On every football team, there are players who will play a small part in every play of every game and contribute to the total team effort. Then there are those players who step up when they are needed the most, winning the game with the big play.
Sophomore bandit linebacker LeVance McQueen is the latter of these players, the type of player that you don't think is even in the game until the point in the contest that he wins it for his team.
McQueen's statistics from his freshman campaign last year go a long way in proving that. McQueen saw action in all 12 games last year, but still only managed to make 23 tackles. However, four of these tackles were sacks that came in crucial situations. McQueen's only tackle in the Hall of Fame Bowl last year went for a sack, and in what was one of McQueen's best football moments, he made two tackles in the Clemson game, both quarterback sacks. This helped propel Duke to a close 19-13 win over a Clemson team that McQueen was nearly a part of.
The sophomore grew up in Dunn, N.C., and was always interested in Atlantic Coast Conference football teams, with the Tigers being his favorite.
"Personally, growing up, Clemson was my favorite football team," McQueen said. "Death Valley, that's a place any football fan can appreciate."
McQueen had always wanted to go to Clemson, but after head coach Ken Hatfield resigned during McQueen's senior year, the high school outside linebacker and running back reconsidered his options and eventually became head coach Fred Goldsmith's first signed recruit at Duke.
Besides making such a big impact in the Clemson game, McQueen also stepped up in Duke's biggest win of last year, a 28-25 victory over the Virginia Cavaliers. With time running out and UVa trying to surmount one last drive, McQueen dropped back into coverage and grabbed an interception, which sealed the win for the Blue Devils. McQueen certainly picked an excellent time to make his only interception of the year.
Unfortunately for the team, McQueen was not able to pick up with his big-play ability this season where he left off at the end of last year. During summer practices, McQueen tore some cartilage in his knee and that has hampered him all season.
"Not being able to play, day in and day out of being on the sideline, and most of all, day in and day out of being on the losing sideline, it really makes it hard to take," McQueen said. "I think if we were winning, and I wasn't able to play, that would have been easier to take."
McQueen only missed the first three games of the season with the cartilage tear, but he has been used sparingly since, starting only in the Navy, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest games. In addition, playing in the Navy and Georgia Tech games may have done more harm than good in getting McQueen back up to full speed.
"After the Navy game, that was probably the lowest point of football in my life," McQueen said. "We played a team that we were actually better than, we should have beat that team, we could have beat that team, but because we didn't perform to our abilities, they beat us.
"After the Navy loss, I went home and went to sleep--I didn't want to have anything to do with football. The next day's NFL games, I couldn't watch them, I was just at the lowest point. Football at that particular time was not fun at all."
It's clear though, that when McQueen is at 100 percent, the game becomes fun again and he becomes a force to be reckoned with. Against Wake Forest, McQueen's first game that he really felt comfortable in, he made a career-high nine tackles.
Another key to this rejuvenated season undoubtedly comes from the fact that he has finally been moved back to the roving bandit linebacker position, instead of the inside linebacker spot where McQueen often felt locked in. While McQueen thought the team had been gaining confidence since its fourth-quarter loss to a ranked Virginia team, he said he hadn't felt good about his play until the Blue Devils' last game.
"For me, it happened last week against Wake when I got moved back to bandit," McQueen said. "I felt more comfortable and I was more familiar with things."
Although Duke has no possibilities of making a bowl game, or even of finishing with a winning record, McQueen has brought back a fire to the team and has set two goals, one for himself and one for the team.
"I want to go out and establish myself in the defense and in making big plays because I haven't been able to do that all year," McQueen said.
While the team goal may be a bit on the personal side for McQueen, he would get no greater joy than marching down to South Carolina to ruin Clemson's hope for a bowl game.
"From the beginning of the year, the one game I looked forward to was going down to play Clemson in Death Valley," McQueen said. "Right now, we're the underdogs against a ranked team that's trying to go to a bowl game. We feel like we can play the role of spoilers."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.