Talk about some good unexpected news to come from the Idaho football team.
It was announced last week that senior defensive tackle Quayshawne Buckley was rejoining the team.
When asked how it was possible, coach Paul Petrino said that Buckley was able to apply for an extra year, because he simply didn’t play in 2010 — his freshman season. They never applied a redshirt on him but after appealing to the NCAA, it was determined that he could be granted another year of eligibility.
This is great news for not only the defensive line unit, but for the whole defense.
Buckley brings a lot to the table. He clogs up the middle when the opposing team is running and can get to the quarterback on passing situations.
In 12 games last season, Buckley had 46 total tackles. Thirty-eight of them were solo, 16 of them happened to be for a loss and seven of them were sacks.
Those numbers are huge. The seven sacks and 16 tackles-for-loss led the team. If you combine his seven sacks that he had with defensive ends Maxx Forde and Quinton Bradley, and linebacker Marc Millan, the Vandals are bringing back four players who totaled 19.5 sacks for the team.
That’s over 70 percent of the sack total for the Vandals.
If the Vandals can improve on those sack numbers, it is really going to help take a lot of pressure off the secondary — a secondary that had a lot of trouble last season when it came to defending the pass.
Plus, if you look at the projected talent of incoming junior college player Alfonso Hampton, fans could be looking at not only one of the best defensive tackle tandems in the Sun Belt, but possibly in all of the NCAA.
This move not only benefits the Vandals though. It benefits Buckley himself going into the future.
He is an NFL level talent and has been for a couple seasons now. Getting one more year of eligibility can help him tremendously when trying to get noticed by NFL scouts.
If he could go out and put up even better numbers then he did this last season, scouts are going to take notice. Come draft time next year, we could be hearing his name get called in the draft.
He certainly has the talent to make it onto an NFL team and with this extra season, he’s going to be able to prove why he deserves to be looked at by NFL scouts.
But first, let’s hope that he can help the Vandals improve on their win total from last season.
Rick Clark can be reached at