Developing Defense
June 29, 2003 03:09 PM | General
June 29, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Ben Lynch can still remember his first college start like it was yesterday. He was a last-minute replacement for starter Antwan Lake in West Virginia’s season opener against Boston College in 2001.
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| Ben Lynch beleives this year's unproven defense line will not be the team's weakest link. (Pete Emerson photo) |
Defensive line coach Jeff Casteel had to pick between a couple of players who were discipline problems and no longer in the program, or selecting redshirt freshmen Ben Lynch. He decided to start Lynch and didn’t tell him until a few hours before the game.
“(Casteel) didn’t want me to worry about it,” said Lynch.
There was a good reason. BC, like always, had five monsters along the offensive line including a pair of 300-pound brutes in Dan Koppen and Marc Columbo lined up right in front of Lynch, who at the time was just a donut shy of 240.
“It was horrible,” he laughed. “If I was coming straight off to the center I would push them three yards back into the backfield. But if I had to slant or move away from them those big guys would just take me and throw me.
“I learned from that. The only thing you can do when you play small is to stay low, use your hips and use your hands,” he added.
This year it looks like Lynch and his buddies on the defensive line are going to have to “stay low” and “use their hands and hips.”
According to the official team roster, freshman Craig Wilson is West Virginia’s only defensive linemen weighing 300 pounds. The group expected to be used most this fall will consist of 265-pound Lynch at defensive end, 270-pound Ernest Hunter at nose and 285-pound Fred Blueford at the other defensive end.
Two-sixty-five, 270 and 285 is not exactly hulking by today’s college standards. Lynch says in Jeff Casteel’s defense there are ways to get around that.
“The way we have our defense right now there’s never a double team,” he said. “If the linebackers do what they’re supposed to do and we do what we’re supposed to do then in a matter of seconds the other guy should be off you in run situations. We’ve also got a lot of slants and angling.
“The most important thing is to get off the ball and hit them before they get their second step down.”
It was Lynch who had a step up on the others when Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez made the announcement last spring that Bill Kirelawich was returning to the field to coach the defensive linemen.
“I was the only D-lineman here right now that played under Kirlav before,” Lynch admitted.
When the rest of the defensive linemen found out that Kirelawich was back in the fold, they immediately went to Lynch seeking advice.
“I tried to explain to them as best as I could but you can’t explain Kirlav,” said Lynch. “I was sure happy when I heard he was coming back though.”
Lynch says Kirelawich was the one responsible for him coming to West Virginia in the first place. Former assistant coach Dave McMichael was in charge of Pennsylvania recruiting at the time and was involved with Lynch’s Oil City High School teammate Adam Lehnortt. However, McMichael wasn’t sold on Lynch until Kirelawich stepped in and made a convincing presentation.
“I don’t think they were going to bring me in until Coach Kirlav saw my tape and wanted me here,” Lynch said.
Lynch committed a day after Lehnortt, turning down offers to visit Pitt, Virginia Tech and Michigan State.
He spent his first year in the WVU program as a 230-pound, redshirt defensive linemen. Lynch says his first run-in with Kirelawich came during the very first day of freshmen camp.
“He grabbed my facemask and told me don’t ever let anyone touch my facemask,” Lynch recalled. “That was my first lesson.”
Three years later Kirelawich is teaching those valuable lessons all over again. Lynch admits it was an eye-opening experience when Kirelawich returned to the field.
“The first thing he did was jump on us about our strength. Overall as a unit we were way too weak. The first day in pads we were God awful. From our stances to getting off blocks, staying on blocks, pass rushing, tackling … everything,” Lynch said.
“A couple of weeks later you could see the improvement. At the end of spring we had our final meeting and he showed us some tape of when we started and when we finished. He was like ‘look at this, look at this, look as this and look at this … we’re ahead of where I’d thought we’d be.’ That right there means everyone bought into it.”
Lynch says he thinks West Virginia has “five or six” defensive linemen ready to play right now. The list includes Wilson and freshmen Pat Liebig and Chris Malamet. Converted tight end Jason Hardee may also be a factor and then there’s freshman Warren Young.
Young has as much ability as anyone on the defensive line but he chose to go home for the summer and is falling far behind the rest of his teammates.
“We’d like to see him back up here,” Lynch admitted. “The closer we get to having 100 percent of the defensive linemen back up here working together the better off we’re going to be.”
Lynch says the defensive linemen are doing extra work in an effort to get bigger and faster in new strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis’ program. “We’re conditioning two to three times a week and speed developing the other day or two,” Lynch said. “He’s really putting an emphasis on starting over and re-teaching us how to run and lift … how to do things the right way.
“Right now we’re still at the beginning stages of his program and we’re still doing high reps but personally I feel like I’m getting a lot stronger,” he added. “Also, when we’re doing our agility workouts I feel so light-footed now. When we do our D-linemen drills that we did in the spring I’m just flying through it like a DB now.”
DL is considered the weak link of this year’s team -- something Lynch is keenly aware of.
“It’s stated everywhere,” he said. “We’re the underdogs and the weak link of the team right now. If you have a weak leg you’ve got to do five extra lifts with that weak leg to get it stronger and get it caught up with the other one. That’s what we’re doing.
“I don’t want to be the factor that causes us not to go to a bowl game. I want another jersey on my wall.”
