Chris Slayton didn’t want to play football before high school.

But he was big and his stepdad, Lem Slaughter, knew Slayton had potential. So he pushed him to pick up the sport freshman year.

“(Football was) all I knew,” Slaughter said. “So I got all my boys into football.”

When he stepped on the field, Slayton, who really never played sports competitively before, asked to play quarterback. He had played catch with Slaughter all his life. Throwing a football around the yard was really all Slayton knew about the game.

Coaches rejected that idea, seeing Slayton’s massive frame, and placed him on the defensive line. When the season began, Slayton didn’t like the sport, he said. It confused him.

“I wanted to quit,” Slayton said, “but my mom told me I couldn’t. (She) saw it in me.”

Two years after asking to play quarterback, Slayton lined up on the starting defensive line at Crete-Monee (Illinois) High School. It was then Slayton realized the possibility of playing at the next level.

Slayton lived in the gym and worked to become a “student of the game,” he said. The college offers poured in and Slayton decided on Syracuse. He now enters his redshirt senior year as the team’s active leader in career games played, tackles for loss, sacks and forced fumbles. But that progression into SU’s star defender wouldn’t have happened without his stepdad.

“It was a shock for me to see him starting (junior year),” Slaughter said. “… He went way beyond our expectations.”

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That season set the stage for Slayton’s path. For the first time, Slayton played with confidence. He knew his potential. Once he worked on his techniques and devoted more time to lifting weights, the rest followed suit.

Slayton dropped basketball and dedicated all his attention to football. At 6-foot-4, Slayton knew he couldn’t play power forward at the Division I level, Slaughter said. But his height would help him as a defensive lineman. During his junior year, Crete-Monee won the state championship with Slayton leading its defensive unit.

As the Warriors blitzed through the season en route to a perfect 14-0 record, Slayton did the same on the defensive line. He finished the season with 61 tackles, nine sacks and three forced fumbles. He earned a spot on the all-conference team and was an all-state special mention.

When he arrived at SU in 2014, Slayton weighed 288 pounds, according to 247sports.com. He redshirted his first year before appearing in all 12 games with four starts in 2015. By 2016, his redshirt sophomore year, he was a full-time starter.

The key, Slayton said, was focusing more on technique. He used a shiver board, a pad that helps teach proper footwork and better blow delivery. The board simulates what it’s like to face an offensive lineman, and Slayton worked on his “punch” to help push back and get by opponents.

“Just wanting to become a better football player all-around,” Slayton said. “Better leader, technician, all those things.”

Since coming to SU, Slayton has added nearly 30 pounds and his workout numbers have skyrocketed. Former Syracuse defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough told The Daily Orange last year that Slayton was one of the strongest players on the team.

Slayton estimates that he now squats 700 pounds, more than twice his weight, and can bench just north of 400.

Adding that extra strength helps Slayton beat offensive linemen, he said, especially if the opponent didn’t use good technique off the snap. His stats correspond to his increase in strength. He finished second on SU with 8.5 tackles for loss in 2017 and knocked Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant out of the game in an eventual upset win over the No. 2 Tigers.

After SU’s win over Clemson, head coach Dino Babers referred to Slayton as simply “three technique,” the position where he lines up on the defensive line on the outside shoulder of the guard because Slayton excels so much in that spot.

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Slayton’s parents refer to him as a quiet, confident player. He has that “competitive edge in him,” Slaughter said, one that doesn’t die off until way after the game has ended. During high school games, Slaughter joked, Slayton would run off the field and straight into the locker room rather than stopping by the stands to say hello to his parents.

But that competitive edge has led to Babers saying Slayton is a future NFL player. Throughout last season and into 2018, Babers has hyped up his star defensive lineman.

“Slayton is an M and an N with an A in the middle,” Babers said this past week. “He’s the real deal.”

Without Parris Bennett and Zaire Franklin in Syracuse’s front seven, Slayton is the new leader of the defense. Shortly after last season ended — a season without a bowl game appearance — Slayton said the graduating seniors told him it was his time to “run the show.”

Nine years ago, when Slayton first picked up football, heading a Division-I defense seemed like something that would never happen.

Now that quiet kid who wanted to play quarterback is the anchor on a Syracuse defense. And his name has circulated around the NFL Draft. All because his parents pushed him to never quit.

Published on April 12, 2018 at 10:23 pm

Contact Charlie: [email protected] | @charliedisturco