Trey Jacobs decides to become a force on Liberty Univ. defense

Trey Jacobs has always had the talent. Liberty coach Danny Rocco often marvels at Jacobs’ physical gifts — the quick hands, the ability to shake off opposing offensive linemen and use a quick first step to harass the quarterback.

The question mark, though, was Jacobs’ motor, which is usually one of those qualities a coach can’t teach. A player either has a great motor, a solid sense of drive and motivation, or he doesn’t.

And sometimes, it just takes a vision of what a great “motor” player looks like to kick a player in the rear and make him flip a switch. Jacobs, a senior defensive end, felt that way last season as he watched his friend and teammate Terry Adams tear across the field with reckless abandon.

The one thing that Jacobs had to improve upon most after a solid junior season? That drive, that desire. That frank evaluation came from within, not from any coaches.

“I had to work on my loafing on the field, in fact, get rid of that loafing,” Jacobs said. “I had to get a better motor and show on the field that I was a force to be reckoned with.”

Though he’s 6-foot-3 and 280 pounds, Jacobs comes across as a fairly soft-spoken guy, one who spends his free time away from football reading books and refining his culinary skills. So he had to do something to change that demeanor on the field. He continued to watch Adams, who is one of the Flames’ most feisty competitors. In the season opener at West Virginia, Adams lit up a Mountaineers player on a kickoff return and responded by screaming while running alongside the WVU bench.

“I use him as an example, and base my playing style off him,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs had 40 tackles and four sacks as a junior and has 22 tackles, a sack and four quarterback hurries in Liberty’s first six games. He’s coming off what Rocco called Jacobs’ best performance of the season last week against Coastal Carolina.

“He played his most physical game of the year,” Rocco said. “If Trey finishes the year playing the way he did Saturday, he will be the most dominating player in this league on the defensive front. He’s got that type of ability. It’s a matter of playing with intensity and finishing.”

Jacobs had some internal motivation last week, playing against Coastal, and he vows to play with a bit of a nasty attitude again this week against Charleston Southern. The common thread? Both are South Carolina Big South schools that lost interest in Jacobs when he said he wanted to be a defensive lineman in college.

Jacobs grew up in Columbia and wanted to stay in state to play college football, but both CSU and CCU insisted he be recruited as an offensive lineman. That wasn’t a role Jacobs was comfortable with, and once he made that clear, both schools backed off of him.

Liberty entered the picture late in the game. The Flames didn’t start recruiting him until after his high school football season had ended his senior year, and they made him one promise — an opportunity to compete for a D-line spot. At the time, Liberty was coming off a 1-10 season, and the Flames didn’t have a lot more to offer in terms of tangible assets.

But Jacobs bought into Rocco’s vision for the program, and he signed a letter of intent.

Four years later, he’s made himself into a borderline NFL prospect. Before the season began, defensive coordinator Tom Clark predicted that scouts would look at Jacobs, and last week, a New York Giants scout was on campus to check Jacobs out.

He’s not concerned about that. He said he can only prepare for games on Saturdays at this point and he’ll worry about his possible NFL draft status after the season. Rocco said the Giants scout had some of the same questions about Jacobs that Rocco did heading into the season, but Rocco encouraged the scout to watch the film of the Coastal Carolina game, to see what a truly motivated Jacobs plays like.

First-year defensive line coach Levern Belin noticed immediately upon arriving at Liberty that Jacobs responded well to prodding.

“I told him whether he likes it or not, every day, he was going to get my best shot,” Belin said. “I was going to be on his butt all the time. I just want to try to motivate him.

“I’ve seen some great players go before him, and he’s got the same kind of skill set. It was just going to come down to mind over matter. If he really cares, then the small things will matter to him.”

Jacobs has taken the guidance from the coaching staff to heart, and the combination of skill and desire has been tough for opponents to handle.

“The last few weeks, Trey’s performance has gone up,” Adams said. “His tempo has been real high. His weight room strength carries over to the football field, and that gives him the ability to make big plays in the games.”