Former Kannapolis star Nick Maddox, true freshman, was in the backfield, and he was smiling. They’d just called his number. Now, he’d show ‘em.

“I’m thinking, ‘OK, this is my play — my favorite play,’” remembers Maddox. “A little cut to the inside behind the fullback. Fullback takes out the linebacker and I’m in the end zone.”

The end zone is a place Maddox knows oh-so-well. He visited it a North Carolina state-record 114 times in a prep career that ended in 1998 with back-to-back State Player of the Year awards, Parade All-America honors and acclaim by many publications as the No. 1 running back in the nation.

But before the play can unfold, a Seminole assistant coach notices something he doesn’t like and calls Jeff Chaney, the fullback, over to the sideline for a quick word.

“I’m thinking,’’ says Maddox, “that maybe Jeff’s forgotten the play.”

But Chaney quickly jogs back, smiles, assumes his position and the ball is snapped. Chaney leads Maddox into the line, then suddenly veers outside to block a cornerback.

Unfortunately for Maddox, that means 6-foot-4, 240-pound Bradley Jennings, a muscular sophomore referred to in Tallahassee as “The Monster,” hasn’t been touched and is waiting to meet the touted freshman where Maddox believed there would be only daylight.

“He knocked the mess out of me,” says Maddox. “They tell me I was down for a long time.”

Once Maddox had shaken off the blow — and it took plenty of shaking — the first person he went looking for was Chaney.

“Jeff, you were supposed to block the linebacker,” Maddox fumed.

“Coach told me to get the corner,” Chaney responded.

Maddox glared at the assistant, who tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t. He started chuckling, and now Chaney was chuckling, too. And then it hit Maddox. He’d been had. He’d just been royally set up for the hardest hit of his life.

But then Maddox started laughing, too, because he was bright enough to get the message. He’d just been initiated into Phi Kappa Seminole, a fraternity of world-class football players, and they’d informed him — in their own special way — that he was now in Tallahassee. And Tallahassee was a place where they expected to win and win big.

In Tallahassee, his high school press clippings no longer mattered. In Tallahassee, where everyone could run a 4.4 40-yard dash and/or bench-press a Volkswagen, he was nothing but fresh meat. And fresh meat, even high school All-America fresh meat, started at the bottom.

“That day was a humbling experience,” says Maddox. “My whole freshman year was humbling. But that’s why you go off to school. To gain knowledge, to mature.”

“Am I the same old Nick?” he adds with a chuckle. “Actually, you might say that maybe I’m a little less.”

It’s clear that a year spent mostly as a third-stringer for the national champs has changed Maddox, who turned 19 in December. Not that he was exactly swell-headed when he left Kannapolis. He actually handled the bright lights and ESPN cameras as well as any teen possibly could have. But at FSU, for the first time, he’s been exposed to players as good or better than he is. That tends to alter your outlook forever.

But Maddox grins when he’s asked if he’s discouraged. It’s clear he’s not worried about people’s expectations, doesn’t lose sleep about passing on a redshirt year and has no lingering regrets that he didn’t sign with UNC, as many thought he should have. If some of his old fans are disappointed, well, he isn’t. He chalks up the ‘99 season to experience.

“In high school, I knew I’d break every other run all the way — or at least every third run. In college, I’ve had to adjust. At this level, you don’t think touchdown, you have to concentrate on getting four or five yards. We just had our spring game and I got 20 yards or so in six carries. Considering who I was up against — I get hit harder in practice than in games — I was pleased.”

While he’s been making the mental adjustments, he’s been adjusting his body in the Seminole weight room. If you thought he was impressive in high school, you should see him now. His shoulders are wider, his chest broader, his forearms thicker. Maddox says he’s up to 200 pounds (10-15 pounds heavier than high school) and that his 40-yard times have plunged from the 4.4s into the rarefied air of the 4.3s thanks to the Seminoles’ relentless acceleration drills.

Maddox says he has only two goals for next season.

“I want to contribute and I want to win,” says Maddox, who acknowledges that rising seniors Travis Minor and Chaney will return and that rising junior Davy Ford is pushing him for playing time. “Whether I’m first team or scout team, I want to be a winner.”

Maddox isn’t kidding. He can’t recall his yardage numbers, but he can recite his team’s won-lost records all the way back to his Brothers Tire Sales squad in the fifth grade. That team, Maddox can quickly tell you, tied Terry Products for the league championship.

Maddox owns a couple of winning momentoes from his freshman year. First, there’s the massive ring he received for being a member of the national champions. There’s also an ACC championship ring. A Sugar Bowl ring is coming.

Maddox will be in Kannapolis until June 26, lifting weights at his old high school two blocks away and looking up old friends, teammates and teachers. He’ll return to play close to home twice this fall when the Seminoles visit Wake Forest (and his old Concord rival Jamie Scott) and North Carolina State.

Maddox says he’s doing well in school, but that’s it’s tougher than he dreamed. His academic advisors put him through a strenuous workout his first year.

“Who was it that said they give breaks to football players?” he laughs. “English? I hate it. Math? That’s OK. Meteorology? Why do I need that? Anthropology? I didn’t know anything at all about that stuff.”

Maddox said he was relieved when he found out his advisors had signed him up for music during second semester. But his visions of putting on the headphones and listening to a little Jay-Z didn’t materialize.

“Turned out to be a class about the history of music,” Maddox moans. “It was the hardest class I’ve ever had. The teacher lectured the whole time and we took notes. I’ve gotta pick up some shorthand. Sometimes, I’d get frustrated and just stop writing.”

Most of the time, though, Maddox is anything but frustrated. He likes his teammates (even Jennings), respects his quiet roommate (fellow high school All-American Anquan Boldin) and admires his head coach.

“Bobby Bowden’s like your grandfather,” says Maddox, “but he’s an unbelievable motivator. One minute he’ll have you crying, the next minute he’ll have you wanting to tear someone’s head off.”

Bowden probably wanted to tear the heads off a few of his players during the season, as a number of Seminoles had run-ins with the law. But Bowden doesn’t worry about Maddox in that regard. Maddox did make the papers in Tallahassee recently, but it was in a glowing letter to the editor, not the police blotter.

A couple of kids saw Maddox sitting in a mall, spotted his huge rings and started bombarding him with questions about the ‘Noles for the next 30 minutes. The kids’ father was so impressed with the way Maddox went out of his way to be nice to a couple of strangers — even letting them hold his championship ring — that he wrote the Tallahassee Democrat and told them about his positive encounter with a certain ‘Nole.

“Nick never told me he made the paper,” says his mother, Pat, who found out about the incident only after someone at Florida State mailed her the clipping. “But that’s the way he is.”

And because that’s the way he is, sooner or later we’ll be reading a lot more about Mr. Maddox. Expect it to be in the sports pages.