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2006 Sugar Bowl: Jay Henry
June 12, 2015 09:19 AM | General
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| Linebacker Jay Henry returns a fourth-quarter fumble during West Virginia's key early season win at Maryland in 2005. | |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo | |
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“I tell people I snuck into West Virginia barely and was lucky to get a scholarship,” Henry recalled recently.
Henry played at one of the top prep football programs in the country at Jenks and was discovered by current Arizona State coach Todd Graham.
West Virginia was undergoing a philosophical change on defense at the time and Henry’s talents and brains suited the style co-coordinators Graham and Jeff Casteel wanted to adopt. The Mountaineers were coming off an unsuccessful season in 2001 that saw the Mountaineers give up yardage in massive chunks.
Henry, although small for a typical college middle linebacker weighing just 220 pounds, became a valuable player of West Virginia’s 2005 defense that finished ranked seventh in the country in turnover margin, 15th in total defense and 19th in rushing defense.
He made 58 tackles, 5 ½ tackles for losses, two sacks, recovered a key fumble at Maryland and forced three fumbles, one of those coming at a critical moment in the 2006 Nokia Sugar Bowl in Atlanta.
West Virginia’s victory over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl is considered one of the watershed moments in Mountaineer football history.
Henry came to West Virginia with experience playing a 4-3 defense in high school, but he was smart enough to adapt to West Virginia’s unorthodox scheme.
“It was a more physical defense from a linebacker perspective than a typical 4-3 defense,” Henry recalled.
A key component of the 3-3 Stack, according to Henry, is the linebackers’ ability to get downhill quickly. The Stack is a little different than a conventional defense because the middle linebacker is stacked right behind the nose and he doesn’t have a defined gap responsibility, pre-snap.
“I just remember thinking ‘we’re going to get gutted in the run game if the linebackers play side to side in this defense,’” said Henry.
Garin Justice, who now coaches at Division II Concord, said the 3-3 Stack is becoming a more popular defense these days because of the success West Virginia has had with it.
“It’s not like you’ve got three linemen and one is in the A-gap and the other is in the other A-gap,” explained Justice. “People don’t realize this, but just because it’s confusing sometimes for the (opposing) offense doesn’t mean that it’s also not sometimes confusing to the defense running it, too.”
Consequently, you need a middle linebacker smart enough to understand the total concept of the defense, somebody who can get the other guys in the right spots to ensure that all of the gaps are covered.
Henry was perfectly suited for this role, and he helped create a template for future middle linebacker play at WVU that was carried on by Reed Williams and now Jared Barber today.
#42 | Jay Henry | LB
Height: 6-2
Weight: 220
Home: Tulsa, Okla.
Seasons: 2003-06
TCKL
181
SCK
6
FF
4
INT
1
He was a 4.0 student throughout his career at West Virginia, earning first team ESPN/CoSIDA Academic All-America honors and also becoming a finalist for the National Football Foundation’s Draddy Award, which recognizes college football’s top performer for athletic, academic and exemplary community service. The recipient received an $18,000 scholarship for his post-collegiate academic career.
Henry made 181 career tackles with 11 ½ tackles for losses and four sacks and picked off one pass in 49 career games at West Virginia from 2003-06.
His two seasons as a starter saw the Mountaineers win 22 of 25 games with back-to-back Top 10 finishes in 2005 and 2006. In both seasons, West Virginia fielded nationally ranked defenses.
“The scheme helped (with the overall success of the defense), but I don’t think that is what made us a good defense,” he was quick to point out. “I think it was more Coach (Jeff) Casteel’s ability to get us to play, establishing a culture and making folks buy into the system. Coach Casteel was pretty much a blue-collar-type worker and that’s what we were going to do.”
Recalling that unforgettable 2005 campaign 10 years later, Henry said one moment permanently etched in his mind happened during the Connecticut game when quarterback Pat White made big crackback block to spring running back Steve Slaton to a long gainer.
“You never saw quarterbacks doing that and that’s an example of just how much Pat wanted to win,” recalled Henry.
Henry said there are many great memories from his five years spent in Morgantown. The general theme in those days was West Virginia’s us-against-the-world, underdog-role mentality, which Henry said Coach Rich Rodriguez enthusiastically embraced.
“He did a great job of motivating us,” said Henry. “He was just an unbelievable leader, and he was always able to pick out a couple of themes that he knew would drive us.”
Following graduation, Henry worked in Charlotte, North Carolina, for in investment banking before moving to New York City to work for a private equity firm. More recently, he went to business school at Northwestern, earning his MBA last summer.
Now, he’s back in Charlotte working for the private equity firm Pamlico Capital, which manages roughly $2 billion in total assets. As one of the company’s vice presidents, Henry specializes in business and technology services, communications and health care.
“We invest in private businesses,” said Henry.
Henry’s wife, Erin, is also a West Virginia University graduate and the couple has two children, with another one on the way.
Henry said he still remains in touch with many of his Mountaineer teammates and recently served as one of the groomsmen in Mike Lorello’s wedding in Connecticut.
Henry said those outstanding West Virginia teams that he played on were full of tough guys who wanted to make their mark in college football.
“It was a neat feeling that when you walked out on the field we truly believed that no one had out-worked us and that we were the toughest team in America,” he said.
Judging from the success West Virginia enjoyed during those years, that’s hard to argue.
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