U's Michael Amaefula: OK, kid, you're starting

Michael Amaefula's phone buzzed a couple of weeks ago, and he remembers thinking: Uh-oh.

The text message was from Jeff Phelps, Amaefula's coach on the defensive line, and asked him to report to Phelps' office before practice. Amaefula is just 18, was in high school back in Texas just a few months ago and figured he had crossed some line, broken one of coach Jerry Kill's rules. Kill's "Minnesota Lopher" jerseys are often handed out in such meetings.

"I probably messed up in practice. Or I was late for something -- I didn't know," Amaefula recalls thinking. But Phelps' message, once the worried freshman sat down in his office, was even more surprising than that.

"He was like, 'Yeah, you've been doing what you're supposed to do, what we want you to do, in practice. You're getting it done, and we'd like you to take that same intensity out there in the games,' " the defensive end said. Then Phelps got to the point: "You're starting."

"It's an exciting feeling," Amaefula said. "The coaches told me [when he was being recruited] that the best would play, so I came in with the mentality that I wanted to play right away. But you never know."

Especially since he still has a lot of work to do -- at 235 pounds, he needs to get bigger and stronger, and as a true freshman, he's barely begun to learn the basics of his position. But he "plays with a high motor, and he does it every play," Kill said. "That's what we're looking for, in all of our kids."

And when he finds it, Kill is willing to reward it with little regard for depth charts and class standing. Amaefula starts on the left side of the defensive line, and Ben Perry, a redshirt freshman who grew up roughly 10 miles away from Amaefula in suburban Fort Worth, starts on the right. That makes Minnesota the only Big Ten team to appoint a pair of freshmen as its chief pass-rushers. In fact, only Purdue, Michigan State and Indiana start even one.

Perry didn't get the midseason seal of approval from Phelps --he's been a starter on the line since camp. "A couple of injuries gave me a shot, and I got my opportunity and just ran with it," said Perry, who practiced but never played last season. "They never said anything about me being a starter, it just happened. It wasn't a surprise, I guess, but it was definitely a blessing."

Kill believes it will turn out that way for the Gophers too. Their pass rush is inadequate so far, but it's because of size and inexperience, factors that will change as the bookend Texans grow, both mentally and physically. Amaefula, for instance, "still has to make tackles on a sack, and sometimes it's come down to strength," Kill said. "But I think he's really going to be a good football player."

And that's Kill's goal for now: Find players who can develop into valuable pieces of an improved team a couple of years from now.

For now, the pair relies almost entirely on their above-average speed, since they each line up across from much bigger players. Michigan deployed a pair of 300-pound offensive tackles last Saturday, so Perry described his goal as "get off the ball, play with a motor and instead of worrying about what they're doing, worry about making sure my game is right."

It hasn't produced a sack yet, which Perry said he intends to change soon. Amaefula had the first Gophers sack of the season, against Miami last month, a memory even more treasured than his "you're starting" meeting. "It pumps you up," he said of taking down RedHawks quarterback Zac Dy- sert. "You've got your whole team celebrating with you -- it's a great feeling."

They'd like to have it more often, and Kill believes they will, especially once they add another young end to the mix next year. "The guy who's got maybe the most talent -- I'm trying to keep a redshirt on him now -- is TC," Kill said of Thieren Cockran, a 6-6, 220-pound teenager from Homestead, Fla. "He's got some specialness to him."