The injury happened on his first carry, a draw designed to go up the middle that he bounced wide. But with one twist of the knee early in the first quarter of UNO’s October 28 game versus South Dakota State, Wright went down in a heap, the medial collateral ligament in his left knee sprained. You put your head down a little lower, squeeze the ball tighter, fire out and go stronger.” Indeed, his late game heroics sealed wins against Northern Colorado and South Dakota.
Late, when defenses are tiring, he said, “you go for the kill. More often than not, tacklers were worn down by game’s end, not him. It’s been that kind of productivity that’s made him a regional finalist for the Harlon Hill Trophy (Division II’s Heisman).īy mid-season, he was a bruised but unbowed target for opposing defenses, absorbing hit upon hit but always picking himself up off the turf to get back into the fray. Earlier this year he recorded a stretch of three straight 200-yard-plus rushing performances. He has 1,216 yards this season (just 100 yards short of the UNO single season record) and 3,761 overall. His brute-force style, smarts and occasional breakaway speed (He cut his 40-yard dash time by two-tenths of a second over the summer - to a 4.7 electronic.), put Wright atop the NCAA Division II individual rushing chart for a time and allowed him to shatter UNO’s career rushing mark. He knows what’s really happening up front - where the hole is going to hit.” UNO Offensive Coordinator Lance Leipold recalls a heart-to-heart talk he had with his ballcarrier: “I said, ‘You’ve built yourself into this big back, now you’ve got to play like one.’” He said Wright, a devoted weightlifter, now not only “finishes off runs” but possesses a keen sense for the game: “He’s learned the blocking schemes better.
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It took an attitude change, plus watching tapes of great backs, before he became the physical runner he is today. Even after bulking up in college from 195 to his present 230 pounds, the 6’1 back steered clear of putting all of himself into runs. He did anything to avoid being branded a troublemaker, even to the point of not using his God-given size to run over smaller players on the gridiron. After losing his father at age 8, he watched his two older siblings make some bad life choices and set about being a model child for the sake of his mother. His passivity on the field was an off-shoot of his desire to blend in off it, where he grew up in an interracial home struck by tragedy.
As a freshman, he was even moved to wide receiver for a week.
The Omaha North High School graduate played quarterback as a prepster and arrived at UNO lacking the requisite toughness to be a hard-nosed tailback.
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“I’m always looking to turn into somebody to dish out some punishment.”īut Wright, a bright and amiable student-athlete with a career in engineering (he is a civil engineering major) awaiting him if a hoped-for stint in pro football fizzles, was not always so assertive. “I take pride in knowing I’m not going to be stopped by any one guy, no matter who he is, no matter how big he is,” Wright said. He has taken many hard knocks, but delivered some too, usually leaving a litter of bodies in his wake. Time and again, the big bruising tailback with the ripped body crashed into a human wall at the line of scrimmage and came out the other side still intact, if not unscathed. After all, the senior has been the one constant and main workhorse for the often sputtering UNO offense in 2000, lugging the ball 30 times per contest the first seven outings. Wright On, Adam Wright Has it All Figured Out Both O n and Off the Football FieldĪdam Wright has been so indestructible for the streaking UNO Maverick football team this year that no one foresaw this walking Adonis being sidelined by injury.