Georgia Tech’s quarterback Reggie Ball had just led a march down the Jackets’ football field to N.C. State’s two-yard-line, when he looked poised to put his team ahead with only 33 seconds left in the game.
Tech’s star receiver Calvin Johnson readied himself at the line against the Wolfpack’s standout corner, Marcus Hudson.
Roverback Garland Heath stood in the end zone, ready to do what he does best — read the quarterback and make a play.
As Ball called hike, Heath started towards the mobile quarterback, thinking he would take the ball in the end zone himself. But as Heath began his charge to the middle, he saw Johnson go past him in a blur and into the end zone, with Hudson following closely.
Heath slammed on the brakes, spun around and as the ball soared over his head from the quarterback’s hands to Johnson’s, he did all he could to break up the play.
But Hudson was ready – taking Johnson out by the knees just as the leaping Jacket had touched the ball.
“Then I just did what I do best,” Heath said.
The force of Hudson’s hit shot the ball back up in the air, before Heath secured it in his arms. Heath’s interception clinched the game for the Pack, ending its six-game ACC losing streak and winning in Atlanta for the first time since 1988.
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As a roverback, Heath’s job is to make the big play on defense, a task that he has become familiar with during his football career. Heath’s five interceptions led the Pack and put him fourth in the ACC en route to earning All-Conference honorable mention.
“When the defensive line is pressuring the quarterback, it forces him to throw it when he doesn’t want to,” Heath said. “And when that happens, I can make a play.”
State senior cornerback A.J. Davis, who along with Heath came up with an important interception in last year’s game at Florida State, said Heath has turned into a player you can depend on to come up big.
“He makes a lot of big plays at big moments – that’s just his style,” Davis said.
Heath, who played safety his entire life, has been put by State’s coaches into the rover position, an alternate form of safety, with the Pack.
As a rover, Heath has greater freedom to occupy the middle of the field, waiting for the quarterback to make a move and then to react to it. But minor injuries have hampered the senior during pre-season practices, limiting his ability to function at 100 percent.
“He’s supposed to be a leader back there, because he’s shown that he can be a playmaker,” coach Chuck Amato said. “But you can’t do that if you’re not out there. You can’t do that if you’re not in the best of shape. And I’m not saying he’s not or he is. You can’t do that if you’re not where you’re supposed to be weight-wise.”
His weight has been a criticism of Heath for the last two years. Listed as 225 this year, Heath asserts that big safeties are the position’s new breed.
“I’m big so I play big. Roy Williams [of the Dallas Cowboys] is a big safety, so is Sean Taylor [of the Washington Redskins] – it’s kind of the new breed,” Heath said. “Those guys can make plays so why can’t I make plays? But I still work to try to get my weight down. I’m not going to go out there over 230 [pounds].”
But Heath plans on staying in the rover position, as the experience of playing in the open field has given him the instincts to make the big play.
“At safety you get to pick and choose what you’re going to do,” Heath said. “You can lay back and get the ball, you can attack the ball, you can see who needs help, you can see all kinds of things.”
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Standing at the safety position for Glades Central High School in his team’s semifinal to the state championship game, Heath knew he needed to make a stop.
Astronaut High School’s leading running back had stomped over Heath’s defense for much of the night, and Astronaut was about to take the lead from Glades Central.
At first, it seemed like a typical play as the Astronaut’s quarterback moved to hand the ball off to the team’s star back. But the play turned in to a boot leg in which the quarterback faked the hand off and ran the opposite direction toward the open end zone.
Glades Central’s defense was fooled – except for Heath.
Heath stood his ground just outside the end zone and made a charge for the sparsely blocked quarterback. Before any help could arrive for Astronaut’s ball handler, Heath leveled the quarterback at the line of scrimmage, forcing a fourth down, and ruining any momentum Astronaut had built.
Glades Central would not allow a single point the rest of the night and advanced to the state finals.
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Heath, as his nickname implies, grew up in the “Muck.”
At the bottom of the Everglades, and just south of Lake Okeechobee lies Belle Glade, a town nicknamed for the texture of its swampy dirt. With a population around 15,000, Belle Glade is a small town without many of the amenities that cities enjoy.
“We don’t have malls or movies or things like that to hang out at,” Heath said. “So we kept ourselves busy playing football all day.”
In Belle Glade, athletes aren’t known for their basketball or baseball skills – in the Glade it’s all about football. Heath grew up playing with guys older and bigger than him – usually the type of guys who said they should have played college football, but, for one reason or another, did not.
“Most of them didn’t make it, but they’ll swear to God they were supposed to,” Heath said. “You play with those guys every day through the summer, through basketball season, through track season, and playing against those guys makes you better.”
The Muck produced plenty of Division-I talent, many of whom played on the same Pee-Wee football team with Heath.
Santonio Holmes, a first round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, John Miller, a center for South Florida and Al Royal, a linebacker for Purdue, were all on Heath’s Pee-Wee team, for which he played quarterback and safety.
“There’s a whole lot of competition down there and football is the talk of the town,” Heath said. “You can be good at basketball, but you won’t get near the attention you would for football. Being down there really makes you lean to one side.”
Heath got his fair share of competitive talk during his youth. Heath’s older brother Wreynard taught Garland all about competition.
“Everything we did was competing, that’s the only thing I know,” Garland said. “If you can get beat throwing a rock, you’re going to go out and throw a rock until you can beat the other person. To this day, if I outdo him in something or he outdoes me, I’ll call him up and say, “Now who’s the realest Heath?”
Wreynard is two years older than his brother, and said the two taught each other a lot, during their childhood while their mom worked long hours at a steel mill.
“We had to teach each other things, and we got in to football without even realizing it was an actual sport,” Wreynard said. “We just thought it was a game that we played with rocks – but we couldn’t get enough of it.”
Wreynard pushed Garland all the way through high school, where during his two years of junior varsity and two years of varsity football, Glades Central only lost one game. Heath says of State linebacker James Martin, who he played in high school, “he knows who the best school in the state of Florida is.”
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Lined up in his favorite rover position, Heath surveyed the offensive set of Florida State at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee. The Pack led for most of the game, but the Seminoles, down 20-15, were staging one last drive to put them ahead.
With a set full of defensive backs, Heath knew his job was to hover in the middle of the field and read the quarterback.
“It was near the end of the game, so he’s not going to go 30 yards down the middle like an NFL quarterback,” Heath said of Drew Weatherford, Florida State’s quarterback. “He just wants to get it out of his hands and not get sacked.”
As they had been all game, State’s defensive ends Mario Williams and Manny Lawson enveloped the quarterback, giving Weatherford only a split second to find a receiver and get him the ball. With Heath staring him down 15 yards away, Weatherford sent a spiral down the middle of the field intended for Chris Davis, the Seminoles leading receiver.
But Heath cut off the ball’s path five yards earlier than intended, grabbed it and took off down the left side of the field – sealing a road win for the second time that season.
***
Following the mass exodus of State’s defensive stars to the NFL, Heath has been left with a defense spotted with inexperience.
Although the secondary, last season’s inexperienced unit, boasts an experienced core of Heath, Davis and safeties Dajuan Morgan and Miguel Scott, linebacker and defensive end positions will be filled by newcomers to the Wolfpack defense.
“You don’t have to worry about those guys – they’re the best athletes on the team,” senior linebacker Pat Lowery said. “It helps a lot to have the assurance that they’re behind you.”
So with the secondary now seen as a strength for the Pack, Heath has taken it upon himself to lead some of the inexperienced players in front of him.
“This year I’m taking more of a leadership role,” Heath said. “I can make plays and I can come through in big situations. I want to show that I can lead the team and get guys pumped up and do the things we need to win.”
Heath decided to stay in college to prove that he could lead a defense the way those who were drafted in April led the Pack last year. But Heath hadn’t planned on staying in college the whole time.
After talking to friends and family following last season, Heath decided he could do more for himself if he stayed in college.
“There were people telling me if I stayed, I could gain more stock,” Heath said. “I went home and everybody was coming to the same conclusions that I should play it out.”
Wreynard says that speed is still a concern for Heath.
“In the NFL the guys are all so fast, but they can’t catch,” Wreynard said. “He can catch, now he just has to work on that speed – but he’s got the instincts you need.”
Heath will use the instincts he has developed through his many years at safety, which he proudly claims “are rare to find.”
And it is those very same instincts that push “the realest Heath” to come up with the big play again and again.
