After leaving Ragsdale High School as North Carolina’s all-time leading rusher, Toney Baker enrolled at N.C. State University with very high expectations on the football field. Baker, a redshirt senior running back, lived up to those expectations his freshman and sophomore seasons, amassing 1,234 rushing yards and scoring 12 touchdowns in those two seasons, and going into his junior season, Baker’s future looked very bright.
However, after just 26 plays in the first game of the season against Central Florida, Baker suffered a season-ending injury that would keep him out of not only all of 2007, but also the 2008 season, when he had to have another knee surgery. Nevertheless, Baker has returned to the team and says he is healthy and happy to finally be back playing the game he had missed for the last two years.
“It feels incredible to get back in here with the team,” Baker said. “This has been a great camp so far, and it’s just great knowing that I am finally back doing what I love to do. I feel like Toney Baker, which is great, and I am running with a lot of power and feel great.”
Baker is not the only one who has noticed that he is almost back to his pre-injury form. Coach Tom O’Brien also said he has seen his progress during camp.
“He was better off last night than he was at anytime during the spring,” O’Brien said. “He ran last night with a little bit of power and burst that we hadn’t seen in the spring. He’s still not all the way back, but he’s tracking in that direction, which is good news for our football team.”
O’Brien said the biggest difference Baker has showed from the spring practices to camp is his boost in self confidence, which came from being able to make it through the spring practices without much of a problem with his knee.
“Getting through the spring, confidence-wise, was big for him,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know if he was totally sure of himself in the spring.”
Even though Baker may almost be back to his pre-injury form, no one is going to hand him back the starting job. Running back may be one of the team’s deepest positions and O’Brien said the battle is fierce for the starting and back-up running backs’ roles.
“There’s a lot of competition going on,” O’Brien said. “You’ve got Jamelle [Eugene], Toney, and we talked about [junior running back] Curtis Underwood. [Redshirt freshman] Brandon Barnes has done a nice job, and James Washington, the freshman who came in mid-year, looks like he’s going to be an excellent back. They are fighting it out to see who the three backs are against South Carolina.”
The competition in practice has not led to any hard feelings between any of the running backs, including redshirt senior Jamelle Eugene, who said he is ecstatic to have Baker back pounding at the defense.
“It’s good to have two big pounding backs in Curtis and Toney,” Eugene said. “Toney is a veteran and he plays hard and physical. I have a lot of confidence in him.”
After being out for almost two whole seasons, Baker will be the first to tell you that the road back to where he is now was treacherous and long, especially after he learned he would not be able to play at all last year.
“I was pretty down, but deep down I knew that this is what had to be done to get where I wanted to be,” Baker said. “That is how I looked at it and I just looked at it like I needed more time, and after I got that through my head, I just started focusing on getting better.”
With Baker back, his main focus is to help this team win anyway possible, whether he is playing or not. He said he knows he has to take it game by game and play by play because anything could happen and any play could be his last.
“As for myself, I just want to put myself in the best position to help this team, and whatever happens from there happens,” Baker said. “I just need this team to take it one day at a time and one game at a time and play hard.”
