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Sep 13 '18
EAST LANSING, Michigan -- Malik McDowell is long and dressed in green and has an uncanny ability to bend his 6-foot-6, 275-pound body through spaces it has no business fitting through. NFL Jerseys China . It makes sense then that the Michigan State coaching staff refers to their junior superstar on the defensive line as Gumby when watching him work.McDowell was born in 1996, a year after Gumby: The Movie hit theaters and decades after Americas original favorite Claymation character and his trusty sidekick, Pokey, ended their run on television. Naturally, he has no idea what assistant coach Ron Burton is talking about when he hollers Gumby! in the film room.Im not sure. Its that elephant? he asks.No, McDowell is told, thats Dumbo.Oh, then no, I dont know who Gumby is.But really, can you blame McDowell for thinking a coach might compare him to an elephant? He towers over interior linemen. His wingspan is long enough to call to mind a trunk or perhaps a pair of floppy ears large enough to propel him into flight. Teammates say the most impressive thing theyve seen him do on a field might just be squeezing his upper body into a pair of shoulder pads.His size is overwhelming, but his flexibility is what makes McDowell a freak. The ability to contort and twist all that mass through keyhole-sized gaps in between double teams or piles of linemen makes him a candidate to be one of the most dominant and imposing players in college football this season.Reaching his incredibly high ceiling is not a foregone conclusion. To get there, McDowell will have to show tha,t despite a hardheaded attitude calcified by a high-profile recruitment and a lifetime of doing things his own way, he is capable of being as pliable mentally as he is physically.When its pointed out to you that youre of that vein, that ability, then you have to play to that ability, head coach Mark Dantonio said. Thats a challenge that everybody hopes to have in their football career. You hope to get to that point where you need to play like a first-team All-American. He can, and he should.McDowell is no stranger to the responsibility that comes as a side effect of notoriety. Its fair to say the pressure of lofty expectations have hung around his tree trunk of a neck longer and heavier than the necks of any other Michigan State player during Dantonios tenure. The Spartans have successfully recruited three five-star prospects during the past decade, but none has come with the same fanfare as the former blue-chipper from Detroit.I feel like because of how my recruitment went I already had a lot of pressure, he said.McDowell waited nearly two months to send his signed letter of intent to East Lansing while he and his mother settled a public disagreement about where he should go to school. Unprompted, he remembers exactly how long the ordeal lasted.I had to make them wait 56 days, he said. So people already know about you, now you dont want to be the guy that they did a bunch of work to get and you didnt work out. ... You dont want to be that five-star that was just a five-star in high school and didnt pan out.When the full-grown 18-year-old made it to campus he assumed he would be unstoppable, a dog. After all, no one had ever stopped him before. He looked at undersized starting center Jack Allen and started licking his chops. He assumed the redshirt junior would be a teddy bear. Then Allen planted him firmly on his back on McDowells first snap in pads as a college football player.Allen said the first practice with pads each August is a day veterans relish. Its a day to bring confident freshmen back down to Earth, and McDowell was no different in that respect. The 6-1 center continued to have his way with his highly touted sparring partner throughout their first fall battling each other.In November, McDowell says he could count on one hand the number of times he had gotten the better of Allen in one-on-one drills in practice. In games, he considered his freshman season terrible. He couldnt bully opponents like he always had on the football field, and he couldnt figure out how to make all that raw talent work for him against a college offensive line.I was starting to think, Damn, Im going to be that guy, he said.Teammates and friends consider McDowell to be determined, strong-minded, at times downright stubborn. When a coaching point or a tip from a fellow player didnt produce immediate results during his freshman season, McDowell assumed he knew better and fell back on what had worked for him in the past.A lot of young guys come in thinking they have the answer and the coach is wrong, said Allen, now with the New Orleans Saints. Its cool to me when you see a younger guy asking questions and wanting to get better.McDowell became more inquisitive last fall. He started asking questions and sticking around long enough to digest the answers. He picked Allens mind and paid closer attention in meetings with Burton and rest of the defense. His coaches say its part of a natural process of growing up that McDowell has yet to complete. Remember hes young enough to know nothing about Gumby.The problem for McDowell was going through those growing pains under scrutiny that few, if any, of his teammates shared. Michigan States rise to power has been fueled by underrated talent eager to prove the world wrong. High NFL Draft picks Trae Waynes, Jack Conklin and LeVeon Bell all started as virtually unheard of prospects. McDowell, on the other hand, is motivated by trying to make sure everyone else around him was right.Thats sparsely treaded territory for a Spartan and for the Spartans coaches. Michigan State could have stuck with the tried-and-true method of finding diamonds in the rough. McDowell had plenty of options to join programs that more regularly cater to superstar talent, places that may have at times bent more to his will rather than asking him to do the opposite.Expectations are really high for those guys, Dantonio said. They have to be treated as best we can like everybody else. They have to understand that, and they have to get ready to play like everybody else. Talent will only take you so far. The drive that you have as a person completes that circle.The threat of falling short of expectations is constantly on McDowells mind. Hes learning to turn that pressure into motivation rather than a reason to get down on himself -- just a part of growing up, he says. In the last year, McDowell has moved into his own place, stopped going out and adopted a Bully Pit named Esco from some friends who couldnt care for him. I feel like more of an adult now, he says, which is translating to football as well.His maturity is now hes not always relying on his athleticism, Burton said. His maturity is in his understanding of the game from the Xs and Os perspective. How are they trying to attack you? Backfield sets and slide protections, those are things now at the next level that youre going to need.Those are the tools that can carry McDowell to great heights this season if he fully embraces them. He said he never knew about his elastic, Gumby-esque athleticism before arriving at Michigan State because he didnt need it.I just try to fit into stuff that I probably shouldnt, he said. I see a little gap in a double team that a normal defensive lineman probably wouldnt try to squeeze through, and instead of going around it Ill try to squeeze through it. I dont take the easy way out, and sometimes that requires me bending.Michigan State is a program that prides itself on providing no easy ways out. For McDowell, its time to see how flexible he can be. Wholesale China Jerseys . -- Adam Snyder returned to the San Francisco 49ers this season because the offensive lineman thought it was his best opportunity to win a championship. NFL Jerseys Cheap . The Montreal Canadiens announced on Friday that the veteran forward will return to the teams line-up on Saturday night when the Habs visit the Nashville Predators. http://www.nflcheapjerseyschina.us/ . PETERSBURG, Fla. HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Theres a changing of the guard occurring in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and Joey Logano is leading the charge.The 26-year-old Connecticut native has qualified among the final four drivers to compete for the Sprint Cup title in two of three years since NASCAR adopted an elimination playoff-style format to determine its annual champion.Logano is the youngest driver to reach the final four, and he is in position to become NASCARs youngest Cup Series champion since Jeff Gordon took the honors in 1995 at age 24. The only obstacle standing in his way is the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he needs to beat six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and defending Cup Series titlist Kyle Busch in a straight fight.In a sport where longtime star Gordon retired (theoretically) at the end of the 2015 season and three-time champion Tony Stewart is ready to exit the big stage, the younger generation is taking over. Johnson and other top Cup stars like Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth are all over 40 and likely soon to be thinking about following Gordons and Stewarts lead.Meanwhile, Logano and a band of rising twenty-somethings who are trying to become NASCARs future champions and stars are trying to capitalize.For Logano, the time is now. Although hes just 26, hes wrapping up his eighth full season in the Cup Series and making his second serious run at the championship.No driver has won more Chase races (seven) than Logano in the elimination format era, and he knows that based on what has transpired the last two years at Homestead, he will probably need to take his first win at the Florida track if he wants to secure the crown.Coming off a crucial victory at Phoenix International Raceway certainly helps.Weve got momentum, he said.?Theres a lot of excitement.?I remember when we got through a couple years ago to Miami, I wasnt as excited. I was immediately nervous right after the race [at Phoenix]. This time the feeling is, Hey, weve got confidence. I know we can do it. I dont feel like its a long shot like it was last time because weve been here before.?Weve been in these situations.The fact that Logano ended up fourth among the four title contestants at Homestead in 2014 after a slow pit stop led to a disappointing finish doesnt faze the Team Penske driver.Everyone told me Youve got to lose one to win one, and I thought that was the biggest crock of crap Ive ever heard in my life, Logano related. But you know what, its not the fact that you have to lose one to win one, its the fact that maybe it really helped me to just live through it once. Since then, weve been in those situations where we had to win a race to stay in the championship. And Homestead [in 2014] was the first time we ever had to do that.?I think were approaching it like itts a normal weekend, he added. Cheap Jerseys From China. We race to win every week; why should we race differently for a championship, right?? Were racing to win that race, and thats ultimately going to have a championship attached to that.?Weve got momentum. Weve won multiple races. Weve got on rolls before where youve got that momentum and that confidence and it just keeps stacking up like it did last year, and were in good position to do that again.As a backdrop to Loganos championship aspirations, team owner Roger Penske is celebrating his 50th anniversary in racing as a team owner. Simon Pagenaud already won the IndyCar Series championship for Penske in what has been a very successful season for the most successful team owner in American motorsports history. But he only has one Sprint Cup title on the list, 2012 with Brad Keselowski.With Logano, Penske has found the perfect blend of youth and experience that is necessary to contend in the sport today.I can tell you that hes a quality young man, Penske said.?He listens. He motivates his team. I mean, hes there at the shop day in and day out, and theres never been a time weve asked him to do something on or off the track he hasnt done it with a smile.?You look at how tight hes been running here the last year and a half or two years, he really pretty much stayed out of trouble, and I think hes earned a reputation in the garage area that you can race hard with him. To me, thats important.But more important, I think the person himself, he represents us in a first-class manner, and he can be with us a long time, working together with Brad, Penske added. Hes matured, and you have to say that if you go up and down the garage area, at his age, weve got a real winner.Crew chief Todd Gordon likes what he has seen from Logano throughout this season, and especially when the pressure has increased in the Chase.I think the peace that weve had success and weve had speed through the last five races kind of builds your confidence to feel like we just need to go forward and do the things that weve done, and we can be successful, Gordon said.?Hes focused on that and focused on making sure our weekend runs the way weve run our weekends and doesnt change anything up.???????????I feel a lot of calm from his feedback and what hes saying and what hes doing and the mannerisms, he continued.?Hes all over just making this another race, and I think in a great position.Any of the four drivers in Sundays championship finale would make a worthy 2016 champion for NASCAR. 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