Why these NC State players wouldn’t trade their rocky journey to the NFL draft
James Smith-Williams and Larrell Murchison find themselves right on the doorstep of their lifelong dream.
The 2020 NFL draft starts Thursday, and Smith-Williams and Murchison aren’t expected to be among the selected few to hear their names called on Day 1. Could be some time Friday for Murchison, maybe deep into Saturday for Smith-Williams. Regardless of when the call comes, the two former N.C. State defensive linemen will start a new journey of their lives.
They both arrived on campus buried behind a defensive line that featured four future NFL draft picks, including first-round selection Bradley Chubb, who Smith-Williams played behind. And neither came to Raleigh highly heralded recruits, but their fight to gradually work their way into the rotation and eventually become starters has made this weekend especially sweet.
Their path wasn’t laid out for them from the time they committed to the Wolfpack. They weren’t promised starting positions and didn’t arrive with hype surrounding them. They waited their turn.
GOING THE JUCO ROUTE
Murchison was all set. Coming out of East Bladen High School, he was going to sign with Winston-Salem State. But life changed in a hurry. A fullback and defensive end in high school, Murchison took a detour, instead going to Louisburg College, a junior college located about an hour from Raleigh.
It wasn’t ideal.
“It was a long road, just coming from East Bladen, signing with Winston-Salem State and that falling though,” Murchison told the N&O. “The JuCo route, you know it was hard, but it was fun because of all the people I met. I have friends for life from there.”
Murchison made friends, and then he made plays. He became a NJCAA junior-college All-American at Louisburg, finishing the 2016 season with 41 tackles, 17.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks. His team went 9-0 and Murchison was ranked the No. 42 JuCo player in the country. That meant attention from more college programs. He was once primed to play at the Division II level, but suddenly Power 5 programs were showing interest. Even if he didn’t get an offer he liked, Murchison was going to walk on at a Power 5 school, getting confidence from the way he played in 2016.
But N.C. State made sure he didn’t have to do that. He arrived in Raleigh in 2017, and took a redshirt that season, waiting in the wings behind future pros B.J. Hill and Justin Jones. Murchison learned by sitting and watching those guys for a full year.
“Just how they prepared, how serious they take it,” Murchison said. “It just hit me and just made me into a better player.”
He became a starter for the Wolfpack in 2018 and was named the team’s defensive lineman of the year as well as the most improved player. As a senior last fall, he had seven sacks and 12.0 tackles for loss. His production earned him invitations to the Senior Bowl and the scouting combine, where he was lucky enough to perform in front of NFL scouts. At 6-foot-3, 291 pounds, Murchison can move around the defensive front, depending on scheme and what teams are looking for.
N.C. State coach Dave Doeren sees his game translating well to the next level.
“He can play the pass rush, he can play the five,” Doeren told the media during a interview recently. “He’s a versatile guy that’s twitchy and those disruptive defenses that move their guys a lot, don’t just eat up blocks, I think that’s where he’s being looked at.”
Murchison remembers nights at Louisburg College, sitting in his tiny dorm room, with the NFL in the back of his mind. The goal was just to get out of JuCo and once he got to a Division I school, he would take it day-by-day. It wasn’t the ideal route, but he would do it all over again, the exact same way.
“If they asked me if I could go straight to N.C. State out of high school or JuCo?” Murchison pondered. “I’d go JuCo again. Just started from the bottom and knowing what it means to be without means everything.”
CHOICES AFTER SCHOOL, FOOTBALL
Like Murchison, Smith-Williams knows that plans can change.
Two years ago, the Raleigh native graduated from N.C. State and had an open-ended job offer from IBM. Guaranteed to have solid employment after school, Smith-Williams battled through another season on the field, many thinking he would start his career in this business world when he hung up his cleats.
But he never officially closed the book on playing professional football.
“I think for me it was giving myself both avenues,” Smith-Williams told the N&O on Monday. “If I could get a job offer from IBM, an awesome place like that, and having a place to work after I graduated, I was going to pursue that, that’s why I worked there for two summers. But in the same sense, I’m giving the same effort, maybe even more, to football to pursue those dreams as well. It takes a lot of focus, but the goal was to accomplish both, never one or the other.”
With IBM waiting in the wings, Smith-Williams hopes to keep them waiting while playing on Sundays. At 6-3, 265 pounds, he has started the last two seasons at defensive end for the Wolfpack and his athleticism is what makes him so intriguing to the NFL. Doeren can see Smith-Williams, a Millbrook High School graduate, playing outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme or becoming a pass-rush specialist in the NFL.
“People are blown away by the way he ran at the combine,” Doeren said.
Smith-Williams ran a 4.6 40-yard dash in Indianapolis, a blazing run for a man his size. But he only played seven games in a senior year cut short with an injury. Smith-Williams is well aware that his durability is his biggest knock.
He had season-ending injuries in 2015 (ankle) and ‘16, the latter required surgery. He went through all the tests with the doctors at the combine, and has been given a clean bill of health, but he understands the concerns out there.
“Durability is a big issue,” Smith-Williams said. “I’m well aware of what people say.”
He would have loved to have played every game of his career. He would take away the injuries and be out there every Saturday, but they was part of the journey. Part of what put him in the position he is in today.
“Everything works out the way it should for a reason, I really believe in that,” Smith-Williams said. “I’ve learned a lot along the way that’s really helped me grow.”
There is still work to be done. If neither player gets drafted, a free agent camp invitation almost surely awaits. That means they’ll have to prove themselves all over again. That’s new to either player. It might actually be the way they prefer it.
“It was never, you’re gifted this, you’re gifted that,” Smith-Williams said. “Obviously, N.C. State’s program’s not modeled that way anyway. It’s you earn what you get. For us, he’s a JuCo transfer, I’m a lowly recruited guy out of high school, so it was always working up that hill, up that mountain.”
