Cut 'em off at the pass;H-SC interception fiend Doody wasn't even football-crazy

Published Oct. 9, 2010 10:47 a.m. ET

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College football: H-SC's Doody cuts 'em off at the pass

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY

AT BRIDGEWATER Tomorrow: 1 p.m.

For Bill Doody, football was a lot different in high school. He didn't have much passion for the sport, and he didn't have the speed and ball-snatching ability that scare offenses to the other side of the field.

A lot has changed for the Hampden-Sydney senior free safety.

"It's a completely different world for me," Doody said.

In 2009, Doody led the nation with nine interceptions. He has three this year, giving him 17 for his career. Another four, and he will set the school record. But in high school, Doody never envisioned this kind of success.

"I wasn't a star or anything," Doody said. "I didn't get recruited to go play in college at all."

He didn't start playing until his senior year at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The reason he joined wasn't because he was dying to play. He joined because his friends were on the team.

He started about half the games and had two interceptions.

After high school, Doody dropped football and went to Santa Fe College in Florida, hoping to transfer to the University of Florida after two years. So when the time came, he applied to UF and a few other schools. A friend from home, Joey Fitzgerald, who was a backup quarterback at Hampden-Sydney, suggested Doody come to Virginia.

Sort of on a whim, Doody applied to Hampden-Sydney as his "Plan C." When he got deferred by Florida and accepted at H-SC, going north became his new future.

Doody still didn't have much passion for football. But as in high school, he decided to give it a try because his friend, Fitzgerald, was on the team.

"If Joey played lacrosse, I might be playing lacrosse right now," Doody said. "I thought [ football] could be an extracurricular activity."

Tigers coach Marty Favret was equally skeptical about Doody's impact on the team when Fitzgerald mentioned Doody's name.

"We kind of rolled our eyes like, 'I've heard that one before,' " Favret said.

But Favret soon realized Doody was a gold mine for the Tigers. Doody played in his first game in 2008 when the starting safety was injured. Though Doody said he never really felt comfortable his first season, he intercepted a pass in his first game.

"We realized we had something pretty special," Favret said.

Doody has as a mixture of speed (4.5 in the 40-yard dash) and size (6-3, 215 pounds) that slowly turned him into an interception machine. His hands are as good as the best receivers in the league, Favret said, and Doody knows how to hit.

"He can lay the hammer down," Favret said. "He's clearly a guy you don't generally see at this level in terms of that combination - size and strength and speed."

Doody was named a first-team All-American after leading Division III in interceptions in 2009. Through five games this season, Doody has inched closer to the school record of 20, set by Chris Scott in 2002. Jay Pitts of Randolph-Macon set the ODAC record with 26 from 1981 to 1984.

But picks are getting harder to come by because teams have stopped throwing in his direction.

"They don't want to mess with him," Favret said.

Contact Eric Kolenich

at (804) 649-6109 or ekolenich@timesdispatch.com

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