BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -Cody Grimm only stands out when No. 14 Virginia Tech lines up on defense because at 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds he looks too small to be a linebacker.
He doesn’t talk smack, either.
“I don’t want to make the other player angry,” he said. “He’s probably stronger than me, throw me around, so I just tell them they’re doing a good job and get back to the huddle.”
But Grimm has played huge this season once the ball is in play, seemingly always moving to where it is, a sure tackler with a knack for knocking it free from sloppy runners.
He’s the best in the nation at forcing fumbles with seven. In the Hokies game against North Carolina State last weekend, he tied an NCAA single-game record by forcing three. Oh, and he did it on the Wolfpack’s first four plays, then sloughed it off as luck.
“I just go out and try to do my job and let stuff come to me,” he said.
Not true, Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien said after the game.
‘Brien said, adding that he tried to recruit Grimm when he was at Boston College, but that Grimm said he wanted to stay in Virginia, close to home. “He’s always headed in the right direction. Cody has great instincts and he’s a great tackler.”
Pretty high praise for a former walk-on who weighed all of 185 pounds when he arrived in Blacksburg, but who now ranks third in the Atlantic Coast Conference with 8.5 tackles per game.
He’ll wrap up his final regular season on Saturday when the No. 14 Hokies (8-3, 5-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) travel to Virginia (3-8, 2-5) seeking their sixth victory in a row in the series.
“The guy’s just had a phenomenal year, and I’ll stand on the table for him being defensive player of the year,” Hokies defensive coordinator Bud Foster said. “Why not? Is there anybody else that’s done the things he’s done? The guy’s just a great football player.”
Foster admitted having had some reservations when Grimm first showed up at Virginia Tech, a player with an older brother, Chad, on the team and a father, Russ, who was a Pro Bowl offensive lineman as a member of the Washington Redskins’ famed Hogs in the 1980s.
But in a season when the Hokies had to replace several veterans and the defense struggled at time, Foster can’t imagine what the Hokies would have done without the steady Grimm.
s the plays. He’s around the ball. He’s faster than you give him credit being, he’s more athletic than you give him credit being. He’s just a great football player and he’s had a great senior season.”
It’s no surprise, then, that his teammates are among his biggest fans.
“He’s a tough football player,” said 6-4 safety Kam Chancellor, who strength coach Mike Goforth identified as the guy no one on the Hokies wants to mess with. “He plays special teams, he just does it all. He’s a guy that just goes 100 percent every single play in every game.”
Ryan Williams, the leading rusher in the Atlantic Coast Conference, is as likely to run over his tackler as he is to run around him, but he experienced the ferocity of Grimm last summer.
“Cody Grimm plays 10 feet tall,” he said with a wide smile, the kind that suggested he was considering whether or not to share an unflattering story. “I remember in my first scrimmage last year when I redshirted, in the summer. I had an option out to the outside. Looking at Cody Grimm, he’s a small guy. Well, he hit me and I flew all the way out to the bench.
“This guy comes to play every play he’s in there.”
And that, as it turns out, is almost all the time.
He’s made 18 of his 93 tackles on special teams, causing coach Frank Beamer to marvel.
“He’s amazing to me,” Beamer said. “The guy, he’s on kickoff coverage, and he’s never once come and said, ‘I need a blow.’ After he does all those things, I’ve never seen him get tired. He just kinda keeps going, same speed all the time, and he’s a playmaker.”
Not bad for a guy who didn’t have a scholarship when he showed up on campus.
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