Ellerbee sets his mind to memorable finish
It’s early and humid in Houston as Rice football players soak in the morning breeze before the sun’s glare pierces the indigo sky.
Just days away from traveling to Australia for the opener against Stanford, the second-team defense is running through plays against their offense as most of the team’s starters hydrate and seek refuge from the impending heat.
It’s all the starters but one: Emmanuel Ellerbee.
Ellerbee is about 20 yards behind his backup, just out of sight of the defensive coaches watching ahead, with his eyes trained on the QB.
In an instant, the ball is snapped as Ellerbee quickly shuffles to the right as the quarterback hands off to a runner in the same direction. Exploding through an imaginary running back, Ellerbee
makes the play and springs back into position for the next one.
“I’m ready to prove to myself that it’s not just hype. I’m the type of person who believes when you show me something,” Ellerbee said. “It’s like a bull in a cage in a sense.”
After sporting one of the conference’s worst defenses last year, Rice coach David Bailiff opted for some changes.
Defensively, he hired a new coordinator in Brian Stewart, a high-energy defensive mind with both college and NFL experience. Under Stewart, Rice now runs a 3-4 scheme, ending the 4-2-5 philosophy that helped get Bailiff noticed back when he was at TCU.
If the transition was difficult for Ellerbee, it doesn’t show. In fact, the senior’s extra reps are probably a greater indication of his drive to push his own mental boundaries more than anything. A beautiful mind
Ellerbee has always had a gift for analysis.
The son of a statistics teacher and a computer science major, his parents were intent on pouring themselves into their son.
At three, Ellerbee was reading small books, they said. By kindergarten, he could already write in cursive.
During a trip to Walmart, a 4-year-old Ellerbee observed that he might like to work at the retailer.
“Well mom, I see you and all these people spending all this money here. They’ll never go broke,” he reasoned to his mother.
As he grew, his parents said he developed a focus and discipline that continued to surprise them.
“When he gets something in his mind, he goes after it,” Latonya, his mother, said. “As a parent, sometimes you just have to pinch yourself.”
Such a technical mind boded well for a middle linebacker.
While at Strake Jesuit, Ellerbee excelled at football, basketball (he was a forward) and track (running the 100 and 200 meters).
His play on the field garnered serious interest from schools like Harvard and Princeton as well as Texas State. Others — Northwestern, Stanford, UNLV — weren’t sold enough to offer him a scholarship.
Oklahoma, a school Ellerbee was keen on, offered him an opportunity as a preferred walk-on, but his parents openly wondered if Rice would be a better fit. The Owls had, at the time, just come off of their first outright conference title since 1957.
Aben, Ellerbee’s father, was also impressed with how many STEM majors he encountered on Rice’s team compared with some of the higher profile schools they visited. They had also heard about Bailiff, a coach who sought to give his players extra time off the field if their academics slipped, instead of pumping his players through a system.
The linebacker’s parents also made him calculate the logistics of attending Oklahoma, a factor that made the decision easier for the frugal Ellerbee. Something to remember
Ellerbee saw action throughout his early career at Rice, ranking seventh nationally with three fumble recoveries as a sophomore.
Last season, he was named a first-team All C-USA selection after leading the conference in tackles per game (10.7) and finishing second in total tackles (118) despite missing a game. He also earned CUSA All-Academic honors as a civil engineering major.
“One of the things about him is that everything is important to him, that’s why he has good grades,” Stewart said. “The challenge for me is understanding that he wants to learn every detail and he wants you to explain it to him so he can get all the bits and pieces of it so he can play fast.”
James Clancy, Ellerbee’s former coach at Strake, knows exactly how Stewart feels.
Clancy describes Ellerbee as smart and tireless. He wouldn’t be surprised if his former player became a coach one day.
“He probably knew the offense better than some of those (offensive) guys,” he said of practices with Ellerbee.
While the accolades have helped draw national attention toward Ellerbee, it’s the Owls’ waning relevance that continues to push him. After missing bowl games the past two years, Ellerbee is determined to close his career with another postseason game — they beat Fresno State in the 2014 Hawaii Bowl.
As the new season inches closer, he’s using most of his moments to achieve that goal, even if it means sacrificing his water breaks to understand the defense more wholly.
“It’s definitely been a challenging one to say the least. I started off not understanding, but coach Stewart and coach Patterson — really all the defensive coaches — have done an amazing job with getting me to understand our defense and be able to work at it and do different things better,” Ellerbee said
“There’s going to be some growing pains that you have to get into and that’s what I had to adjust to, but I was able to take the time to do that.”
In a way, he sees his legacy as something tied to the team’ s success.
“Twenty years from now, you’re not going to think, ‘Oh I won this (award).’ You’re going remember that we went to the Outback Bowl and smacked that team,” he said. “I want our team to be successful; I want us to get back to the conference championship; I want us to get back to a bowl game and winning bowl games.”