Taliaferro adds physical style

FAYETTEVILLE -- Miles Taliaferro has always been a headhunter. In a good way, of course. On the football field, the tag on Taliaferro since his first day in the Fayetteville program was a player with reckless abandon. He's not the biggest, tallest or perhaps even strongest defensive player for the Purple Bulldogs, but Taliaferro decided right from the start he would make up for it with his physical style. "I don't really care about me or my body out there. I guess that's what makes me kind of good," he said. "When I was a sophomore, I lettered, and that was kind of how I made myself known with the big hits and not worrying about the physical beating." Taliaferro played safety as a sophomore on Fayetteville's Class 7A championship team. He moved up to linebacker as a junior when the Bulldogs switched from a 4-2-5 scheme to a 4-3 set. Now with Fayetteville back in a 4-2-5 base defense this year, Taliaferro is back at strong safety, a position he felt most comfortable with all along. "There's a lot of freedom back there (at safety)," Taliaferro said. "You get to move around a lot and always be around the ball. So I like it back there." Being around the ball has never been a problem for Taliaferro, now a 5-foot-10, 190-pound senior. He showed off his knack for right-place, right-time awareness in Fayetteville's 35-13 scrimmage win over Greenwood, taking a tipped pass interception 52 yards for the Bulldogs' first touchdown of the game. "He's a very smart football player," Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton said. "He's got great instincts, and he's always around the ball. Any big play, he's usually right in the middle of it." Taliaferro and fellow senior Dre Greenlaw return to lead a Bulldogs' secondary, which is expected to be not only the strength of the defense, but also one of the top strengths on the entire team. With Greenlaw expected to also divvy up his role with some offensive plays as well, Taliaferro will be counted on more as a leader among the defensive backs this year. "Miles is one of those guys we look up to as one of our leaders on the defensive side of the ball," Patton said. "If Dre is over on offense and not playing defense, then Miles is an elder statesmen of our defense, and he's definitely somebody our other kids look up to. He's been through the battles, and he's somebody we can count on." Taliaferro finished second to Greenlaw on the team with 79 total tackles last season, while also recording one tackle for loss and one pass breakup. But individual stats aren't what fuels this aggressive Bulldog. Instead, it's redemption for a disappointing finish to 2013 that has Taliaferro fired up for a promising senior season. "I think about that game (against Little Rock Central) every single day," Taliaferro said. "Having seven turnovers and going from thinking our defense was going to hold them to a goose egg to our offense turning it over and us letting them score. So that was definitely not how we wanted to finish. "And I think we have even more potential this year. We haven't reached all of that potential yet, but we're going to get there."

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TALIAFERRO ADDS PHYSICAL STYLE

VERNON TARVER

NWADG | 9/4/2015

PHOTO CREDIT: NWADG