I’m a sucker for a good movie quote.

 

Whether it’s classic or contemporary, nothing can encapsulate the essence of things more neatly than a dose of quick wit or sage philosophy on the silver screen. From “Go ahead, make my day” to “Get busy living, or get busy dying” Hollywood has its moments, those times when a talented screenwriter hits the sweet spot.

 

One such moment came in the early going of Clint Eastwood’s award-winning film American Sniper during an interaction between an eight-year old version of protagonist Chris Kyle and his father, Wayne. Over venison and iced tea at the dinner table, long before Chris grew up to become a decorated Navy SEAL, the elder Kyle distilled the lessons of life down to a couple very clear bullet points for his son, saying: “There are three types of people in this world. Sheep, wolves and sheepdogs.”

 

Wow. Pretty deep stuff.  So deep, in fact, that the meaning functions just as well in settings beyond the horrifying war zone that it was designed to foreshadow in the film, settings much less intense and catastrophic than a battleground.

 

Settings like football fields across the country.

 

Like so many great movie quotes, those words from American Sniper later helped me realize something I’d never stopped to consider – that offensive linemen are the “sheepdogs” of the gridiron. They are, as Wayne Kyle said of the sheepdogs in his account to his son, “… blessed with the gift of aggression and an overpowering need to protect the flock.”

 

If that doesn’t describe to a T the disposition of the best o-linemen I’ve ever been around then I’m not sure what could.

 

Maybe it’s the old quarterback in me but I’m still convinced that the heart and soul of any good football team is indeed its offensive line. Those unsung, big men up front who bleed and sweat and bruise, making great things possible. 

 

There’s nothing in sports that can compare to an offensive line. Five bodies but one pulse. A good offensive line is part bouncer, part spark plug and part road grader. It’s fifteen-hundred pounds worth of watchmen, standing guard at the gate of an offense to ensure that those around them have time to throw the football or daylight through which to run it. For 80-90 snaps each week they set, they drive, they pull, they cut, they trap and they screen. They communicate and they strain through, picking fights between whistles with rugged brutes from the other side and creating space where space doesn’t exist.

 

They do this all under the cover of anonymity, knowing they’ll probably never make SportsCenter and most likely won’t even get their names mentioned during a game broadcast unless they miss a block or get flagged for a holding call that washes out a big play. After all, for plastic surgeons, supertanker captains and offensive linemen, staying out of the news is part of the job description. It’s not surprising that this kind of thankless sacrifice forges a unique bond that makes many o-lines tighter than any group on a football team. 

 

As assistant coach Ron Crook and the West Virginia offensive line work through drills on a given night at Milan Puskar Stadium, all of the above shows through. They’re a close-knit unit that grinds out each snap then busts on one another between practice periods with a witty jab or two. Keeping things loose at just the right intervals is key as they put in their work. Lots of it.

 

A single play doesn’t come or go without Crook meting out a quick piece of advice; micro-nuggets from which the entire group can prosper – freshmen and seniors alike. Sometimes the points Crook makes are about footwork. Sometimes they’re about leverage. Sometimes they’re about how things might unfold against a certain front. The coaching never stops.

 

“We’re on a collision course with game day. You don’t have to sit and look forward to it – it’s coming,” Crook has explained. “I tell them to focus on the process. Focus on what we need to do today and how we need to improve.”

 

Soon – very soon – that “process” will lead Crook to his final point of preseason evaluation, deciding for certain which five players from this group will trot onto the field as starters against Georgia Southern on September 5. But even then, more precisely especially then, Crook won’t stop coaching them up because you never know how many you might need to consider yourself truly game ready.

 

“We’re not going to put somebody out there unless they deserve to be on the field and they’re ready to play,” Crook says. “I feel very confident that we’re going to have at least eight that are ready to go out and take meaningful reps and help us win games.”

 

Whether it’s his best five or his best eight or something in between that will genuinely be in the mix, Crook will draw from an eclectic pool of capable players who bring to the table a diverse mix of game reps and potential.  Among them: versatile veterans with considerable starting experience for West Virginia – two of whom have done so at multiple positions; wily Academic All Big 12 selections; a former hoops player with just three years of football experience but a wealth of talent; a resilient five-year college veteran who once earned all-region honors at the junior college level; and a battle-tested former Big Ten player who has seen the teeth of one of the game’s fiercest defenses at close range, starting a game in 2013 as an 18-year old true freshman against a disruptive Michigan State unit that helped the Spartans win the Rose Bowl.

 

Another veteran who has played a lot on the offensive line during his career is fifth-year senior Marquis Lucas, and he feels that this is crew is unified.

 

“I would say we are a pretty tight group. Not everybody hangs out with each other, but we definitely have a good relationship as far as being together around the stadium and in the meeting room,” Lucas says. “Nobody is afraid to tell anybody anything, and I think that is really good for us. Nobody is afraid to get in each other’s chests about certain things, so I think we are doing well.”

 

Lucas credits Crook for a coaching style that inspires his guys to lay it all on the line each snap.

 

“My relationship with coach Crook is probably one of the best relationships I have had with a coach since high school. He is someone who genuinely cares about you on and off the field. When you have someone like that it just makes you want to work even harder.”

 

Redshirt junior center Tyler Orlosky agrees.

 

“Coach Crook is a real good guy. He’s a real genuine person. He’s here to be your coach and your friend at the same time. He’s a great guy. I can’t speak enough about him.”

 

The level of respect this Mountaineer offensive line has toward their coach and toward one another is great to read about in August, but it will matter even more when real football arrives. When crisis sets in and they knocked off script by the unpredictable snags that can and will ambush them each Saturday, it’s that same respect that will help them fight through. 

 

After all, as goes the development of this group, so goes the 2015 West Virginia offense. Only if the Mountaineer o-line coalesces into a dependable unit might the other potential strengths of this offense be fully realized. That will hold true whether we’re focused on the continued maturation of quarterback Skyler Howard; the possible emergence of one or more of the trio of promising new receivers on campus that you’ve heard so much about; or the anticipated achievements of WVU’s running back combination of Wendell Smallwood and Rushel Shell.

 

If these sheepdogs can rally and keep the Big 12 wolves from West Virginia’s door, great things might happen for the Mountaineer offense.

 

I’ll see you at the 50.