Dylan Autenrieth committed to NC State back on June 18th this summer. He’s a 3-star Tight End out of Georgia, and he’s already used to playing for the Wolfpack, because NC State and North Paulding share the same mascot. Yesterday, I caught up with Robert Jones, North Paulding’s football coach, to get his take on what it’s been like to coach Dylan Autenrieth.
“Dylan’s a great kid. He’s got all the tools. He’s just one of those kids that happens to have them. He’s 6’4″ and some change, 220lbs, runs great, great hands, works hard, and is a very smart football player. He’s also got around a 4.0 GPA,” said Jones. “He’s got everything you want in a player, and we just don’t have enough of him around here. He’s a big weapon for us, and we’re definitely going to take advantage of that, and get the ball in his hands as much as we can. I’ve been coaching for 30 years, and every 8 or 9 years you get a big ‘ol kid like Dylan that has it all. I’ve had just a few of those.”
The biggest area of improvement that Jones has seen in Autenrieth over the years has been his work in the weight room. The young man hasn’t always weighed 220lbs.
“Three years ago he was a tall and skinny weak kid. He always played basketball and has broken every record at our school,” said Jones. “He’s worked extremely hard in the weight room. He would be a good one to look at a before and after picture over a three-year period.”
Jones said the biggest way that Autenrieth can help his team this season is to stay on the field as much as possible. Even though he would prefer not play him both ways, Autenrieth might end up being too valuable to take off the field.
“He’s just one of those kids that doesn’t really come off of the field. We try to rest our kids as much as we can, but he’s just going to have to be a lasting presence out there. He’s on all of the special teams except kickoff. He just needs to stay on the field, because when he’s out there he’s a threat. He’s in really good shape,” said Jones. “As long as he’s out there we have chance to make plays. We try not to play players both ways, but we may get to game four or five and he’ll be starting at wide receiver and defensive end. We’d hate to have to do that with him, but we saw what he could do at Spring practice at Defensive End , and a lot of colleges realized he could play there too.”
Autenrieth has a frame that could lead him to play at a variety of positions at NC State in the future according to Jones. Skill players don’t typically have his natural frame and ability.
“He’s one of those kids that could easily carry 245-50 pounds on his almost 6’5″ frame. There’s no telling what happens when he gets to NC State,” said Jones. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a great tight end. It wouldn’t surprise me if he lost 8 pounds and was playing receiver. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he put on 30 pounds and played defensive end. He can do it all.”
Tonight Autenrieth and his North Paulding squad get the season started off on the road against McEachern, who Jones says is the #12 team in the nation.
