University of North Carolina Athletics
Schoettmer Not Your Typical Walk-On
August 21, 2013 | Football, Featured Writers
by Robbi Pickeral, GoHeels.com
CHAPEL HILL - Sweating, bruising and grueling his way through drills last fall, North Carolina's Jeff Schoettmer never really worried about his lack of scholarship status.
What helped, though, is that mentor/linebacker Kevin Reddick didn't either.
"He said, 'Look: I know you can play, you know you can play, who cares if you're a walk-on?'" Schoettmer, now a redshirt sophomore, remembered. "No need to think of it."
So Schoettmer didn't. Still doesn't.
Especially now that he's on pace to replace Reddick -- a former four-year starter who now is in training camp with the New Orleans Saints - at starting middle linebacker when the Tar Heels open the regular season at South Carolina next week.
"I tell you what, Jeff is doing a heck of a job for us,'' coach Larry Fedora said recently. "He's definitely going to be a major factor on our team this year."
With Reddick, last year's second-leading tackler, gone, and the linebacker corps dinged and dented with injuries during the preseason, Schoettmer will have to be.
Then again, he's also put himself in position to be.
As a member of an ACC family - his dad played linebacker at Duke, his mom played tennis at Wake Forest and his brother played baseball for the Demon Deacons - it seemed natural for the 6-foot-1, three-sport athlete from Dallas to send his tapes east to Tobacco Road when he wasn't thrilled with his scholarship options.
So when then-head-coach Butch Davis offered him the opportunity to walk on, Schoettmer bought his dad a navy-blue UNC shirt ("He still won't wear Carolina blue,'' the business major said, laughing), and went to work trying to prove his worth.
It didn't take long. After redshirting in 2011, the then-freshman moved from safety to ram - a hybrid safety/linebacker position - when Fedora took over the program last season and instituted a 4-2-5 defensive scheme. With help from the tutelage of Reddick, Schoettmer appeared in all 12 games, finishing with 23 tackles, a sack and a recovered fumble.
"[Reddick] taught us things daily while he was here,'' he said. "He was big on communication, confidence, leadership, and getting the young guys ready to go."
Schoettmer readied himself during the offseason, too. Despite being sidelined with a foot injury, he put on more muscle, added speed, studied film. "And in the first couple of days of camp, I was just flying around, trying to compete with everybody,'' he said.
By Day 3, after an injury to redshirt freshman Nathan Staub, he had moved from third on the depth chart to practicing with the 1s.
He's been there since.
"When it happened, I couldn't really think about it - 'Oh, I'm with the 1s,'' because I just had to get out there and practice, work,'' he said. "Even now, I try not to think of it like that. I try to compete daily and make plays ... we're all going to get reps no matter who starts, and we're all pushing each other to get better."
Indeed, Schoettmer knows his defense - which includes linebackers Travis Hughes and Tommy Heffernan - has some things to (im)prove after finishing 10th in the league in scoring defense (32.9 ppg) last season in ACC games. (And that was with Reddick.)
"We want to have a breakout year,'' he said. "Show what we can do in [the second season of] this system." Schoettmer concedes he has some big starting cleats to fill in the middle of the defense. But scholarship or no, he said he doesn't feel like a typical "walk-on".
If he bothers to think about it.
"That's just a label,'' he said. "I've worked hard to do what everyone on this team wants to do: win."
