NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Cameron Lawrence can only remember one season he and his older brother Addison haven’t been competing on the same football field.
After tonight’s 2011 Music City Bowl, the Lawrence duo will be split up again for likely the final time of their football careers.
When Addison graduated from Magnolia Heights High School in their hometown Coldwater in 2007, the brothers were split up permanently for the first time since either of them can remember. “I remember going back as far as tee ball and taekwondo that we’ve been in the same stuff together so I can’t recall a time we were split up doing different things,” MSU junior linebacker Cam Lawrence said. “It’s a weird feeling knowing this could be it with the two of us.”
Addison Lawrence, MSU’s stalwart at offensive right tackle, will leave the Starkville campus with not only his degree but also a fiancee after asking his girlfriend to marry him last month. The 300-pound offensive lineman says he’d like to still try and catch on at least as a undrafted free agent in the National Football League before as he says “getting a job in the real world”.
During every road trip Addison and Cam’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carl Lawrence, are at the team hotel waiting for their sons to get off the team bus. It’s a tradition that’s carried on since the time they were kids playing sports.
“Mom and dad were constantly getting us in the car for tournaments or something and sometimes we were going to play at two different things with the age difference of course,” Cam Lawrence said.
During the 2011 campaign, Addison Lawrence had notched a second-high total of 46 knockdown blocks on a offensive line that pushed the MSU running game to fourth in the Southeastern Conference while giving up the fifth-least sacks. In a injury-riddled season up front for MSU (6-6), Lawrence is the only player to not switch positions throughout the season.
“It’s been a strange season to look to my left and see so much changes but all I’ve concentrated on throughout each week is doing my job in my spot and the rest will take care of themselves,” Addison Lawrence said.
Cam Lawrence, in his first season as a full-time starter at linebacker, was named second-team All-Southeastern Conference by Rivals.com after totaling 114 tackles including a career-high 14 against Ole Miss after his brother was honored before the Egg Bowl contest during the senior night celebrations. While Cam Lawrence filled out his evaluation papers for the NFL Draft scouting services like most MSU juniors, he is expected to return to Starkville for his final season of eligibility.
The final benefit for the Lawrence parents is not having to watch their sons beat up on each other in the annual spring game.
“I think my dad would get a little nervous and confused in the spring game when I would blitz about which son to cheer for and hope does well,” Cam Lawrence said.
n SEC had plans for MSU to play Thursday night in 2012 : Before the addition of Texas A&M University and the University of Missouri to the Southeastern Conference, Mississippi State was slated to play a third straight Thursday night conference game in their 2012 slate.
The MSU academic calendar had the school scheduled for a Thursday night football game on Oct. 11 and MSU Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin confirmed to The Dispatch Thursday afternoon that contest was the Tennessee home game that is now scheduled on Oct. 13. Stricklin said he was was perfectly fine with the Bulldogs 2012 schedule and the freedom of not having the football program have to prepare for two games in a 10-day stretch like pervious seasons.
“I told Dan that we would try to not have to have us go through something like that in back-to-back conference games this season,” Stricklin said. “We’ve always been more than willing to accommodate our league by playing on Thursday night because we value the exposure. Over six million people, the most of any SEC game this season, watched our LSU home game on ESPN and those kind of numbers has value but we also see the value in giving our fans the year off from a Thursday night game from time to time.”
However, the addition of the two schools forced a new eight-team scheduling format
n Wake Forest WR Givens to make NFL decision after Music City Bowl: Wake Forest wide receiver Chris Givens has said to reporters this week he has received a second or third round grade according to the National Football League scouting services but is not expected to announce a decision about the 2012 NFL Draft until after the bowl game tonight.
“”I would guess if you grew up in Mississippi, that you’d want to play well against Ole Miss or Mississippi State, either one,” Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe said.
The 6-foot, 195-pound Givens caught 80 passes for 1,143 yards and 12 touchdowns in 23 games over his first two seasons with the Demon Deacons before breaking out for 74 receptions, 1,276 yards and nine touchdowns in 12 games in 2011. Givens’ yardage total this season were a school record and helped earn him first-team All-ACC honors.
Givens, who is a native of Jackson and was recruited by Ole Miss as a junior in high school before tearing the anterior cruciate ligaments in his knees, is the second cousin of Mississippi State backup linebacker Christian Holmes.
” know if he wins, I’m not ever going to hear the end of it,” Givens told The Associated Press. “I really don’t want that. Just going home because everybody is Mississippi State fans. I would like to just go home and say we beat Mississippi State in a bowl game.”
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