Steelers' Bud Dupree takes winding path to breakout NFL season

The driving route from the south on the way to Irwinton, Ga., meanders on two-lane roads alongside the Ocmulgee Wildlife Management Area and through towns such as Hawkinsville and Goose Neck.

“You better have enough gas in your car on the way there,” said two-decade college assistant coach D.J. Eliot, who in 2010 made that drive on a recruiting trip. “I mean, it’s in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere. It’s through the woods and up the hills and through more woods and up more hills.”

Eliot took this road less traveled off a tip from a respected acquaintance that it would be worth it.

That’s not unlike the path the player he went there to see has taken in becoming one of the NFL’s most feared edge rushers.

“Alvin,” T.J. Watt said with a sly smile last week, “is doing some great things.

“I can’t say enough good things about Bud Dupree.”

Bud was, more formally, still “Alvin” when Eliot was the defensive ends coach at Florida State nine years ago. Even though his defined recruiting area was southern Georgia and it was less than 200 miles from the FSU campus, Eliot had never even heard of Irwinton (population: 589).

“I am telling you, you would think you are in ‘Deliverance,’ man,” said Eliot, now the defensive coordinator at Kansas.

Eliot, though, quickly fell in love with Dupree the athlete and Dupree the then-kid. The former was easy — he was 6 feet 4, 215 pounds with 4.6 speed and a 36-inch vertical leap, the star on a state championship-winning basketball team and two-way standout in football.

Eliot would discover Dupree’s off-field attributes, ironically, at Kentucky. Though Eliot couldn’t persuade Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher to give Dupree a scholarship, coincidentally Eliot’s next job would be as the defensive coordinator at Kentucky, the school Dupree signed with.

“The thing about Bud was he had really good grades and a good test score and all that out of high school,” Eliot said. “Really bright student — and he was also the best athlete on the field. So we would move him around and try to put him in different spots so that people couldn’t key on him. I played him at so many different positions and different packages — and I don’t think he ever made a mistake.”

Dupree applied those smarts to earn his degree in community and leadership development, graduating the same spring the Steelers took him with the 22nd overall pick in the 2015 draft.

“A lot of guys when they know they are going to be a first-rounder, they’ll drop out of class and just start training,” Eliot said. “Bud, he took a full class load his last semester at Kentucky while he was training so that he could graduate.”

Said Dupree: “I wanted to make sure my (family) knew that I wanted to graduate. It was a big step for my family to see me graduate. It’s an opportunity to kind of break the cycle in my family and my community.”

Dupree this season has broken his career cycle of good-but-not-great seasons with a breakout campaign in which he has career highs in sacks (8 ½), total tackles (50), solo tackles (38), forced fumbles (four) and passes defended (tied, three).

According to statistics from Pro Football Focus, Dupree through 12 games is on pace to set career highs in tackles for loss and QB hits and hurries. Dupree’s subjective PFF season grade of 84.1 ranks seventh among AFC edge rushers and is a vast improvement over the 57.2 average grade he had over his first four seasons.

“Bud, he’s ballin,” veteran teammate Joe Haden said. “He’s ballin’ crazy, making splash plays and strong in the run, getting after the passer — just doing it all.

“I am just very, very, very happy for him. He’s making himself a lot of money.”

Dupree’s best season comes at the perfect time financially — he is scheduled for unrestricted free agency in the spring. Whereas in 2018 there was legitimate debate over whether Dupree was worth the $9.2 million fifth-year option that needed to be exercised for 2019, now it seems likely he will command a guarantee of two or three times that.

“The contract is an extra boost,” Dupree said. “I push the best I can because I’ve just wanted to be good and I always knew that I could be good. I was always in the position; it’s just that this year it’s finally showing. And it’s always good timing for that to be in a contract year.”

Dupree credits experience for his career year at the still tender age of 26. He also recognizes he’s undoubtedly benefited from what is the best collection of talent around him on the Steelers defense since he joined the team.

“They can’t double all our guys, so they have to set someone single,” defensive coordinator Keith Butler said. “He’s done a good job of getting to the quarterback.”

Also, the Steelers haven’t asked him to drop back into coverage as much as they did his first four seasons.

Still, teammates and coaches insist it’s not merely increased sack production that has highlighted Dupree’s season.

“He didn’t all of a sudden arrive this year,” Butler said. “He’s been doing this the last two or three years.”

Since he was a star in the remote hills of Wilkinson County, Ga., Dupree always had all the tools to be an elite athlete. Now, he’s getting the production at the highest level to match it.

“I have been fast and strong since I was young,” Dupree said. “But just the knowledge of the game, learning schematics, tendencies, just being very detailed about my work. And having, preparation-wise, the whole gameplan, knowing it all week leading up to the game. It’s been a great year for that, and we kind of take pride of that now.”

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