MANNY LAWSON
HEIGHT:: 6-6
WEIGHT:: 245
SPEED:: 4.44
PLAYERS CARD::
http://gopack.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/lawson_manny00.html
TRACK RECORD::
http://gopack.collegesports.com/sports/m-track/spec-rel/022004aaa.html
STRENGTHS:: -Is a terrific natural athlete. Lacks bulk but is tall, has bulked up to 230 pounds and has room to continue to grow. He has good upper body power and is a weight-room warrior. Has explosive strength and speed. Has rare speed for his size. Shows explosive initial burst and acceleration when turning the corner as a pass rusher. He has good recognition skills and natural instincts vs. the run. He has great closing burst to the QB and is a powerful tackler. He has a nose for the ball and makes a lot of big plays. He is at his best in pursuit vs. the run. Has great speed and will track down ball carriers from behind. Takes good angles and is a solid open-field tackler. He is a big-time playmaker on special teams, as well.-espn
-Is an outstanding natural athlete with rare speed for his size. Is a weight room fanatic. Is an explosive tackler and plays bigger than his size. Can rush off the edge and shows a closing burst on the QB. Plays well as a rundown tackler in pursuit. Is instinctive; takes good angles and can make tackles in the open field. Is a special teams demon. -sportingnews
WEAKNESS:: -Is undersized for a DE but plays with decent power and shows the potential to add bulk. Must add lower-body strength and play with better leverage at the point of attack. Will get run over in the running game. Must learn to use his hands to shed blocks; relies too much on his upper-body strength. -sportingnews
-Is a tweener DE/OLB. Is vastly undersized. Needs to continue to add bulk. Is powerful but lacks brute strength. Plays with a narrow base. Has trouble holding his ground at the POA. Needs to improve his lower body strength and play with better leverage at the POA. Needs to continue to do a better job of using his hands and upper body to stay off of blocks.-espn
ARTICLE::
-cstv.com-
Lawson a Handful For Opposing Offenses on the Football Field
Senior Defensive End Leads Pack Defense
Raleigh, N.C. - Manny Lawson is not like a lot of people, and here is the proof: He was born with 11 fingers.
Now, that in itself is nothing to be ashamed of: Florida Marlins pitcher Antonio Alfonseca has six fingers on each hand, which made him the first kid in his class to count to 12 and gave him plenty of room on his hands for a World Series ring.
Lawson just wishes his mom and dad hadn't taken his doctor's advice of tying a string around the extra digit - really just an unsightly bundle of nerves attached to his right hand - until it fell off when he was a toddler. He would dearly love the opportunity of putting his hand down on the ground in front of a tight end or offensive tackle and wiggling a pair of pinkies.
"I know I could freak them out," Lawson said. "I could do a little wave right before the ball is snapped."
Truth be told, Lawson already freaks out enough slow-footed offensive linemen as it is. His 4.4 speed - ESPN.com calls Lawson the fastest defensive lineman in the country - presents a unique challenge for opposing teams, who are already trying to figure out what to do to stop junior on the other side of the line.
Lawson's six-finger salute - plus the addition of 20 more pounds of muscle since last season, upping his stature to an imposing 6-foot-5 and 238 pounds - might just send opponents over the edge.
With Lawson and Williams barreling around the edges, the Wolfpack had the nation's stingiest defense last year, allowing just 221.4 yards per game while amassing 33 sacks, 112 tackles for loss and 89 quarterback pressures. Lawson led the team with seven sacks and was second to Williams with 17 quarterback pressures. He also had 12 tackles for loss and was named second team All-ACC.
Not bad for someone who did not have a defined college position when he arrived from Goldsboro's Eastern Wayne High School in the fall of 2002. Lawson had played tight end, wide receiver, safety and defensive end in high school and was listed as a tight end when he signed with the Wolfpack.
But from the moment
Chuck Amato saw Lawson's credentials as an athlete, the coach knew he was on to something special, a starting place for the kind of defense Amato wanted to build with the Wolfpack.
"In the back of my mind, Manny was always going to be a defensive end in our system," the coach says. "To me, if you can start your defense on the perimeter, with the defensive ends and the cornerbacks, then there is a good chance you can fill the other seven players around them. But you have to have playmakers at those two positions, because that is where the big plays occur."
However, when Lawson arrived at NC State, there was a lack of depth in the linebacker corps, and he spent nearly two seasons playing that unfamiliar position. He made a major impact as a special teams' player, leading the nation with three blocked punts as a freshman and blocking two more as a sophomore. He didn't have any as a junior, something he hopes to change this year.
"Hopefully, since I didn't block any last year, people have forgotten about me," Lawson said. "Now, I can get my groove back."
Lawson was switched to defensive end at the end of the 2003 regular season, giving him all 15 practices before the Tangerine Bowl to learn the position Amato wanted him to play all along. The reason? Lawson's game-changing athletic abilities reminded Amato of former Florida State All-America Peter Boulware.
"Pete was not big, but he was awfully fast and awfully athletic," Amato says. "He is doing a bang-up job in the NFL [for the Baltimore Ravens]. Manny is actually taller, heavier, stronger and faster than Pete was in college."
That's certainly high praise, to be compared to a former NFL Rookie of the Year, but Manny is the first person in line to say that he is not a great technician at his position, just as he was not a great technician as a track star. He mainly just goes out and uses his natural talent to do incredible things - like out-jump the measuring stick on his first day of camp as a freshman.
His high school career is full of similar head-shaking feats, while playing football and running track for Eastern Wayne. Football and track coach Joe Mitchell, who coached a couple of future NFL players when he was an assistant at Richmond County High School, called Lawson one of the best athletes he has ever coached.
Lawson proved that during his senior track season at Eastern Wayne. He won three individual titles (110 high hurdles, 200-meter dash and
long jump) and finished third in his best event, the
triple jump, at the Class AAA track meet. He scored all 36 of his team's points, to finish third by himself in the team standings, behind state champions Smith High of Greensboro and West Rowan of Salisbury.
But everyone - Lawson, his coaches, even his roommate - is quick to point out that Lawson doesn't exactly do things the right way, in football or in track. He's just someone who can use a strong mix of talent, brains and brawn to produce incredible results.
"His technique is terrible," says Michael Hill, an NC State track standout in the triple-jump who has shared an apartment with Lawson since the summer of their freshman year. "What he does in track is pure athletics. He actually won the long jump at the ACC Indoor meet [in 2003], but it looked so bad, you couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how he jumped so far. It was just speed and jump.
"The guy is just a freak."
Lawson, who had a second-place finish in the long jump at the 2003 ACC Outdoor Championship and was fifth in the triple jump, fully admits that he doesn't spend too much time developing the finer points of his sports.
"My technique is definitely awful," Lawson says. "I just kind of wing it, in both sports. Mike gets on me all the time. He just doesn't see how it works. Basically, my technique is to run as fast as I can down the runway and jump. There is no swinging of the arms, no kicking here, no keeping my chin up and looking to the sky. It's bad. He is right.
"But how many ACC championships does he have? None. I have one."
In football, that lack of technique is sometimes a benefit, says defensive line coach
Todd Stroud. Lawson doesn't behave like most defensive ends. He's not only hard to catch, he's also hard to anticipate.
"Manny is a true, natural pass-rush player," Stroud says. "As a linebacker, he struggled as a stand-up player, where he needed to rely on pure instinct. Manny really doesn't have that. "As a defensive lineman, though, with his hand on the ground, Manny is able to use some fundamental principles of football and his natural ability to make big plays."
Lawson, on the preseason watch lists for both the Lombardi Award as the nation's top defensive lineman and the Bednarik Award as the nation's top defensive player, doesn't have many personal goals for the upcoming season. He's already considered one of the top professional prospects in the country, a certain first-day draft pick next June in the NFL draft, according to the analysts who follow such things, even though he doesn't have a defined pro position either.
He could be a strong safety, or a rush linebacker in a 3-4 scheme defense, or an undersized defensive end, just as he is now.
"He's a natural for a linebacker position in a 3-4 set," Stroud said. "But that doesn't mean in three years that he can't be 270 pounds, because he is starting to show the propensity to be able to gain some body weight.
"So far, he hasn't lost a step of his speed."
Just as he thought when he arrived for college, Lawson doesn't care where he ends up, as long as he gets an opportunity to play at the next level.
"A lot of people say they want to see me at free safety, just because of my speed," Lawson said. "People also talk about be playing linebacker and end. I don't really care as long as I get to play. "But the way I look at it, I have things to finish here before I can worry about the NFL. This is my last time running with the wolves, and that means everything to me right now."
So Lawson has set his sights for this season for winning an ACC Championship and having fun.
"My only specific goal is a team goal," Lawson says. "I want to help take us as far as we can go. This is my last time around. I want a national championship so bad.
"We deserve it."
Of course, having a little fun is not too hard to do in a Wolfpack lockerroom that is prone to spontaneously combust into a Michael Jackson video at any given moment. Lawson remembers this as one of his favorite moments of his
college career.
"We were in the lockerrroom one day last season, right before practice, and we were playing Michael Jackson on the stereo," Lawson remembers. "It was me,
Brian Clark,
John Ritcher,
DaJuan Morgan,
Marcus Hudson,
Martrel Brown and a bunch of others. We were doing the whole choreographed routine from the video of whatever song was playing. We were all sitting there trying to figure it out and saying `No, you are doing it wrong.'
"Then, the coaches walked in and we did the whole routine right there in the lockerroom. It was a blast."
So who was the goofiest member of this unconventional defensive line dance?
"
Mario Williams," Lawson says. "He has no rhythm whatsoever."
Lawson likes to joke around, but he's a serious student, one of only three football players majoring in some form of engineering. Long snapper
William Lee is a mechanical engineering major and offensive lineman
Yomi Ojo is an industrial engineering major with Lawson.
However, Lawson doesn't plan on becoming a professional engineer. His heart is really set on becoming an architect, something he has aspired to do since taking a drafting class in the ninth grade. He's pretty adept at computer-aided design, and he's a noted artist, at least in his family. When he was a kid, Lawson got in his mind one day that he wanted to decorate his room. He called on his sister for help, and in one afternoon they painted a lovely mural on his bedroom wall.
"We drew this lovely picture of Jesus on a cloud," Lawson said. "We had mountains and birds and the sun wearing sunglasses. It was a masterpiece.
"Michelangelo has nothing on us." Not even an extra finger.
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