CCU Football Notebook: Scearce settling in at linebacker for Chants

When the Coastal Carolina football coaches decided to move Alex Scearce from safety to linebacker during the middle of last season, he admits he didn’t see the switch coming and that it took some time to adjust.

But after being named a starter this fall and opening the season with a pair of productive games for the No. 1/2-ranked Chanticleers, Scearce agrees it was a good decision.

And with each big play, everyone else is starting to see what the coaches envisioned for the 6-foot-3, 220-pound junior.

“I was kind of shocked at first. I didn’t think I was going to be moved since I was [starting as] a true freshman at safety. I thought I was playing pretty well,” he said. “Once I made the transition, it was little hard to pick up things at first because it’s a little faster in the box. But once I started getting more adjusted to it, I felt like it was actually a good spot for me with my size and everything.”

It’s hard to argue with the results.

After opening the season with a team-high nine total tackles at Furman, Scearce followed up with six stops, two tackles for loss and two pass break-ups last Saturday night in the Chants’ 41-14 win at South Carolina State.

“You see it in games [now] and that’s what matters the most. He has really made that transition smoothly,” defensive coordinator Clayton Carlin said. “We did it about halfway through last year and you know, you could just see he was more natural there closer to the ball. He is just playing with a lot of confidence and just feels good about where he is and how he’s adjusted to that role.”

That doesn’t mean the last year or so was easy.

Scearce had gotten off to a quick start with his collegiate career, starting at safety as a true freshman. He sustained an injury in the seventh game of that 2013 season, though, and everything changed from there.

“It was definitely difficult getting injured my freshman year and then coming back and not being able to get in the starting rotation,” he said. “But we had some veteran guys who were there so it’s understandable. …

“When I got injured some other guys stepped up and played pretty well, like Imir Sanders. He did really well the South Carolina game and got noticed. So I knew my time was coming – it just happened to be at linebacker.”

He admits there were some low points in the meantime.

“Anyone that comes from playing a lot and getting praised a little bit as a true freshman and then not being able to play, it’s kind of discouraging,” he said.

He never thought about transferring, though, he said. He believed in the direction of the program and knew he just had to wait for his chance again.

Entering the Chants’ bye week last October, the coaches evaluated the depth chart and roster and decided Scearce might be a better fit at linebacker. He got into a handful of games down the stretch there, although he sustained a pair of concussions and did not get to play in the season-ending loss to North Dakota State.

But healthy this year and with a better command of the position, he showed the coaches in preseason camp he was ready for a bigger role again and has only backed that up further through the first two games.

“The coaches have brought me along really well where I pretty much know the defense like the back of my hand,” he said. “ … Things have slowed down for me.”

And it looks like the move has indeed proved worth the patience – for both Scearce and the Chants.

Awards, records, etc.

Junior running back De’Angelo Henderson is two for two on Big South Offensive Player of the Week awards.

Henderson repeated the honor after rushing for 136 yards and a touchdown at South Carolina State while breaking the program’s career rushing record (now at 2,364 yards).

Henderson had 116 rushing yards in the first half alone Saturday as the Chants built a 32-0 lead and he also finished with five catches for 44 yards.

And while much was made of his breaking Aundres Perkins’ rushing record, that wasn’t the only record he set last weekend. Henderson also became Coastal Carolina’s all-time leader in all-purpose yards with 2,855, passing Eric O’Neal’s 2,835.

He ranks second in the FCS in all-pupose yards so far this season, averaging 202 yards per game.

Meanwhile, freshman punter Evan Rabon was also honored by the Big South this week as the league’s special teams player of the week after averaging 41.7 yards on his three punts Saturday night while dropping all inside the 20-yard line.

Johnson done for the season

Chants head coach Joe Moglia clarified that senior running back Andre Johnson is out for the season after sustaining a concussion in the first game.

Johnson was ruled out for last week, but Moglia said during his weekly news conference Wednesday that the running back has decided to end his collegiate football career as a result of the injury.

“It was a concussion that he’s had before. The doctors, or he didn’t want to play with it and we’re 100 percent supportive of that,” Moglia said.

Senior nickel Datarius Allen is still recovering from a sprained ankle and is considered “questionable” for this week, Moglia said.

And senior safety Richie Sampson remains week-to-week in his recovery from shoulder surgery. The coaches have not decided yet if the veteran playmaker will return to action this season or redshirt.

OL getting on the same page

In offering his review from last weekend, Moglia again emphasized that the Chants need to clean up the issues that led to nine penalties against South Carolina State.

“We’re supposed to be physical, but disciplined and poised and I think we lost the poise part of it. When you lose that, you lose the discipline part of it,” Moglia said. “So that means you lost a little bit of focus, and if we’re going to be a good football team we’ve got to have that focus. We can not go into a game or frankly even a meeting and not concentrate on what we need to concentrate on. We did not have that, we did not do a good job. Again, we were playing hard ... but too many penalties.”

Five of those penalties were false starts on the offense, which the coaches have attributed to the learning curve of adding in three new starters up front – including junior center Dom DiGalbo – with an experienced senior quarterback in Alex Ross who will frequently make changes at the line of scrimmage.

Junior left tackle Voghens Larrieux expressed confidence the Chants would get that cleaned up this week.

“It should be an easy fix. It was just miscommunication between the quarterback and the center a couple times,” he said. “Two of them was our mess up, just not focusing in, but we’ll work on it.

Tickets

As of Wednesday evening, more than 2,200 students had claimed tickets for the season opener Saturday night, which has the university prepared to create an overflow area beyond the designated student section.

In terms of general tickets, the school still has $25 bronze and $20 blitz tickets available.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 5:09 PM with the headline "CCU Football Notebook: Scearce settling in at linebacker for Chants."