Jerry Mackey, Kelvin Smith and Luke Cain still vividly remember practicing with the scout team as redshirt freshmen.

They looked raw and uncertain, without a doubt. But they also looked talented and hungry, eager to compete with the upperclassmen and poised to eventually team together as a destructive unit for years to come.

But the three have never played alongside each other. Until now.

Mackey’s injured shoulder and hyper-extended elbow before the 2005 season resulted in Smith moving into Mackey’s middle linebacker spot. Cain lost an opportunity to start for the first time last year after an unspecified suspension limited him to six games.

‘It’s kind of disappointing we never got to play earlier,’ Smith said. ‘It’s cool now, man. We just have to take advantage of it.’

With Mackey and Cain overcoming obstacles to join fourth-year starter Smith, the senior trio’s strengths and relative experience prompted Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson to tout the linebackers as SU’s forte. The unit may be the Orange’s only exclamation point on a team riddled with question marks.

‘We had to find a way to get these three guys on the football field,’ linebackers coach Steve Russ said.

Mackey recovered from his injuries to earn the starting job at weakside linebacker this year. Cain worked himself back on to the team and into the starting strongside linebacker position. And Smith will continue to occupy middle linebacker, a spot he moved into from the outside after Mackey’s injuries.

As Mackey sees it, the struggles he and Cain have experienced – perhaps a reflection of the whole Orange football team – only gave them more opportunities to mature.

After Mackey succumbed to injuries, he teamed with Will Hicks, SU’s strength and conditioning coach, to change his workout approach. Mackey focused on more cardiovascular training because the exercises he previously used overemphasized muscle building, which made his 6-foot-1 figure too stiff.

Mackey’s combined his workout routine with his morning job at Demolition First, a construction company that renovated Brewster/Boland/Brockway and Slocum Heights. The intense daily routine prompted Smith to joke it’s hard to determine whether Mackey is a man or a machine.

While Mackey enjoyed the weekends off, he spent the weekdays using the sledgehammer, breaking down walls and heavy lifting, followed by more heavy lifting in the weight room.

‘The first week was just tough,’ Mackey said. ‘I had to condition my mind to be able to go through with it. After a long day’s work, you don’t feel like going to work out. I felt like lying down. I would come home, change clothes and look at the bed. But you have to tune it out and focus your mind. It’s amazing what you can do when you really focus.’

Mackey expressed frustration over his pay. With the heavy amount of lifting the job required, he expected to receive somewhere between $12 and $20 an hour but only took home $10.

He joked his situation opposed the case of former Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn, who were recently kicked off the Sooners after the NCAA disclosed both players were overly compensated at a local car dealership.

What may have lacked in a paycheck Mackey made up for in his physical structure. Hicks said he only dropped from 236 pounds to 233 ponds, but he showed more flexibility in his movement.

‘I don’t want to say we backed off with lifting,’ Hicks said. ‘But it comes to the point with an athlete where strong enough is strong enough. My job with strength and conditioning is not necessarily to get the biggest and strongest guy. It’s to give Coach Robinson the best product.’

Add his jovial personality to a strong work ethic and you have a person who, along with quarterback Perry Patterson, has inspired the rest of the Orange to follow suit, Robinson said. Smith thinks he could never replicate Mackey’s summer routine but knows his intense play rubs off on both him and Cain, even though they’re more even-keeled.

Smith, Mackey and Robinson saw a similar positive attitude in Cain after he was suspended last year. The reason for the suspension is unknown, but Smith disclosed, ‘He never lost it with us. The personal issues were with him and the coaches.’

Robinson saw sincerity from Cain that showed he wanted to do whatever necessary to return to the roster. Robinson acknowledged Cain’s positive attitude and his talent level with the scout team helped speed up the process of reinstating him.

‘He gave of himself in such a way that it was obvious to me he learned from his mistake,’ Robinson said. ‘He extended himself to his teammates in a way that was very special, and his teammates felt it. When we brought him back, I know they were very pleased to have him.’

Added Cain: ‘Those guys supported me and it was good to know that the guys basically had my back. Life is a lot of learning experiences and humbling experiences. I think with that and life in general I learned to be more humble and more observant.’

Cain, the team’s fastest linebacker, saw his mistake as an opportunity to help him grow. But he points to, perhaps, more similar obstacles in that life that has instilled a quiet yet wise demeanor. Growing up in Washington D.C., Cain said he didn’t have many positive role models and he admitted a culture shock when he came to The Hill in 2002.

Cain’s calm demeanor plays off well with Mackey’s more rah-rah attitude. Russ sees Smith as a mix between the two. Smith admits Mackey’s enthusiasm is contagious, but he still prefers ‘making plays and letting my actions speak louder than my words.’

Quite fitting that Smith, the one in the middle, is the stabilizer in both personality and position. Robinson and Russ see his strong instincts and consistency to attack the interior last year as carrying over again this upcoming season.

Smith thinks Cain and Mackey, who combined have played all the different positions at linebacker, inherited his prowess. Russ said experience and knowledge stands out with the trio’s knowledge of the terms as well as their strong communication.

That communication was not as prevalent last year, Smith said, because SU’s experienced defense was well in tune of what they needed to do. But with the linebacking corps being perhaps the only seasoned unit, communication will come in handy among the three to the rest of the team.

‘The time is now and I know we’re all beat up and hurt right now,’ Smith said of the rigors of preseason camp. ‘But I think we’re going to be alright and have fun with it. Once the season starts and all that and we start making real plays in real games, we’re going to have a lot of fun.’

Published on August 31, 2006 at 12:00 pm