Nov. 8, 2007

By Bill Hass
theACC.com

GREENSBORO, N.C. - On one hand, you could suit up Geno Hayes as Robert Redford's football equivalent of "The Natural."

On the other hand, the Florida State linebacker (Hayes, not Redford) will tell you that all the natural ability in the world doesn't help if you don't study your opponent.

Last Saturday, the Seminoles were clinging to a 20-17 lead against second-ranked Boston College. Eagles' quarterback Matt Ryan, who had engineered an amazing comeback against Virginia Tech in his previous game, had a chance to do it again.

But Hayes made sure that didn't happen. When Ryan threw a pass intended for his tight end on an underneath route, Hayes intercepted it and returned it 38 yards for the clinching touchdown with 1:10 remaining.

"Whereas we were threatening to get beat, all of sudden, out of nowhere, (Hayes) makes a play that wins the game," said Florida State coach Bobby Bowden. "I'm glad to see it. He's a great natural football player."

While Hayes appreciated the compliment, he said it was no accident that he seemingly came out of nowhere. Although the Seminoles were in a zone defense, when the play started Hayes showed man-to-man coverage for a couple of strides and then slid over to his zone.

"I had been expecting that route," he said. "(Ryan) was looking to go deep and the tight end was the check-down. I saw the tight end go across the middle and I jumped the route. I saw a big lineman in front of me and I wasn't even worried about that. After that, I was gone. All I saw was the end zone."

That play recognition came as a result of intense film study.

"It pays off really well because you can predict what they would run in that formation," Hayes said. "It's all about recognizing the formation and what they do out of it."

So, in Hayes the Seminoles have a player who combines his considerable natural talent with the desire to make himself even better.

"He has become the general of the defense as far as getting people lined up," said linebackers coach Chuck Amato. "When you're a linebacker, you need to be a team leader and (make a lot of) tackles because that's what the job description is. He really studies film and works hard to find little things that can help him. He anticipates plays with different formations because he studies it. And he's got great vision."

A third-year junior, Hayes fits Amato's job description well. His 60 tackles rank second on the team and his 36 solo stops are first. He has 14 tackles for loss (his average of 1.56 per game ranks third in the ACC) and three sacks.

Hayes grew up in Greenville, a town of just over 800 residents, some 30 miles east of Tallahassee. At Madison County High School, he played defensive end as a junior and linebacker as a senior - always with an eye on Florida State.

"I used to watch their games," Hayes said, "and on Play Station, when I played NCAA (football), I always created myself as a Florida State Seminole. So it was always a dream for me to be a Seminole."

Hayes said at first FSU didn't offer him a scholarship. He had other options - Tennessee and Clemson were seriously in the hunt - and when he made some big plays near the end of his senior year, the offer came through and there was no doubt he would accept.

Although he figured he might play safety, the Seminoles were well-stocked there and put him at outside linebacker. Hayes was impressive enough to play as a true freshman, mostly on special teams, where he recovered a blocked punt in the end zone for a touchdown against Clemson. He recorded 17 tackles in limited action as a backup linebacker.

He earned a starting spot as the weak-side linebacker as a sophomore, making a big first impression with eight tackles in the opening game, a win over Miami . He was just beginning to feel comfortable at his position when he sprained his knee and missed three games. He returned to the lineup for the final three games and made a career-high 12 tackles in the win over UCLA in the Emerald Bowl.

At his position, Hayes said, his responsibilities include watching for reverses and cutbacks by the runners and playing a lot of man-to-man pass coverage. At first, he let his natural ability guide his play.

"There are some players who are robots," Bowden said. "They do exactly like they're taught and maybe it's not a natural reaction, it's a memorized reaction.

"A natural football player will do something out of the ordinary through instinct - that makes him a dangerous guy. There are certain guys that you don't like to put the ball around and I think (Hayes is) probably one of those. That (interception) was just natural instinct at the proper time."

Hayes quickly discovered there was a big difference between high school and college football.

"I found out that you can't just go running across the field," he said. "You have to take care of your own job first. In high school I would just run right to the ball and forget about my responsibilities on the back side, my man going down the field on a reverse or a pass.

"I learned to be more patient, that you've got to have more film study in order to know what's coming when the play is called."

Now that he's recognized as a leader and one of the team's best defensive players, Hayes wants to help lead the Seminoles back to being one of the nation's elite teams. The win over Boston College was a start.

"We had a team effort," Hayes said. "The offense didn't turn the ball over and the defense played as a team. (In) other games we had big mishaps here, miscommunications there, wrong personnel on the field, things like that. Everything seemed to click for this game.

"That game showed what Florida State can do. We're tying to get back to that level of dominance. I know a lot of people have looked at us like we're going to be a pushover. We're focusing real hard on getting back to where we're supposed to be."

At 3-3 in the ACC's Atlantic Division, the Seminoles are virtually out of contention to make the championship game in Jacksonville . Even if they win at Virginia Tech Saturday and at home against Maryland next week to finish 5-3, the winner of the Clemson-Wake Forest game will earn its fifth win this week and both have the tiebreaker with wins over Florida State.

But, as Bowden said, "if we can't win it then we'll try to spoil it for somebody else." At 6-3, and with a game left against Florida to end the season, the Seminoles will try to put together the most impressive bowl resume they can.

"They play hard and they get after you," said Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, 0-7 in his career against the Seminoles. "This is a really good football team. Of course, that's obvious after going up to Boston College in terrible weather and beating them there."

Beamer said he is impressed with the linebackers - Derek Nicholson in the middle and Dekoda Watson and Hayes on the outside.

"You look at Hayes, I think the position is very natural for him and his play shows that," Beamer said.

Natural - there's that word again. Hayes can't get away from it, not that he wants to. But he'll also be quick to remind anyone that he has logged the hours in the film room.

"I see it as my taking the time to learn exactly what the offense is trying to do to pick on our defense," he said, "and what's the purpose of the defense that we're running. It's understanding the game of football, knowing what everybody is doing on the field.

"That's something coach Amato stressed very heavily when he got down here, being the quarterback on defense, knowing what everybody is doing all the time. That's something I worked on hard."

And no one would argue with the results.

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Bill Hass is a long-time observer of ACC sports. His career at the Greensboro News & Record spanned 36 years, from 1969 until his retirement in March, 2006. He is now writing "Bill Hass on the ACC" for theACC.com. His weekly columns will keep fans plugged in to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

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