NC State’s Mimms, Jones finding ways to make an impact but not necessarily on offense
Two important members of N.C. State’s football team sit in the running backs meeting room.
No, not those two. Well, yes, those two, Zonovan Knight and Ricky Person, Jr., are big parts of the team, major pieces. However, in this particular moment, the two guys in question are a pair of running backs who rarely touch the ball on Saturdays.
Between them they have just seven career carries for a combined 48 yards. But they play an important role, one that doesn’t come with the glory of scoring touchdowns, but comes with a lot of respect from teammates and coaches.
Reserve running backs Delbert Mimms III and Demarcus Jones II see the field every Saturday and most fans probably don’t notice. While Knight and Person have a combined 139 carries and seven touchdowns this year, Mimms and Jones have found a niche for themselves, doing the dirty work on special teams.
Knight and Person have been referred to as “The Dynamic Duo” or “Bam (Knight’s nickname) and Boom” and would like to be called “Craig and Dae Dae” (from the “Friday” film franchise), Mimms and Jones are still trying to find a name for themselves.
“We’re the real dynamic duo,” Mimms said. “But we have to come up with a name.”
How about “Special Forces?”
“When our time comes,” Mimms said. “We’re not going to be special forces anymore.”
Mimms was referring to the future, when he expects to get more carries, perhaps be the featured back. Same for Jones. In their minds, the special in “‘Special Forces” implies they will spend their entire career as standouts on special teams. They came to N.C. State to carry the football, like they’d done their entire prep careers. It just so happened when they arrived, they were in the same room as two All-ACC caliber running backs. So they quickly discovered another way to get on the field.
TEAM FIRST
Todd Goebbel knows it’s not always easy to convince players to come in and play special teams right away.
Goebbel coaches tight ends and is the special teams coordinator for the Wolfpack. Most athletes were stars in high school, and special teams were an afterthought. Jones and Mimms were no exception. Jones won three state titles and had 41 touchdowns at nearby Wake Forest High. The only time he participated in special teams was for field-goal attempts. Mimms admitted he played behind a couple of Power 5 backs in high school his junior year and started the season on special teams. That didn’t last long once he got carries. By the time he left Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis, he was the No. 19 recruit in the state. As it turns out, though, it was Mimms’ play on film, on special teams, that caught the eye of Wolfpack head coach Dave Doeren.
“He was literally blowing people out on kickoffs. That was one of the things that I really liked about his film,” Doeren said. “There’s a lot of good running backs on tape. When you find one that likes to break the wedge up all the time, that kind of sticks out. He’s a guy that can do some things on your team. That’s one of the reasons we offered him. It was not just his ability to run the ball, but also the things he was doing without the ball.”
Make no mistake about it, they were ballers. But Goebbel still needed 11 players to play for his units, and convincing kids to sacrifice the glory for the grunt work starts with Doeren.
“He makes special teams a priority,” Goebbel said. “We do have a team-first culture. My job is to go in and have a relationship with these guys so that at the end of the day they like playing special teams, they want to play hard for the coaches, those types of things and our culture kind of set the tone.”
According to Goebbel there aren’t two guys on the roster who represent that culture — selfless and team first — better than Mimms and Jones.
“All they want to do is win on Saturday’s,” Goebell said. “Whatever their role is, they will embrace it.”
Mimms leads the team in special teams plays (108) and Jones, his roommate, is second (86). They are easy to spot. On kickoffs and punts, Mimms blasts down the field like he was shot out of a cannon. Even if he doesn’t make a tackle, he’s near the ball more times than not, having a friendly (or not so friendly) exchange with an opponent.
“I always play with a chip on my shoulder,” Mimms said. “I like contact, I like to hit people, I like to get in your head.”
Usually Jones is not too far away. Jones, once a preferred walk-on who earned a scholarship last summer, knew special teams would be his ticket early on.
“Coming in as a walk-on, I was just trying to scrap and strive for what I could get,” Jones said. “When I got the opportunity to get on special teams I just took it and ran with it.”
Jones remembers the day in practice when Goebbel was looking for an extra body and he stepped in. He hasn’t looked back. Goebbel told The News & Observer that the passion and enthusiasm Jones and Mimms have for special teams has become contagious. They’ve shown the younger players the importance of special teams and putting that on tape. Willingness to do that early is the fast track to playing offense or defense, not the other way around. More importantly, Goebbel knows the duo has the respect of every coach and player in the locker room for their selflessness.
That respect came early.
Mimms and Jones lived across the hall from one another when they first got to N.C. State. They bonded over a shared work ethic, love for contact and competing in everything from who can lift the most to who finishes a sprint first. Off the field, it’s the conversations — about their roles, their future — that bonded them as well.
“We want to be out there scoring touchdowns,” Jones said. “And that can be tough sometimes, but just keeping that bond and keeping each other up.”
Make an impact
Goebbel understands that Mimms and Jones want to carry the ball, score the touchdowns, just like they did in high school. But they’ve put the team first and take great pride in their work.
Besides, it’s not like they aren’t contributing. And that message, all the way from Doeren, to running backs coach Kurt Roper, to Goebbel, has gotten through to Mimms and Jones.
“They know that the standard in the running back room is to make an impact,” Goebbel said. “It never says how do you make an impact? It just says make an impact. It’s kind of been a culture within the (running back) room to just make a positive impact on the game and you’re going to be respected in this room.”
The duo know that impact can be the energy they play with, or a big hit that could cause a turnover. Whatever it takes. Besides, they are both redshirt freshmen thanks to the COVID year, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. They are both confident the carries will come, but for now at least, that’s not the priority.
“We’re getting on the field now,” Mimms said. “We’re getting our reps, we know our time is coming.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2021 at 1:38 PM.
