Meet Delaware's first walk-on to become a football captain since 2008
Coming to the University of Delaware as a football team walk-on, Ethan Saunders couldn’t be sure he’d ever get on the field for the Blue Hens.
Now, as a team captain in his fourth UD season, Saunders will be among the first Hens to touch the turf for the 6 p.m. home opener against Saint Francis on Saturday.
That’ll be for the coin flip. But when the football commences, Saunders will join the fray as part of Delaware’s rotation of defensive linemen.
“Hard work pays off,” Saunders said this week. “It’s been preached to me being a son of two coaches. I think that's been instilled in me so early in my life, that seeing a payoff now is big.
“There were definitely times where I was like, ‘I might just be four years and be done and start being a coach. I might not get a chance.’ But I kept with it. I kept showing up every day trying to be the same guy, and I was blessed to get the opportunity. I made the most of it.”
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Rare reward for walk-on
The last time a former walk-on was a Delaware captain was in 2008 when teammates elected All-American center Kheon Hendricks in his third year as a starter.
Saunders’ rise from unheralded recruit to team leader and valuable player was rewarded before this season when he was granted a football scholarship.
“He got named captain as a kid with multiple years of eligibility left and as a walk-on,” Delaware coach Ryan Carty said. “I don't know if there's higher praise, which obviously speaks volumes to who he is as a human and a leader, not only as a football player.”
Through Delaware’s first two games, Saunders has three tackles, two for lost yardage, and a pair of quarterback hurries.
For Saunders, leadership traits sprung from his family setting. He’d also been class president and football team captain as a two-way all-conference lineman in high school, where he also played basketball and baseball.
“He’s one of those guys that you’re just happy he’s on your side because he’s gonna do everything right at all times,” Carty said.
“He’s going to make sure he’s not only capable of doing it right. He’s also doing it well right now. He’s one of those illustrations that when you take coaching, sometimes you can even play above your ability because of how fundamental and how technique-driven you can become.”
Following parents footsteps
Saunders’ father, Mark, is the football coach at Waynesboro Area High in south-central Pennsylvania, where Ethan graduated in 2020 (Mark was coaching at a different high school then). He’d served stints on college staffs at North Carolina A&T and Winston-Salem State and in arena football before landing in the Keystone State.
Kim, his mother, played volleyball at Drexel and coaches the Waynesboro girls team.
Ethan hopes to also be a coach after he graduates from Delaware with a degree in economics and likely adds a master’s degree. Those career ambitions, at his father’s urging, led Saunders to consider Delaware, where coaches Bill Murray (1940-50), Dave Nelson (1951-65) and Tubby Raymond (1966-2001) are College Football Hall of Famers.
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\He was recruited by several members of the Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and also had walk-on opportunities at Campbell and North Carolina. But Saunders felt Delaware was the ideal place to learn more about football and, he hoped, become an important player along the way.
“Once I came to visit I really couldn’t see myself being anywhere else,” Saunders said. “My dad had always preached to me that Delaware’s esteemed in FCS, they do it the right way down there and ‘If you really want to be a coach, this is a great base.’”
Earning his role
High school coach Josh Sprenkle had predicted "Ethan’s speed and leadership will surely shine at Delaware," and he was right.
The 6-foot, 200-pound Saunders, who has two more years of eligibility after this season, has slowly worked his way into Delaware’s defensive line rotation since arriving as a freshman during the 2020-21 school year.
“From the time I signed on the dotted line, my mentality was I got my foot in the door, now I gotta make the most of it,” he said. “I knew that I needed to get strong. The weightroom is pretty much the most fundamental part of it all.
“From there, I kind of focused on knowing the playbook, knowing my assignments better than everyone else. I knew I might not be the biggest, might not be the fastest and all that. But if I can be strong in the point of the attack and know my job better than everyone else, coaches can trust me.”
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Defense aims to be better
Saunders didn’t play in any spring 2021 games but did get on the field twice that fall. He then appeared in all 12 games last year, getting nine tackles with two for lost yardage.
“He just does everything right,” Carty said. “It’s uncanny and he does want to be a coach. That’s something he does strive to do. His parents are both coaches. And so it’s one of those things that I think he just kind of grew up wanting to do everything correctly, and he’s talented enough to do it.”
Coming off Saturday’s 63-7 loss at Penn State, the 22nd-ranked Blue Hens will be trying to hone and improve their defensive effort with important Coastal Athletic Association games also looming.
“Just get back to doing what we do,” he said. “Definitely an out-of-character experience on Saturday, but we kind of got to flush it and get back to what we do. We preach physicality, we preach run to the football, and we gotta get back to doing those things.”
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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Walk-on Ethan Saunders among football captains for Delaware Blue Hens
