Seth Emery is a hard hitter, the kind of fullback and linebacker who runs through or over opponents.

However, his friends and even his coaches often call him “Sethy-Poo.”

The nickname belies the type player who has commanded a key role in Boyd-Buchanan’s re-emergence as a postseason power after winning just one postseason game the previous two seasons.

“As a joke, I wrote it on my book bag when I was a freshman. Everybody said they were going to start calling me that, and it stuck,” Emery said with rueful grin.

Nevertheless, most of his teammates shy away from the side opposite him during Oklahoma drills in practice.

“If I pair them up, they don’t like to go against Seth because he’s always trying to lay the wood,” Buccaneers coach Grant Reynolds said.

Opponents also have learned. Joe Muir, one of Region 3-2A’s top players, tried to slip inside the tackle on a two-point conversion that would have given Marion County a regular-season win over the Bucs. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound Emery met him in the gap, stood him up and drove him back, something that rarely happens to Muir.

That preserved Boyd-Buchanan’s one-point win and proved to be the deciding factor in its Region 3-2A championship.

Emery likes plowing opposing running backs.

“You have to be mean and nasty, mad at the world when you’re out there on the field,” he said. “If somebody gets in your way, you have to run through them to get to the ball carrier.”

But he also provides stability.

“His durability and just his presence there in the middle has been a catalyst for our defense,” Reynolds said.

Emery enters the game with 30 career tackles for loss and nine career sacks. He has 247 career tackles. They aren’t overwhelming numbers, but they don’t have to be.

“Seth understands the game and he understands his role in our scheme,” Reynolds said. “He doesn’t try to do more than he should. He knows he doesn’t have to sack the quarterback 10 times per game. He does what we ask and he’s happy with that.”

Emery, son of former Hixson High and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga linebacker Danny Emery, calls the Bucs’ defensive signals and has for much of his career, which started three games into his freshman season.

“We were up at Knox Fulton and were getting beat pretty good,” Reynolds recalled. “I decided I was going to put him in there, and neither of us ever looked back. He learned on the fly.”

Emery has grown with Reynolds, who took over as the Bucs’ head coach prior to his sophomore season.

“My freshman year was a lot of learning,” Emery said. “I feel like I have grown a lot since then. I didn’t know the calls, the blitzes or the formations. Now it’s second nature.

“My numbers haven’t been as high as past years, but this year our defense has grown and gotten stronger, and that is because everyone is stepping up as a team. Personal numbers this year have been secondary to the team effort. The guys up front are getting a fair amount of tackles. The guys in front of me have made a lot of tackles, and they have made my job a lot easier. A lot of guys have gotten more assists this year because it’s 11 guys running to the ball. There’s no competition for stats.”

And “Sethy-Poo” doesn’t mind that at all.

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