Stockdale features a line with speed
| Thursday, Nov 05 2009 11:17 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Nov 05 2009 11:23 PM
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Tonight's games
All games 7:30 unless noted
Arvin at Bakersfield Christian
Bakersfield at East
Centennial at North
Garces at Foothill
Frontier at Stockdale
Ridgeview at Golden Valley
Highland at Liberty
Robert Kennedy at Independence
Mira Monte vs. Tulare-Mission Oak (at Highland)
Shafter at Taft
West at South
Tehachapi at Wasco
Chavez at Visalia-Mt. Whitney
Tulare Western at Delano
McFarland at Orange Cove
Rosamond at Kern Valley, 7
California City at Desert, 7
Frazier Mountain at Bishop, 7
Mojave at Boron, 7
Phelan-Serrano at Burroughs, 7
Immanuel Christian at Trona, 7
Somehow, in his kooky style, Hall of Fame NFL coach and longtime TV analyst John Madden manages to accurately portray football's stereotype.
"Hey, the offensive linemen are the biggest guys on the field; they're bigger than everybody else, and that's what makes them the biggest guys on the field," Madden once said.
Clearly, Madden and his logic never met Duane Seaton, nor did he ever coach in a Wing-T offense. Seaton, after all, is just 200 pounds with rocks in his shoes, but he's an All-Area offensive lineman and a starting guard for Stockdale's potent attack, which at 7-1 heads into a showdown at 7:30 tonight at home against 8-0 Frontier.
"It's about technique," Seaton said. "Blocking, staying low on the hip and using shoulders and stuff."
Seaton is so athletic, in fact, that he would beat most every Mustang in a foot race -- and when he overheard that fact this week, he looked surprised.
"Most?"
To set the record straight, Stockdale coach Mike Snow said Seaton runs a 4.6-second 40-yard dash and is one of the three or four fastest Mustangs. That's not your typical lineman.
But big is one thing Seaton is not. He's as big as Malik Henderson, the Mustangs' speedy fullback, and quarterback Efren Venegas. He's smaller than tight end Hank Hobson. And he's much smaller than many of the defensive tackles he's asked to block.
And though Stockdale has big linemen -- Michael Rodriguez is listed at 6-foot-3, 285 pounds and Ian Garza is 6-3, 265 -- the Mustangs don't have the huge linemen you might expect with a power running game.
"We actually have a pretty small line compared to everybody else," starting tackle David Dolinar said. "But we're pretty athletic."
Instead of over-powering opponents, the Mustangs ask their linemen to block defenders' hips and work at angles that allow different holes to open for their deception-based running game. The other guard, Corey Childs, is 225 pounds. Dolinar is 210.
But in this offense, athleticism is valued over straight size.
"To be a guard in our offense, that's a big deal," Snow said. "Being a guard in the Wing-T is like being the tailback at Georgia or the quarterback at Florida: You have to be athletic and physical and smart."
When Snow and his staff arrived from Frontier two years ago, they targeted Seaton and Childs as players with those traits.
"It helped me, because we ran the spread before coach Snow came," Seaton said. "I'm more of a lineman who would like to pull and get out."
What number popped up on the scale never came into it.
"It's never really about size," Snow said. "It's about how well you can get the job done."
For one of the Central Section's best offenses, the job has been done very well. The Mustangs have run for 2,470 yards -- more than 300 a game -- even as Henderson has missed three games with a deeply bruised left knee, and as his backup, Eddie Gutierrez, also left last week's game with an injury.
"The line's the most essential part of the team," said senior Spenser Prince, who has 707 yards and nine touchdowns rushing as the starting tailback. "Without them, the running backs are nothing."
Although Seaton said he hasn't been approached by any college recruiters, he said he's playing the Wing T scheme better than ever and is happy being the so-called undersized lineman whose team keeps winning.
"We get the most athletic guys to get the job done," Snow said. "David Dolinar was a tight end; we converted him to tackle, and he really flourished there. It's the kind of things we look for. A guy who is maybe a fullback somewhere else could be a guard for us. And once they learn it and see how important they are, they really enjoy it."
