Ekwonu knows better than anyone; that wasn’t the story last year, when the Panthers finished last in the league in offense, didn’t run as much as they wanted because they were always behind, and allowed 65 sacks in 17 games. It didn’t help that they used seven different left guards and eight different right guards over the course of an injury-plagued season, which led to a restructure this offseason.

By spending so much money on Lewis and Hunt as free agents and moving Corbett inside to play center, they took the first step toward establishing that personality. But by emphasizing the running game, they play to Ekwonu’s strengths.

While he struggled as a pass protector last year, he went 10 games without a sack as a rookie when the team played more of a run-oriented offense, so he’s relieved to be back to his old strength, and so are his coaches.

Offensive line coach Joe Gilbert recalled watching Ekwonu out of college before the Panthers took him with the No. 6 pick and said he still sees signs of the player he rated highly. So when he arrived here this offseason alongside head coach Dave Canales, he put together a review of Ekwonu’s last season, going over the good and the bad.

“I think the biggest thing with Ickey is consistency, obviously, and he’s a guy who wants it,” Gilbert said. “He works hard. And that’s the biggest thing for me since I’ve been working with him: I try to be more consistent every day. He’s fun to work with, he’s got a great personality, and that’s part of it. But it’s about being consistent every day and telling him, hey, the greats do the same thing over and over again and get really good at it. And I think he’s starting to embrace that.”

Gilbert said he saw signs at practice today – when the running game had a particularly good day – that Ekwonu was starting to “slow down” and apply the lessons in real time.

“I think he’s on his way there,” Gilbert said. “Are we there yet? No. But I think he’s definitely on his way there.”

Gilbert said that when he looked back at NC State’s version of Ekwonu, he saw some of the same things that cropped up last year and that they are now working to clean them up.

“We’re in this together, there’s no doubt about that,” Gilbert said. “And the positive thing about him is he sees that, and when he’s having a bad day, … There was one practice where he went out; it wasn’t for lack of effort or anything, but he was kind of inconsistent on some of those things, and when he looked at it, I said, ‘All right, what do you think?’ He said, ‘I agree with you, it’s not good enough.’ So that’s the part of it when he starts seeing it for himself. That’s when you really start to make progress.”