly they can process the information. There’s a lot of growth we have to do within our group.”

That’s true for the defense in general with the Chants also losing both starting linebackers and their top cornerback from last year.

But that cohesion Johnson mentioned – being on the same page – is valuable and it comes through in their words too.

“I’m expecting a big contributing role to my team, to be a leader, be there when they need me, make plays when they need me. But also just play my role; I don’t have to do anybody else’s job,” Deveaux said when asked what he envisions for himself this season. “It’s 11 pieces to the puzzle on defense so I just have to play my piece and do my role.”

Said Johnson: “As long as we’re all on the same page, we’re going to be good. I think the difference between this defense probably and other years, there’s no one standout person. We all came from the bottom up. We’ve all been playing with each other for three years. We know each other’s weaknesses and strengths so they know we just know how to play with each other.”

Baldus was standing nearby as his players were being interviewed about the competition for that starting job and their expectations and he mentioned later that he liked the message about working as a collective unit.

That’s the way it’s going to have to be this year.

“That’s what they’re doing better than ever is they’re grabbing a hold of the leadership role here and there too now,” he said. “I think it was Kelvin talking about how there’s leadership by committee. I don’t know that there’s anybody that’s jumped to the forefront of the defensive backs, but they’re all jumping at it when they feel the need, which is good.”

This story was originally published August 24, 2015 at 6:57 PM with the headline "Chants’ safeties ready for bigger opportunity in retooled defense."