The San Benito High offensive linemen won’t wow anyone coming off the bus, but they’re not worried about looking the part—they only care about playing the part.
“We’re never the biggest guys out there, but we definitely hit the hardest,” said Jake Livingston, who alternates with Evan Balochie as the starting right guard.
Historically, the Haybalers (3-2 overall, 0-1 MBL Gabilan) have had one of the more potent rushing offenses in the Central Coast Section. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the key lies in consistently solid line play.
The Balers, who lost their Monterey Bay League Gabilan Division opener to Salinas last week, need their offensive line to play at a level they were earlier in the season if they expect to beat Monterey (5-0, 1-0) on Friday.
“I will say if our offensive line played the way we did against Oak Grove (a 21-19 victory in which the team piled up 285 yards rushing), we have the opportunity to win every game,” offensive line coach Tate Edwards said. “We were that good. Last week we had three out of five guys who played that way, but we had two guys that needed to pick up their game. We ask them to do certain things, and if they do that, we’ll be successful. If they don’t, not so much.”
This year’s offensive line isn’t big by any stretch of the imagination. Although Balochie is 6-foot-2 and 280 pounds, the rest of the core starting linemen—center Tristan Yancey, left guards Matt Parsons and Tristian Medina, the aforementioned Livingston, left tackle Luis Ojeda and right tackle Will Gularte—average out to be 220 pounds.
Fortunately for the Balers and other high school football teams across the nation who aren’t blessed with freakishly gifted linemen, they can win the battle in the trenches off two key components: technique and desire.
Offensive linemen are asked to get their pad level lower than their defensive counterparts, and play with an intensity that never wavers.
“What we ask them to do is not difficult, but the number of kids who can actually do it are very few and far between,” Edwards said. “Because what we’re asking them to do is unnatural. We’re asking them to play at a (pad) level lower than they’ve ever played before, and we’re asking them to play with an intensity greater than they’ve every done before. Everything is about footwork and precision and so much of the stuff is different than everything they’ve done before. It’s incredibly difficult—that’s why you see very few guys who are good offensive linemen.”
Edwards used injured senior Manny Zuniga as an example of how technique and desire trump size. A 6-1, 165-pounder, Zuniga was the team’s starting left tackle before he suffered an injury during practice three weeks into the season.
In street clothes, Zuniga looks nothing like a lineman. He has more of a typical basketball body than one made for the gridiron. But on the field, Zuniga punishes bigger defensive linemen with a ferocity belying his appearance.
Zuniga was one of the team’s most consistent linemen, and perhaps the best at pulling, or opening up a running lane for the slot backs on toss sweep plays.
“That’s why a guy like Manny who is the smallest of them all can be the most effective of them all, because he does what he’s asked to do,” Edwards said.
Linemen know the game starts with them. A team can have a bounty of talent at the skill positions, but if it doesn’t have a strong line, it has no where to go but down.
That’s why playing on the line attracts a player like Parsons, who was never interested in playing football until his freshman year.
“I was put on the line right away and ended up loving it,” Parsons said.
Yancey gained a passion for the game while watching games with his grandfather, George Constantin, who died a couple of years ago.
“I’m doing this all for my grandfather,” Yancey said. “He was more or less my father figure growing up.”
The Balers need their offensive line to return to the level it was playing at earlier in the season. The Balers’ next opponent, Monterey, beat them by a convincing 35-21 score in 2013. San Benito coach Chris Cameron said the Toreadores are every bit as solid this season—if not superior—than last year’s team.
“They’ve got guys that can run like deer all over the field,” Cameron said. “They’re a team that thrives on the big play, and if we give them a couple of opportunities (via turnovers and penalties), it’s over.”
San Benito is coming off a gut-wrenching 17-14 loss—it’s the type of game that keeps coaches up late at night—to Salinas last week. Everyone will remember the Balers missing a 23-yard field goal attempt as time expired, but Cameron said that misses the point entirely.
“We should’ve never been in that situation,” he said. “We put the ball on the ground five times (losing two of them), and they didn’t turn the ball over once. They never put themselves in a position to lose the game—we did.”
One of the turnovers came inside the Balers’ 20-yard line, and Salinas scored on the very next play. San Benito also had four false start penalties, contributing to its demise.
“It’s not like they beat the snot out of us—we lost the game,” Cameron said. “Our guys played hard; we just need to play smart and more disciplined, and that’s our job as a coaching staff to make the players pay attention to every little detail. That’s what we’re kind of lacking right now.”
Over the years, San Benito has received tremendous play from its offensive line. This year’s unit has rated high in some games, but it still needs to improve, Edwards said. The former UC Davis lineman is confident the players can reach that higher level.
“There are no huge egos on this group, and that’s going to help with chemistry,” Edwards said. “Everyone has to have complete trust in one another, and you can’t have that if someone is thinking about themself all the time.”
Even though linemen are usually only noticed by the crowd when they do something wrong, Livingston said there’s a greater reward for playing well.
“Our teammates appreciate what we do, so we don’t need to have the spotlight on us,” Livingston said. “I think it’s all guts, no glory, but we love every minute of it.”
