Graham Couch

Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING – Malik McDowell wasn’t actually talking to reporters or NFL teams when he declared earlier this month that he wouldn’t leave Michigan State early for the NFL unless he’s projected as a top-three draft pick.

McDowell doesn’t seem like one to pander for effect. And, I’m told, he doesn’t read headlines. Or pay any attention to what’s written about him. So this column will stay between us.

He was talking to only one person on Aug. 8 — himself.

“Mmhmm,” McDowell agreed last week.

McDowell may or may not wind up at the top of NFL draft boards next spring. But he’s going to die trying. He’s made up his mind about that. And …

“Once I figure out what I want to do, that’s what I want to do,” he said.

There is no greater truth about McDowell than this.

His teammates, coaches, his mother — seemingly everyone who knows MSU’s imposing 20-year-old defensive lineman uses some variance of the term “headstrong” to describe him. “Once he has his mind set on something, that’s what his mind is set on,” MSU senior safety Demetrious Cox said.

No one at MSU can complain. After all, McDowell’s determination and stubbornness is what brought him to East Lansing in the first place, after a 56-day standoff with his mother, who wanted him to look elsewhere at the time.

“Malik doesn’t run off of emotions,” his mother, Joya Crowe, said in an email. “We are totally different in that way.”

McDowell is one of the more intriguing characters of the Mark Dantonio era. He is Dantonio’s biggest recruit. His most dramatic recruitment. And among his program’s most intense and unwavering personalities.

And, now, for this season, he’s the face of the program — ready or not.

“He has a dominating attitude, even when we’re playing around in the locker room,” Cox said. “It’s like, ‘Alright, Malik, calm down. You’re doing a little too much.’ But we love him. He just a guy, you can still tell he’s little young. That’s something that’s going to come with age, being a leader, more than just, ‘Let me go out here and do what I’m supposed to do.’”

This season is a test of McDowell’s discipline and maturity.

“Because they’re all looking at him, honestly,” Cox said of MSU’s otherwise young defensive line.

It’s not just them looking at him. Everyone in college football is. And at 6-foot-6 and 275 pounds, he’s hard to miss.

Yet, for the last two years, McDowell was able to disappear from the spotlight behind Shilique Calhoun, Connor Cook and others. He was a helluva player last season, a second-team All-Big Ten pick. His presence forced double-teams that helped free Calhoun for a banner senior year rushing the passer. But it wasn’t yet McDowell’s show, which might have been best for him.

“It was a bigger transition to college football than he anticipated,” his mother said.

McDowell doesn’t pretend to be a finished product. But he’ll tell you where he’s grown.

“When I first got here, I had a little smart mouth,” he said. “I thought I already knew everything. So I just had to learn how to listen more.”

He’s changed his diet — not yet to professional standards, but beyond freshman dorm standards.

“Fried chicken,” McDowell said of his first-year diet. “Wendy’s, crack chicken. Anywhere that was serving chicken. I still eat chicken, but I don’t eat fried chicken as much. I eat more grilled chicken. I don’t like baked chicken, so I try to stay away from that, but I get it in every now and then. I’ve got more greens on my plate.”

“He knows his body is his vehicle,” his mother said.

That’s always been the case. McDowell is an athletic anomaly — a man with the height and frame to play power forward or offensive tackle or defensive end, but who instead is able to squat low enough to play with the round mounds on the interior defensive line.

“The advantages, my arms are usually longer than the dude in front of me,” he said. “Disadvantages, I’ve got to get extra low. I feel like sometimes it’ll be too low. It’s hard to pick out how low to get sometimes, especially when those double teams come. The second guy usually tries to get up under your pads, but you’ve still got to be low enough to where they can’t do it.”

McDowell first showed his athletic gifts in karate, an activity used to “redirect his hyper behavior,” his mother said.

“He loved to come home and show us what he learned,” she said. “Random pieces of furniture were early victims of his demonstrations.”

The elephant in the room in any conversation with Crowe are those two months between signing day in February of 2014 — when McDowell first tried to sign with MSU — and when she actually signed McDowell’s letter of intent at the 11th hour.

“We’re OK. We’re good,” McDowell said of his relationship with his mother. “We were cool that whole 56 days I was waiting. We just weren’t talking about football really. It was the same old relationship, really. Football, we just kept that not as a topic.”

“The college recruiting process was unexpectedly challenging for our family,” Crowe wrote. “There was just no way to be prepared for the media attention. As a mother I wanted Malik to explore his options and make the decision that was best for him. It was difficult to read things that were totally untrue. It was even harder not to respond. Malik asked me not to read any articles, comments, blogs or social media. That request was a turning point in our relationship.

“He has a refreshing clarity regarding his athletic abilities. I have a lot of respect for how he handled that situation.”

The drama that preceded McDowell’s arrival will always be part of his MSU story. If he performs as he intends, it’ll be a worthwhile footnote.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.