Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report - Developing the Nasty Boys
3/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
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By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
They refer to themselves collectively as The Big 'Cats. This is not new. The offensive linemen have viewed themselves that way for a few seasons now. But what is new this spring is the way they talk about taking every 'chop-ortunity' they get. "We're all about being nasty," explains one of them, the six-foot-eight, 310-pound Shane Mertz.
"So every opportunity we get to chop someone down and lay them down hard, we take it. Chop-ortunities are a focus for us."
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There is no position attached to Mertz's name in the reference above and here is the reason for that. He is now playing guard. But the status of the offensive line is as fluid as a ballerina's jete and so that may change between this spring's practices and next fall's season opener against Stanford on Sept. 5. "Right now, more than ever, Coach Cush (offensive line coach Adam Cushing) is trying to get the best five guys on the field," explains Mertz. "Like Geoff Mogus, who's a two-year starter at left guard, he's taken reps at left tackle. So really Coach Cush is putting the best five guys out on the field and it doesn't really matter at what position.
"I've played tackle my whole life. I've played football since I was five-years old. I was a center when I was five and six, then I moved over to tackle and I've been a tackle ever since. I've never played guard in my life, but it's something I'm definitely open to...Changes need to be made and we don't really know who's going to fall where. It's really an open game right now with Coach Cush trying to find the best match for every position."
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The line last year was anchored by center Brandon Vitabile and tackle Paul Jorgensen, a pair of estimable seniors, but its play throughout the season was wildly inconsistent. Pat Fitzgerald, in turn, would not only lament that it too often suffered paralysis-from-analysis. He would also say regularly that he was not happy with the competition among its members. "No, I was not. No, I was not," he repeated this spring.
"We had some guys who became comfortable twos, and then we had guys who had opportunities to win jobs and didn't win them and just took the role and accepted it. That's really disappointing about last year. But a positive byproduct is the guys who're coming back learned from that. So it stinks for the seniors from last year. But it's better for the team in the long run moving forward."
"You need people to push you. You need to have someone behind you. If they're playing well, it forces you to raise your game a little bit," Cushing said this week when asked about that. "We moved a defensive lineman (six-foot-four, 290-pound junior Connor Mahoney) this spring over to o-line trying to get some more competitive depth so we can look at it and say, `I don't care if you're the left guard, the left tackle or the right tackle. It doesn't matter. We're going to find a way to play the best five guys.' I don't know if you've noticed, but we shuffled some guys around a little bit. Mogus is playing a little bit at tackle. We want to find the best five. Not just the best two tackles and the best two guards. The best five. We'll figure it out after that. It's all playing o-line."
Did he feel that twos accepted being twos last year, as Fitzgerald said?
"There was a little bit of that," Cushing agreed. "As a coach, you're looking to get guys to push at all times. We need every single guy to show up every single day and say, `If I don't like my role, I'm going to do something about it.' No matter how many starts the guy in front of you's got-- I think we've shown in the past. We've taken a three-year starter at center in Ben Burkett and moved him over (in 2011) to make room for Brandon Vitabile, who had zero starts under his belt. We're going to find a way to get the best five guys on the field in whatever roles. So feel free to make it hard on us. That's what we tell them all the time."
"I think Coach Fitz just wants a true, hard competition and that's why him and Coach Cush have shifted over to this 'the-five-best-guys-are-going-to-play,' regardless of what position you've played your whole life," Mertz finally said, comparing last fall to this spring. "When you have set rules like, oh, Geoff Mogus is a left guard and only a left guard, then maybe the backup left guard, who can be a great football player, he can never play because he's not as good as two-year starter Geoff Mogus. But now that Geoff Mogus is getting a chance to play tackle, maybe that backup left guard can start.
"So it changes the competition up and it keeps everybody involved. If you have a future NFL guy at a position, the backup never has a chance. That's changed now that guys are moving all around."
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There is so much moving around that it would be silly to predict, seven practices into the spring, just what that line will look like in September. But, Cushing said Tuesday with a smile, "We will definitely find out before the first game. I can promise you that much."
Is anything set on the line, Fitzgerald was asked.
"Nothing on the team is set," he said with a smile of his own. "Well, I should take that back. Matt Harris is going to start at corner. So is Nick VanHoose."
And Justin Jackson will probably get some carries, someone guessed.
"Potentially. Potentially," said Fitzgerald, still smiling. "Yeah. You know. We've been together a long time. It's spring ball, it's so fluid. It could change in a drill."
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What has not changed is the importance of that line, which is the very foundation of the offense. Without a good one, the quarterback cannot slice apart a defense with his arm and the running back cannot dazzle with his elusiveness and the wide receiver cannot unfurl a double-move and make the spectacular catch. That is why the competition here is as significant as the more-publicized one among their trio of quarterbacks, and why much of their success next fall will be predicated on Cushing indeed finding the five best to play it.
That is also why it is significant that its members recognize the value of taking every 'chop-ortunity' they get. "Our motto is we want to be the toughest guys on the field at all times. That's the most important thing for an offensive lineman. Toughness," Mertz finally said when asked if his group recognized its importance in the offense. "So if we go out there and be tough, regardless of fundamentals and everything else, if we go out there and be tough, then we set the tone for the game.
"If we go out and punch the d-line in the face, then all the skill guys will all do their thing. They're all great and they're going to run around and do their thing. But the offensive line needs to punch the defensive line in the face for anything to get started. We really take that to heart. We're always about cutting people when we can, laying people down, knocking people over.
"We're all about being nasty."
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