The Panel: Hard-hitting Jeremy Cash confident in coverage abilities
Jeremy Cash would like to extend an offer to every offensive player he faces. It's not really an offer, so much as it's a simplification of what the Duke safety feels is inevitable.
"Offensive players don't really like to get hit and if that's the case, you can make the game a whole lot easier by giving me the ball," Cash said before taping his episode of FOX Sports South's The Panel, airing Sunday, April 3 at 9:30 p.m. "You can save us all some trouble. You don't want to get hit by me, just give me the ball. It's that simple. It's not that complicated."
It's a mind game from a guy with a degree in psychology, because doing so would rob Cash of his favorite part of the game. It's there in the way he celebrates, a sack, pouncing up and slamming a fist into an open hand.
He likes to hit people.
"If it's moving it's liable to get hit," Cash said. "I want to make sure my presence is felt and surely known. When a receiver comes across the middle and we see that guy, that's not somebody we want to come across."
The 6-foot-2, 210-pounder made that well known during a career in which he became the first Blue Devils to become a three-time All-American, including a consensus pick in 2015, and the ACC Defensive Player of the Year in his redshirt senior season.
In 39 games at Duke, Cash racked up 333 tackles, including 38 for loss and had eight sacks, six interceptions, caused nine fumbles (recovering four) and was responsible for 15 quarterback pressures.
He's not in the first round of FOXSports.com's latest mock draft and is being projected as a second-round pick. Much of the hang-ups have little to do with what Cash did at Duke, it's what he didn't.
"I have concerns about how he moves in the open field, just how he covers," said Dre Bly, a member of the The Panel. "He was more so a hybrid player -- they had him listed as a (defensive back), but he was more like a linebacker -- if he gets drafted at safety, that's going to be one of the things that teams have concerns about is how he covers tight ends or slot receivers in the open field.
"He hasn't show a lot of that on tape. He was more of a Troy Polamalu-type player in Duke's system, which is no knock on him, but they utilized what he did well, and because they let him do that, it's what he got used to doing."
Showing he can be effective in man-coverage was a point that Cash tried to drive home in the Senior Bowl, and he believes it's an aspect of his game that he's confident in.
"A lot of people were concerned and probably still are. That's fine," he said. "A lion doesn't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep. When I go out there, whatever team drafts me is going to get a heckuva player that is going to play with relentless effort and an attitude and singular focus on doing whatever he can to help the ball club win games."
Cash helped change the culture at Duke, helping it to 27 wins, an appearance in the 2013 ACC Championship game and three bowl berths. But truth be told, it's not a change that Cash initially expected to be part of.
A product of Florida's Plantation High School, Cash bypassed his last semester to enroll early at Ohio State to play for Jim Tressel. But before he'd played a game, Tressel resigned. He played one season for interim coach Luke Fickell, appearing in five games and made three tackles, but unhappy with the situation, he reached out to Tressel.
He wanted to transfer, but didn't know where.
At his former coach's urging, Cash arrived sight unseen in Durham, N.C., traveling 18 hours on a Greyhound bus. He had never set foot in the state of North Carolina, let alone Duke's campus, but if Tressel thought that David Cutcliffe was whom the safety should play for, then Cash was in.
"A really big selling feature was just coach Cut and the similarities and how they are and I believed him," Cash said. "I found over my course of being there he was correct."
Had he stuck in Columbus, Cash would have been part of the Buckeyes' 2015 national title team as a senior, though it's not something he focuses on. He points to the words Mark Richt said to his Georgia players before he left for Miami.
Life is about people, not rings. Rings collect dust.
"That's how I felt about that situation," Cash said. "I'm happy for those guys. I know a handful of them and that's great for them. I had a different path in mind and it involved transferring from Ohio State to Duke.
"I was able to do so much in my time there, walk way with my degree and finishing up my masters, and understanding my education is going to take me a lot further than catching a football or hitting somebody hard ever will."
Back to that degree in psychology. When he's done playing football, Cash has said on multiple occasions he'd like to put it to use in the FBI, specifically its Hostage Rescue Team.
"That's, what I've been told, is the most similar to having individuals that you work with on a daily basis," he said. "It's aspect of camaraderie that I've experienced being part of a football team. That's something that's very appealing to me."
And if they have to pick codenames, the hard-hitting Cash already has his picked.
"The Hammer," he said, smiling.
Follow Cory McCartney on Twitter @coryjmccartney and Facebook. His book, 'Tales from the Atlanta Braves Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Braves Stories Ever Told,' comes out April 12, 2016., and 'The Heisman Trophy: The Story of an American Icon and Its Winners' will be released Nov. 1, 2016.
