CHARLOTTE— Fans who watched East Carolina linebacker Jeff Kerr in the first half of
the Pirates’ 30-23 season-opening win over West Virginia at Ericsson Stadium might
have wondered what all the fuss was about.In the second half, however, Kerr showed exactly why he might be wearing
the uniform of an NFL team the next time he visits Ericsson in the fall of 2000.
Kerr, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound
linebacker, who has been mentioned on several preseason All-America teams, had just three
tackles in a quiet first half. But he turned up the intensity several notches in the
second stanza to finish with a team-leading 11 tackles, including four humongous ones.
“In the first half, there are
always questions in your head,” said Kerr, who won county Defensive Player of the
Year honors in 1994 as a South Rowan High senior. “But in the second half,
you’ve figured out which plays that you’ve seen on film that they’re going
to run. Then you can be aggressive.”
It’s possible that the reason
Kerr didn’t have a productive first half was that the Mountaineers gave him a wide
berth. They may have had not-so-fond memories of their previous encounter with No. 84.
The last time West Virginia had
seen Kerr up close and personal was Sept. 6, 1997. That was his coming out party as a
sophomore — the day on which he returned from two seasons of devastating knee
injuries to smother 14 West Virginia ballcarriers.
That year, he made second team
All-Conference USA. In 1998, he made the league’s first team and led ECU in tackles.
This year, everyone from NFL scouts to Pirate fans says the sky’s the limit for the
bruising backer.
Kerr’s first impact in the
game came early in the third quarter.
East Carolina was nursing a 12-7
lead when Pirate punter Andrew Bayes’ boot was blocked by the Mountaineers. Suddenly,
West Virginia had the ball at the Pirate 13, and a touchdown would give them the lead.
On first down, Avon Cobourne, the
Mountaineer’ star back, hammered the ball down to the 8.
But then Kerr,who calls the
Pirates’ defensive signals, took charge.
On the next two plays Avon called
again, but both times he ran headlong into Kerr. And both times it was Cobourne, not Kerr,
that gave ground. The two runs netted just two yards, and West Virginia had to settle for
a field goal try. The Mounties converted, but ECU still led 12-10.
Kerr had to take a giant step
forward again in the fourth quarter.
This time the Pirates trailed
23-22, with the clock rolling under five minutes to play, and the Mountaineers trying
desperately to extinguish what remained.
On a first down play, Kerr
crumpled Cobourne for a 1-yard gain.
On second down, Kerr whipped his
blocker and sacked Mountaineer quarterback Marc Bulger for a 10-yard loss. Then on
third-and-19, Bulger heard Kerr’s footsteps and tossed an incompletion.
That series of heroics by Kerr
forced a punt. And his offensive teammates made the most of that precious possession that
he gave them, punching across the winning touchdown with 1:43 remaining.
When the Pirates had clinched,
beating West Virginia for only the second time in their history, Kerr was one of the
leading celebraters.
He grabbed a bucket of Gatorade
and dumped it on unsuspecting coaches. He even played to the crowd, leading thousands clad
in purple and gold in an outpouring of good feelings.
Meanwhile, the media waited in
force for Kerr to arrive for postgame questions.
“Is Kerr on the list?”
one reporter demanded of an ECU representative.
“Jeff’s always on the
list,” she responded coolly.
When Kerr finally reported to the
interview room — cap askew but head on straight — everyone wanted to know about
that game-swinging sack.
“It just happened,” he
dead-panned. “Just doing my job.”
But he got a little more animated
when talk turned to his impromptu Gatorade gala.
“The way I look at it, my
teammates and coaches are my best friends,” said a chuckling Kerr. “And if you
can’t party with your friends, who can you party with?”
But then the hubbub died down, and
Kerr took a moment to be serious before he turned to mount the ECU bus.
“To win a game like this and
to get to play it this close to my family and friends was wonderful,” he said.
“It was an absolute thrill.”
For Jeff Kerr’s legion of
fans, the thrill-ride may be only beginning. |
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