FAMU's Vann rattles return game

By Sekou Smith

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With a football in the air, be it on a punt or a kickoff, Florida A&M return specialist LeRoy Vann's motives are as simple as they are sinister for those unlucky souls trying to stop him.

"Basically, I'm thinking touchdown," Vann said. "And that means finding the quickest route to the end zone and get there at full speed."

From an ordinary return man those words wouldn’t have nearly the same meaning as they do from Vann, arguably the nation's most feared return man.

In a little over one season on the job, Vann has returned a jaw-dropping seven punts and three kickoffs for scores. He returned two punts for touchdowns against Howard last week, catching the eye of "ESPN College Gameday" and Sports Illustrated.

Both will have features about the slippery 5-foot-9, 188-pound Vann completed by the time his feet hit the Georgia Dome turf for Saturday afternoon's Bank of America Football Classic against Tennessee State.

Vann leads the nation in punt returns (27.9 average) and has returned four punts for scores this season. His next one will tie North Carolina A&T's Curtis DeLoach for the single-season record (in Division I-AA).

But his intentions on game days have nothing to do with history.

"Every time the ball is kicked to me I feel I can change the game at any moment," said the senior defensive back from Tampa. "There's nothing more to it than that."

Try telling that to the waves of players Vann leaves in his wake on one of his returns.

Compact with blistering speed, shiftiness to spare and a fearless streak a stuntman would envy, Vann traded pointers earlier in the week with former Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl XXXI MVP Desmond Howard, the only player to win the award based solely on a special-teams performance.

Vann named Howard and Deion Sanders two of his all-time favorites.

"I didn't even know I was going to be talking to [Howard] until my [position] coach told me about it that morning," said Vann, who seems unfazed by the sudden spike in attention from the national media. "I'm not doing anything I haven’t always done, pretty much. I was a return man in high school, but honestly, the kickers weren’t that good. And when they did kick me one, I took it to the house, and no one would kick to me again.

"So I guess this is really the first time I've had a chance to do it like this."

Vann has piled up 556 total yards on returns this season on 19 plays, a whopping 29.2-yard average.

That's just a fraction of what he's capable of this season. He finished last season with the Division I-AA single-season record of 1,585 combined return yards, shattering the old mark of 1,469 yards set by Samford's David Primus two decades ago.

Rattlers coach Joe Taylor knows he has something special in Vann and knows that opposing teams can't always kick away from him because the offense is so explosive (34.33 points per game).

"He can change the game at any time," Taylor said. "When we execute the way we practice, [he] can be devastating."

In a series that has seen the past six games decided by a total of 25 points, one touch for Vann might be all the Rattlers need.

"I like that noise the crowd makes during the first 10 yards," Vann said. "Once you get past the first guy, it starts getting louder and louder, and when you see the kicker or punter, the crowd is going crazy because they know you're taking it to the house."