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In the Lineman of Fire
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@acnpapers.com
For years, high school quarterbacks, skill position players, linebackers and defensive backs have soaked in the fast-paced, high-throttle grind of 7-on-7 during the summer.
In recent years, linemen have carved out their own unique niche in the offseason.
Such was the case Thursday evening from Wylie when the Plano Senior offensive and defensive lines gathered amid competition from Wylie, Jesuit and Sachse inside the indoor practice facility for the latest leg in the budding craze of lineman challenges.
A concept still in its infant stages, the event pits a crop of lines against each other in a variety of drills designed to test the unit’s strength, speed, agility and such.
The method behind the madness varies between challenges, but the Wildcats adjusted amicably, scoring first in all but one event Thursday for a first-place total of eight points.
“It’s about winning and about finishing, but it’s also about getting here and being competitive,” said Skyler Purcell, Plano senior. “This is your chance to show everybody, be it teams or coaches, what you can do and really get your name out there.”
“You get to see what the other teams look like and how strong the other lines are,” added Jeremy Temme, Plano senior. “It shows you how hard you need to work and you just want to beat them.
“It’s good pregame for the season.”
Teams were awarded one point for a first-place finish, two for taking second and so forth during the two-hour competition, with a bevy of weights, hurdles and barbells scattered through the different stations for the challenge.
Players were timed and evaluated over the course of six stations, with Plano testing its mettle in the obstacle course to kick things off.
Divided into five obstacles with one player stationed at each, the course began with Allen Coats leaping onto a series of plyometric jumping blocks, followed by Stephen Collins lifting dumbbells of 75, 85, 95, 105 and 115 pounds and individually setting them on a higher set of jumping blocks. From there, Connor Peska bolted over and under a line of hurdles until Purcell took on the task of flipping a tire five times. Bobby Geibler rounded out the competition by tossing a football 15 yards into one of three pockets.
The Wildcats accomplished this in 72 seconds, good for third place overall.
Nothing less than first would round out the remainder of Plano’s run through the challenge.
The group advanced to the timed weight phase, where scores were tabulated based on the top six times for each team. Geibler got the ball rolling in the weighted sled pull, dragging the object 20 yards in tennis shoes for a team-best 4.91.
Next up, the players took turns pushing a John Deere 2x4 Gator 20 yards, where Temme and Eric Kim tied with a 9.6.
The final timed task at hand required the players to carry a pair of 100-pound dumbbells around a banana hurdle 20 yards downfield and back. An exercise that proved taxing as players progressed, the support between the teammates came out in full form with linemen willing their fellow Wildcats to the finish line.
“These really pull us together,” Purcell said. “It shows the leadership that will come out in people that you wouldn’t normally see. It brings out things that you don’t get out of practice because you’ve got coaches telling you what to do.
“This is for the players.”
That manifested itself the rest of the way, primarily in the power clean press.
Prior to the Wildcats, the highest number of reps completed by a player was 20. All six of Plano’s top finishers eclipsed that mark with none better than Coats, who, amid a flurry of cheers from his onlooking teammates, completed a team-best 30 reps.
“It’s all about our offseason program,” Green said. “I felt like we would hammer it because we do power cleans every single day and the same for the bench press. Our linemen love the weights and the proof is in the pudding with the job these kids did today.”
The players rounded out the competition with a bench press exercise. Taking turns on benches of 135 and 185 pounds, the Wildcats got 22 reps on the latter from Purcell.
Plano tallied one point in all but the obstacle course, which netted three points for the first-place total of eight.
“It’s not like Friday nights,” Temme said, “but for the linemen, this is as close as it gets.”
Thursday’s finish was par for the course for the Wildcats, whose summer ledger includes placing second out of 16 teams at the Michael Johnson Challenge and fourth out of 56 teams at a lineman challenge in Arlington. The latter demonstrates the growing popularity of lineman challenges, which are still a ways off the structure and organization of 7-on-7.
Coaches are able to actively coach and teams are permitted to partake in the state championship by paying a fee for a team of 10. And the Wildcats expect to be on hand to vie for the championship July 20 from Duncanville to compete against a field that will likely include two-time champ Arlington, always-stout DeSoto and forceful newcomer Wylie East.
“We fully expect to be competitive at state,” Green said. “We’ve competed at all but one this summer and I think there’s going to be more stress on winning than the brotherhood aspect of it, because that’s the point of going to state.”
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