TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston used to pry starting left tackle Cam Erving to speak.
Winston, who has a knack for starting conversations with complete strangers, was dumbfounded Erving, a massive, 6-foot-6, 320-pound mountain of a man, could be so quiet.
“When I first got here, Cam was a quiet guy,” Winston said. “I asked Cam, ‘Cam, why are you so quiet? He was just like, ‘I stay to myself.’ I’ve seen Cam grow.Now he’s fun-loving, he’s talking all the time.
“He has his mojo back.”
Erving never quite lost his mojo. He just never had it, until now.
The redshirt junior came to FSU as a lightly recruited defensive tackle, with the Seminoles being the only Football Bowl Subdivision school to offer him a scholarship at the time he committed. Originally unsure of himself and unsure of others, Erving has blossomed into one of the country’s top offensive linemen and has helped lead No. 1 FSU (13-0)make it to the BCS National Championship Game.
“I have a lot of confidence in him,” FSU running back Devonta Freeman said. “Cam Erving, he made a tremendous turnaround from being a defensive lineman. That’s what he played his entire life.”
Erving grew up in Moultrie, Ga., about an hour from Tallahassee. There, he normally kept to himself.
“I wasn’t too highly on listening to a lot of people when I was younger,” Erving said. “It was just my parents, that’s all I had.”
For Erving, it was a matter of trust, of establishing a comfort level.
That did not come right away at FSU.
Seminoles Coach Jimbo Fisher saw that Erving had the potential to make a successful transition to the offensive line and asked him to make the switch after he redshirted as a freshman.
“We thought he had a chance to be a very good player,” Fisher said. “To see he’d be this great? I don’t know that.”
Erving declined, leery of learning a new position. He played defensive tackle as aredshirt freshman and played well, recording 20 tackles as a reserve.
Fisher asked Erving to consider a position change again the following offseason. This time, Erving was inclined to listen to Fisher, someone he’d grown comfortable with.
“When I got here, [coaches] were all in your face, trying to get you to work hard; trying to get you to work out; this, that and the other,” Erving said. “I was just baffled by everything that’s going on, so growing up, maturing and learning, I realized youhave to trust what you’re doing. I’m here, I’m going to be here, you have to listen to authority and it’s worked out for me.”
Erving started 14 games at left tackle last year and graded out at a respectable 73.6 percent the final six.
He took the next step this season, evolving into one the country’s most dominant left tackles. Erving was named the top lineman in the ACC and was a second-team AP All-American. NFLDraftScout.com projects Erving as a firstround draft pick if he were to declare for the NFL Draft.
Sports, Pages 30 on 12/22/2013