Carson Willich in action last season. Photo courtesy Iowa State Athletics Communications.
AMES — When a severe knee injury forced Iowa State redshirt freshman linebacker Carson Willich to miss his entire senior season of high school football, a bleak prospect popped into his mind: What if the Cyclones rescind their scholarship offer?
Willich needn’t have worried.
“I remember I talked to (ISU head coach Matt) Campbell the day after it happened,” the Blue Springs, Mo., native said. “He honestly was like, ‘I’m not worried about it. I know what you’re capable of.’ That was really like the selling point because I knew that they still believed in who I was as a person — not only on the field but off the field.”
Now Willich enters Saturday’s 1 p.m. season-opener against Northern Iowa perched atop the depth chart at SAM linebacker. The 6-1, 225-pound kinesiology major is fully healthy and poised to make his first career start — but he’s not alone in that regard. Willich will glance to his side Saturday to see true freshman Jack Sadowsky making his first career start, too. As many as 10 Cyclones could celebrate their starting debuts against the Panthers: Five on offense and five on defense.
“My expectation is we’re gonna play a lot of guys early in this football season because you still don’t know until you get out into the game and play,” Campbell said. “That means you’ve got to earn the right on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to be the guy that gets in the game whether it’s at the beginning of the game or the most critical moment of the game.”
Or both. Willich, Sadowsky and veteran WILL linebacker Gerry Vaughn will be tested by UNI quarterback Theo Day and his cadre of experienced receivers. They’ll also share plenty of snaps with capable backups such as Will McLaughlin, Zach Lovett and Jacob Ellis, among others.
“We’re gonna rotate a bunch,” said Willich, who totaled eight tackles while retaining his redshirt last season. “We’re hungry. We’re ready. We’re all ready for this week. I think it’s gonna take all of us. It’s gonna be whenever our name’s called and I think that’s a good thing. I think we’re all ready together.”
They’d better be. The Panthers beat the Cyclones 25-20 in Campbell’s first game as head coach — and even though they’ve lost three straight to ISU, two of those setbacks were also decided by one score.
“(There’s) a great offense surrounding (Day),” ISU defensive coordinator Jon Heacock said. “A lot of veterans in that group, so it’ll be a tall task.” It’s also a job Willich and his fellow potential first-time starters are eager to perform — particularly at linebacker, where the Cyclones lack seasoning but boast depth.
“I think you’ve got such a great mix there,” Campbell said. “You talk about maybe the oldest guy on the team in Gerry and then you’ve got a young pup in Jack who’s gonna get the opportunity to run out in the field and make a big difference.”
The same goes for Willich, who said former ISU standout linebacker O’Rien Vance strongly influenced his development last season. “He was the general in that whole room,” Willich said.
“He was just the general everywhere. He just showed us the grit, the strength, all that type of stuff to go out there and just do our job, knowing that we’ve got 10 other guys around us. So I think his big thing was, yeah, he’s gonna be hard on you. He’s gonna make you earn it, which is a good thing because it’s helped me to where I’m at now.”
Willich now occupies a space bathed in confidence and founded on trust. The knee injury’s a distant memory. All that matters is what lies ahead.
“It’s the first game,” he said. “We’ve got to go out there and do our thing. People aren’t going to give us the head. We’re going into this season as the headhunters and we’re gonna do that. No one’s just going to give us the nod here so I’m excited. We’ve got a young, hungry group as a whole — offense and defense, and we’re ready to go out and show what we can do.”
