You don’t know Derrick Knight.

You don’t know the 5-foot-9 tailback that starts for the Boston College football team. Or that the senior leads the nation in rushing. You know nothing. Zilch. Zero.

But that’s OK. Neither does the Syracuse football team.

‘He’s leading the country in rushing?’ SU linebacker Kelvin Smith asked when told about Knight’s status. ‘OK. Well, I don’t know that much about him.’

Of course not. No one does. No one expects you to.

So allow us.

Knight averages 147.7 yards a game. He has rushed for more than 100 yards in each game but one – he compiled 83 yards in a 33-14 loss to No. 2 Miami. With six games remaining, he is 701 yards shy of Mike Cloud’s all-time rushing mark of 3,957 yards at BC. After Syracuse allowed 131 yards to Virginia Tech’s Kevin Jones on Saturday, the run-defense appears suspect. Knight will try to pick apart SU’s defense tomorrow when SU hosts BC in the Carrier Dome at noon.

Knight tore up SU for 171 yards last year in BC’s 41-20 victory. He ran for two touchdowns. He weaved through would-be tacklers like water through cracks.

So when Louis Gachelin, SU’s senior defensive lineman, pauses for 10 seconds before spewing generalities about Knight like he’s forgotten about the nation’s leading rusher – ‘He’s a good player. He’s gonna get his. You just gotta limit him,’ Gachelin said – Knight’s liable to sneak up on SU again.

Chris Rippon, it seems, is the only member of SU’s defense who knows about Knight.

‘He’s a strong runner,’ said Rippon, SU’s defensive coordinator. ‘He played well against us last year. We have to do a very good job of tackling. We need to put him on the ground. The success story for Boston College has been their ability to run, and if everybody’s expecting the run, now its easier to pass. If we can hold down the run game and get them one-dimensional, then we feel our chances are really good.’

So far, Miami is the only team to successfully limit Knight. The Hurricanes showed multiple blitzes and different defensive formations, which the Eagles weren’t ready for.

Syracuse, though, has struggled at stopping the run this season, allowing 171 yards per game, No. 85 in the NCAA. Saturday, Jones averaged 6.9 yards a carry for Tech.

Though both Jones and Knight are prolific runners, BC’s back offers a different look. While Jones uses his speed to reach the outside and turn the corner – and then his power to bulldoze defensive backs – Knight slashes up the middle.

Knight looks for seams in the defense, cutting between the tackles and quickly hitting the hole. He doesn’t dance around in the backfield.

That’s an advantage for SU. Gachelin and defensive tackle Christian Ferarra both consistently broke through the Hokies’ line, but since Jones ran outside, their penetration went unnoticed.

‘Even though I’m small, I can still run up the middle,’ Knight said. ‘A lot of times, the defense loses me in there cause I’m so small.’

That means Gachelin and Ferarra are in charge of keeping Knight in check. Linebackers Rich Scanlon, Kellen Pruitt and Smith also must keep the distance between themselves and the line tight, stopping Knight from picking apart the defense if he penetrates the line.

‘(The linebackers) have to keep their leverage,’ Rippon said. ‘They can’t create the seams between the first level and the second level. That’s the key for them. That gap has gotta get closed. If the defensive line gets penetration and the linebackers recoil with a lot of separation, two or three yards, that opens up a lot of room for Derrick to move. That’s what he does best.’

Meantime, Knight continues to pile up yardage, Whether he gets the respect of the rest of the country or not.

‘We used to play against him in high school,’ said safety Diamond Ferri, who attended Everett (Mass.) High School. ‘He’s got the right plays at the right time, I guess, in this point in his career. He’s a good running back. I don’t think he’s one of the best. I’ve been seeing him since high school. Freakin’ eight years.’

Said Knight: ‘It’s always been a struggle for us to get me respect. I’m an undersized back. I’ve had to deal with that sort of stuff. People saying I can’t perform well. But it doesn’t upset me. It’s something I expect.’

Published on October 16, 2003 at 12:00 pm