Sept. 10, 2005
By Greg Knowlden
Assistant Sports Information Director
Frank Tavani has seen a lot of football in nearly two decades on the Lafayette coaching staff.
But the Leopards' head coach, who's in his sixth season at the helm of the program, isn't sure he's seen anything like the three linebackers that he sends onto the field each Saturday afternoon.
"This is arguably the best linebacking group that we've had in my 19 years at Lafayette, both as an assistant and head coach," Tavani said.
He won't get any disagreement from Maurice Bennett, Lafayette's Buchanan Award candidate, which goes to the top defensive player in I-AA football.
"I think we have the best linebacking corps in the league," Bennett said. "We all have 100-plus tackle potential since our abilities complement each other so well on the field."
Bennett, Blake Costanzo and Dion Witherspoon, all seniors, are the centerpieces of a Leopard defense that returns a player with starting experience at every position. In Lafayette's season-opening win at Marist, the linebackers combined for 28 tackles, eight for a loss, and four sacks.
"We came into this year with 10 returning starters on defense, but I really think of it as 11 since Dion Witherspoon played as much last year as Wes Erbe did," Tavani explained.
Bennett and Costanzo have started every game since they were sophomores, while Witherspoon stepped into a starting spot in five games a year ago when Erbe, a two-year co-captain, was out of commission, first with an ankle injury and later with a broken leg.
It's that experience that has expectations surrounding the Lafayette program at an all-time high, which is just fine with the Leopards' linebackers, who enter today's game with Richmond with 587 career tackles among them.
"This season is it," Witherspoon said. "It's the last time I'll be playing football, and I don't want to have any regrets. We're going to leave it all out there."
Three falls have passed since the Lafayette football class of 2006 first gathered on the practice field at the Metzgar Athletic Complex, but Witherspoon remembers it clearly.
"Blake was the first person I met at camp when we were freshmen, and we just hit it off. It was the same thing with Maurice," he explained. "I've been to their houses, I've met their parents, and they've stayed at my house. We're family."
"I've been to Virginia to see Dion and spent a lot of time with him down there," Bennett said. "Blake's mom has promised me a great steak dinner so I'm looking forward to taking her up on that, and he enjoys my mom's banana pudding. Graduation won't change anything. We're going to be friends for a long time."
"They have different personalities, which is probably why they get along so well on and off the field," Tavani said. "Of course, as football players, they're all extremely talented, and they're interchangeable, which allows us to do some things with our defense that we haven't been able to do before. We're at the point where any one of them would be able to step into another position and we wouldn't lose any productivity. That's a great luxury to have as a head coach."
Bennett, the middle linebacker, has developed into one of the dominant forces in the Patriot League. The Philadelphia native and George Washington High product was a first-team All-Patriot League selection in 2004. He is also an Economics and Business major who had a Wall Street internship last summer as an equity trader with Credit Suisse First Boston.
Ask Tavani about Bennett and suddenly the well-spoken coach is at a loss for words.
"What more can you say about Maurice that hasn't already been written," Tavani pondered. "He's the ultimate student-athlete, and he's lived up to the expectations that we had for him as a coaching staff, but more importantly, the already high expectations that he had for himself."
His equally talented teammates are also awed by his ability on the field.
"Mo knows the game so well," Costanzo said. "He identifies plays so quickly that it seems like he knows what's coming before the ball is snapped."
Meanwhile, Bennett says that having Costanzo and Witherspoon beside him allows him to take more chances to make the big play.
"I feel comfortable going on my instincts since I know Blake and Dion are flowing to the ball," he explained. "If I don't make a play, they're there to clean it up."
Those instincts have helped Bennett accumulate 227 tackles in the past two seasons, including a league-leading 119 stops in 2004. He has gathered preseason All-American recognition from The Sports Network as well as placement on the prestigious Buchanan Watch list. He is also the focal point for opposing offenses.
"A lot of teams will game plan on Mo, which is fine with me," Witherspoon said. "If they're sleeping on myself and Blake, that frees us up to make plays."
Tavani, the 2004 Patriot League Coach of the Year, wouldn't recommend that to any of the Leopards' opponents.
"Blake is the best pure football player that I've seen in this league in a while," Tavani enthused. "He runs so well, and he plays at 240 pounds. He's able to play at the second level as a linebacker, and he also gets out and covers tight ends and plays in the slot. His abilities give us a tremendous amount of flexibility in our defense."
Costanzo, from Franklin Lakes, N.J., was a second-team All-Patriot League selection a year ago. He has more than 90 tackles each of the last two seasons, and his career totals of 24 tackles for a loss and 13 ½ sacks are the most of any Leopard. He is flanked by Witherspoon at the other outside linebacker spot. While they're several yards apart at the snap, they almost always meet at the ball carrier a few seconds later.
"Dion probably has the most speed of the three of us," Costanzo said. "He's always moving to the ball. He makes a lot of tackles just by getting to the ball from from the weak side of the play."
It would appear that Witherspoon worked so hard to get on the field that he doesn't want to come off it. The Newport News, Va. native came alive in the final three games of the 2004 season as Lafayette claimed the Patriot League championship and its first-ever postseason appearance. Witherspoon made a career-high 12 tackles against Holy Cross, recovered a fumble in the Leopards' 24-10 win over Lehigh, and had 11 stops at defending national champion Delaware.
"We talk about seizing the moment and toiling until an opportunity comes along, and Dion certainly did that as a junior," Tavani explained. "When Wes Erbe went down, he was ready and was just like a starter for us last year."
"We know how to read each other, react, and make plays," Witherspoon said. "With these guys, it's like playing for your own brother, and you don't want to let your brother down."
