Wake Forest Athletics News
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Gold Rush: 100% Cotten
Sept. 15, 2002 by Stan Cotten Imagine yourself a high school tennis player in Charleston, S.C., in the mid-90's. You walk out on to the court as your team prepares for a match with Porter-Gaud High School. Neatly attired in your tennis whites, you walk out onto the court to greet your opponent. You notice a rather large, bulky fellow coming your way. You think to yourself that this hulk of a human must have driven the team bus or is lost and looking for The Citadel. "Hi, I'm Ovie," he says with a smile. "Let's play some tennis." The above encounter isn't necessarily fictitious. Wake Forest senior fullback Ovie Mughelli, 6-2 and 250 pounds, did play tennis in high school. And chances are that encounters like this actually did take place just about every time Mughelli took the court. Surprised? Don't be. As Wake Forest opened its 2002 football season against Northern Illinois last month, Mughelli surprised the Huskies (and perhaps Wake fans, too) with 11 carries for 74 yards and four touchdowns. It was by leaps and bounds, a 55-yard sprint and a nifty somersault to paydirt, his best night as a collegian. The four visits to the end zone tied a Demon Deacon single game record. Was it the same Ovie Mughelli that last season, as a starter, carried the ball exactly zero times? Indeed. Again, no need for surprise. Just because Mughelli had never really had much of a chance to carry the ball in college prior to the game with Northern Illinois, don't make the mistake of assuming that he is incapable. On the contrary. As a prepster, Ovie Mughelli made it a Friday night ritual to embarrass Porter-Gaud's opponents by carrying the football and scoring touchdowns. As a senior tailback, Mughelli racked up 2,167 yards and scored 29 touchdowns on the way to leading his team to a second-place finish in the South Carolina state playoffs. Against the Huskies, Mughelli felt as if he had stepped back in time. "That's all I thought about in high school was carrying the ball," Mughelli admits. "I didn't block for anybody." There was no need. That would have surely been a waste of his energy. For his high school career, Mughelli rushed for 4,500 yards and scored 69 touchdowns for the Cyclones. They won the state title Mughelli's junior season. Still, in the light of how seldom Mughelli had been used as a runner of the ball in his college career, his numbers against NIU are still worth noting. Prior to his four-touchdown night in the season opener, Mughelli had scored but once in his first three seasons on the Wake campus. His 11 carries against Northern Illinois were more than twice his previous highest single game total, which was five against Clemson two seasons ago. And the 74 yards total rushing were also more than twice his previous single-game best, which was 32 yards against Georgia Tech as a redshirt freshman. Many scholarship athletes would have hit town and demanded to carry the ball. Not Mughelli. He was asked to block, and block he has...well enough to draw the attention of NFL scouts. "I've tried to do what the coaches have asked," says Mughelli. "I'm flattered that Coach Grobe trusts me enough now to let me run it some." Grobe's trust continued against East Carolina with Mughelli scoring the first touchdown of the game to give the Deacs a first-quarter lead. The early returns have Wake fans singing Mughelli's praises. Privately, Mughelli is probably singing a tune or two himself. After all, he's a member of his church choir. Surprised? Don't be. Stan Cotton is the "Voice of the Deacons." |