SATURDAY’S GAME
Kenyon at Wittenberg, 1 p.m.
Linebacker Terrance Crowe has come a long way in one year for the Wittenberg Tigers.
A year ago, the Springfield High School graduate lost his starting job midway through the season. This season, he’s tied for 20th in the country with 11.8 tackles per game for a team two wins away from clinching at least a share of its sixth North Coast Athletic Conference championship in the last eight seasons.
“Last year, it was more I wasn’t paying attention to detail or doing the little things like film study,” Crowe said. “A lot of different things went into it.”
Last season was Crowe's first on the field since his senior year at Springfield in the fall of 2012. He was Springfield's fourth-leading tackler that season. Crowe attended Tiffin University in 2013 and redshirted. He transferred to Wittenberg in 2014 but some of his credits didn't transfer so he had to sit out that season. He filmed the team's games and started practicing with the Tigers after the 2014 season.
Crowe appeared in all 10 games last season and ranked sixth on the team with 47 tackles, but he was playing mostly special teams late in the season as Josh Link took his starting job.
“I took two years off. I was rusty on my technique,” Crowe said. “The game speed was a little bit too much. I went into this offseason and attacked it really hard and got better at the things I needed to work on.”
Wittenberg coach Joe Fincham said Crowe is in better shape and more comfortable a year later. Crowe has 94 tackles and four sacks.
“Almost all the transfers who come here from a higher realm of football, wehther they’re Division II or I, it takes a year to learn a new playbook, which is the equivalent of learning a foreign language,” Fincham said. “In Terrance’s situation, he had a redshirt year at Tiffin and sat for a year here, so he played a minimal amount of football. Your skills have got to erode a little bit, and your overall conditioning certainly has to erode.
Crowe earned a starting job for 2016 in the offseason and in preseason practices, but knew from experience nothing was solidified. He burst out of the gate in September, earning the NCAC Defensive Player of the Week award with 14 tackles in a season-opening 34-0 victory over Capital.
Crowe, who has two seasons of eligibility remaining, is a big reason Wittenberg ranks fifth in the country in scoring defense (8.9 points per game).
“I’m still feeling I’ve got a ways to go to improve, but it’s starting to feel good,” Crowe said. “The game’s slowing down. The D-line’s playing great. That’s contributing to the tackle numbers. They’re eating up all the blocks, and we’re running free.”
Notes: Wittenberg (7-1, 6-1) moved from 23rd to 22nd in the D3Football.com poll. It remains unranked in the American Football Coaches Association poll. The Tigers host Kenyon (3-5, 2-5) in their final home game at 1 p.m. Saturday. Wittenberg shares first place with Denison and Wabash, who play Saturday in Granville.
About the Author
