3/10/2017 football Edit

NC State safety Dexter Wright is ready to prove himself

Matt Carter • TheWolfpackCentral

Editor

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Wright is most remembered for returning this blocked punt for a touchdown — the only one scored in the game — against Notre Dame. (Larry Blankenship)

NC State redshirt junior safety Dexter Wright can remember the day where his recruiting started to turn for the better.

He was finishing up his junior year at Hunt High School in Wilson, N.C., and participating at a Shrine Bowl combine at Washington (N.C.) High in the eastern part of the state. It was the final combine of the year and drew a heavy crowd of top in-state players in the class of 2014.

A chiseled Wright checked in around 6-foot-2, 200 pounds those days, but when he stepped up to take his turn at the 40-yard dash on the track he did not know that 4.31 seconds later, his life would changed for the better. The 4.31 seconds was the hand-timed 40 that he ran.

“I knew I was fast,” Wright said. “We never really timed me at my school, so it surprised me to see how fast it was.”

About a week later, Wright noticed that colleges were learning about his 40-time.

“It helped out tremendously,” he recalled.

He had no offers entering the combine. By summer, East Carolina, NC State and North Carolina were all in pursuit. NCSU had an advantage though. Wright had already fallen for the Raleigh-based school.

In a way, it was love at first sight for him.

“Since coming to the games my sophomore and junior year,” he noted of when that feeling began. “I always felt like I was part of the family with the old staff and the current staff that we have now. That’s really something that you are look for when you know you are going to spend the next three, four, five years of your life there.”

After arriving at NC State, Wright has steadily and patiently built his profile on the team. Patience is a virtue he may have picked up making the 45-minute drive from Greenville, N.C., to attend schools in Wilson while growing up.

The jumbo safety redshirted his first fall on campus, something he had little issue doing.

“Going through camp I knew I wasn’t ready to play,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to waste a year, get thrown into the fire and look stupid.”

Then his redshirt freshman year, Wright earned himself a valuable role on special teams, making four tackles on the unit to tie for fourth on the squad. He also added two tackles while getting spare playing time in lopsided games on defense.

Wright hoped to compete for a starting job last fall, but a preseason injury set him back in the competition and forced him to miss the first three games. By the end of the season, he managed to get more meaningful time on defense in addition to his special teams duties, where he tied for third on the team with six tackles.

On defense, Wright made 10 stops and added a quarterback pressure in 10 games. He averaged eight snaps per contest as a reserve in the final six games of the regular season after not playing on the unit in the first six. Then he played a career-high 45 snaps against Vanderbilt in the Independence Bowl.

“It’s definitely been a process,” Wright described.

Now he has his chance to take over the free safety position. Last year’s starter, Josh Jones, departed early for the NFL in the offseason.

“It made me happy for him and happy that now I really have the chance to take over the position and show the coaches, my teammates and everyone we play what I can do,” Wright noted.

Jones was a freakish athlete roaming in NC State’s secondary. At the NFL Combine, Jones checked in at 6-1, 220 pounds, running the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds, bench pressing 225 pounds 20 times, registering a 37.5-inch vertical leap and broad jumping 11-feet-0. Each result ranked among the top three safeties in Indianapolis.

Wright, now 6-2, 232 pounds, brings his own unique athleticism to the position. He said that he has maintained his quickness and mobility despite the added bulk and believes it gives him an upper hand.

Now he will try to translate it to the field and make more memories than the notable one that he has created thus far: returning a blocked punt for a score during the monsoon-conditions created by Hurricane Matthew against Notre Dame, the lone touchdown in a 10-3 Wolfpack win.

“I will definitely keep that around obviously, but I want to be known as one of the best safeties we’ve had here,” Wright said. “I think that’s the goal for anybody that comes here.”