#98 LT top LB in ACC h-i-s-tory!

Remember back when Lawrence Taylor was wearing the old #98 and playing a linebacker spot for the North Carolina Tar Heels, but he was really playing what they called back then, a drop end…..Drop down from your linebacker spot and play defensive end and rush the passer in a blitz package….

Caulton Tudor, of the News and Observer and the Charlotte Observer on-line, has LT as the best LB in ACC h-i-s-t-o-r-y and he is probably right, but he takes a long look at the Top 25 All-Time ACC linebackers and there was Chris Hanburger, Bill Cowher, Bob Matheson, Chuck Amato, Dwight Hollier, Darrell Nicholson, Derrick Brooks, Shawne Merriman, and the list goes on and what Mike Curtis from Duke?????

Here’S more on the topic from Caulton Tudor and it makes for a good subject, with the ACC football season just around the corner…..

The list of 25 has to start with Lawrence Julius Taylor, the best defensive player in the ACC during the final 15 or so games of his college career and probably the best pro linebacker ever.

In the most technical sense, Taylor was more of a natural athlete than natural linebacker. He was recruited in the mid 1970s by Bill Dooley to be an end. Early on, the staff thought Taylor might even be an offensive player – a guy with the quickness to develop into an I-formation fullback, tight end or maybe running back.

But midway through the ’79 season as outside linebacker (then often categorized as a defensive end), Taylor began to terrorize the conference.

In his final season, 1980, Taylor became the second full-time defender to win the ACC player of the year vote. Duke’s Ernie Jackson, a defensive back, won the award in 1971.

Read all CLICK HERE and take a look back at the best to play LB, in the ACC…….