Published: August 28, 2009 01:33 am      

HERTZEL COLUMN: Madsen has WVU center job in hands

MORGANTOWN — When he was a young kid – calling him little would probably not be the proper adjective – Joey Madsen was like most of us.

“I wanted the ball,” he admits.

His dreams were like everyone else’s, a football tucked under his arm, juking one tackler, stiff-arming another, high-stepping into the end zone.

For some of us, those dreams come true.

Others, like Joey Madsen, simply outgrow their dreams.

Around the seventh or eighth grade, he’s not sure which, the facts of life came to him as he stepped on a scale and it registered about 225 pounds.

He would not have a football in his hands. He would be an offensive lineman.

He played at Chardon High in northeastern Ohio, which is in the Canton/Massillon area, virtually where high school football was perfected. It’s an area where they play tough football, hard-nosed football.

It would help him quite a bit later.

He was both an offensive and defensive tackle at Chardon, a good enough one that West Virginia University coaches liked what they saw as he grew to 6-feet, 4-inches and 291 pounds. They recruited him; he came and spent a year redshirting.

Then one day they came to him and gave him an offer he could not refuse, for his high school dream would be answered.

They told him he’d have the football in his hands.

Unfortunately, it would be on the ground when he held for they moved him to center.

Of course, when they did so he really didn’t know how to react.

“I was scared. I never thought I could handle the responsibility of having the football in my hands every play,” he admitted.

Then, in the last week of camp, they promoted him from the backup center job to the starting center job.

It wasn’t a matter of anyone doing anything wrong. The Mountaineers were just trying to find a way to get their best athletes on the field and to get some depth in the middle of an offensive line that is inexperienced and, to be honest, the most questionable unit on the field.

Eric Jobe had replaced Mike Dent at center in mid-season, 2008, when the senior suffered a neck injury and was penciled in to start this year. But the way things worked out, Madsen came on, and that allowed coach Bill Stewart to move Jobe to guard, put Jeff Braun in the backup role at center and guard, where his versatility could be used, and make a stronger unit out of the line.

It was something of an unorthodox move, for normally a coach would like to bring a center on slowly, let him have a redshirt season, then a backup season of 150 or so plays to learn the techniques and the calls a center must make.

“It probably is quick (to make a starter of Madsen), but he has Jobe beside him to make the calls,” Stewart said.

The lack of experience is offset by the toughness Madsen brings to the position, and that goes back to his high school training.

“I come from a town where you’re tough off the ball,” he said. “You hit people in the face and you don’t stop moving your feet. With Jobe now at right guard, we’re going to get the push that we need to move those big guys up front.”

When he was told that he would be working with the first unit, the first thing Madsen did was place a call home.

“My mom asked how practice went and I told her I was repping with first team. She told my dad and they both cried,” he said.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.