Anchoring the lines

Rock Bridge’s defensive line is like a puzzle. Individually, the players are each different pieces. Shapes and sizes that don’t function without each other.

Only when the pieces are put together is the puzzle complete.

Juniors Jeremy Guier, Clay Minchew, Jason Reddy and senior John Stull collectively form the Bruins’ 1,025-pound defensive line. They have different styles, strengths and abilities. But they don’t consider themselves as individuals.

“We’ve all played together,” Stull said. “It’s not one lineman taking care of the load of everybody. We’ve all gotten good, we all know our responsibilities and taken care of them.”

Reddy is the Bruins’ 300-pound immovable object at nose tackle. He commands double teams yet is still able to make plays. Minchew is a 240-pound tackle, but he has the ability to get to the ball like a linebacker. Stull, a 6-foot-4, 250-pound defensive end who will play football at MU next season, puts fear into opposing linemen who try to block him with his size and strength. Rock Bridge coach A.J. Ofodile said Guier, a 235-pound defensive end, has a mean streak about him and encompasses a combination of his fellow linemen’s abilities.

“Guier is honestly, probably the nastiest player of the bunch,” Ofodile said. “He’s extremely physical, plays with a motor all the time, a really prideful player.”

Together, they have transformed a defensive line that struggled in the past into one that will make opposing quarterbacks and running backs tremble.

“I think without all of our abilities, we wouldn’t be where we’d be,” Reddy said. “Like, without Clay being so athletic for a tackle, and me taking up all the space and with our two good ends, we wouldn’t be the D-line we have.”

During a three-game losing streak earlier this season, this was a line that allowed 219 yards rushing to Liberty followed by 309 rushing yards to Webb City two weeks later.

“After losing three games, we definitely knew something needed to change,” Stull said. “We just knew if we did our part we’d take care of it.”

After allowing 211 rushing yards in the first half to Jefferson City two weeks ago, the Bruins responded. They came out in the second half and held Jefferson City to 82 rushing yards while the team came back from a 13-point deficit at halftime to win the game. That performance carried over to an upset win over Hickman last week that saw the Bruins hold a Kewpies team that was gaining 175 rushing yards per game to only 64.

Shutting down Hickman’s running attack was a surprise to many, including Ofodile.

“I thought we could do a good job of containing their run a little bit,” Ofodile said. “I didn’t think that they would just line up and run over us. I thought we could bottle it up some, but not necessarily to that extent.”

The Bruins’ defensive line has a new-found confidence from stopping good running teams.

“Their whole offense is based on running the ball and if we stop them, you know we go into a lot of games with a lot of confidence knowing we can do that,” Reddy said.

Ofodile said the difference for the defense in the past few games has been playing with more desire while also understanding and executing the game plan better.

“I think sometimes we laid back defensively and let the game come to us from a mental standpoint as opposed to being aggressive,” Ofodile said.

Despite becoming a force at stopping the run, the Bruins’ foursome still wholeheartedly agrees that nothing beats hitting the quarterback.

“Those come a little bit less often,” Minchew said.

Even more impressive about the Bruins’ defensive line is that all four of them play on offense as well. Ofodile said his linemen struggled a little bit earlier in the season playing both ways. However, as the season has progressed, so has the conditioning of the linemen. They proved that last week against Hickman when they played the entire game on offense and defense.

“It takes a lot of heart, a lot of character,” Ofodile said. “And those guys have taken ownership of their role and done a good job with that.”

The Bruins’ foursome said it’s the nature of high school football for linemen to play both ways so it doesn’t bother them.

“It’s pretty much all mental for us,” Reddy said. “I mean we’re all in shape, you know, we don’t get tired. It’s just a matter of us being mentally strong and everything.”

Still, there wasn’t a debate about whether they like playing offense or defense better.

“We play offensive line so that we can play defensive line,” Minchew said jokingly.

Not only do these four linemen stick together on field as a unit, they also are a unit off the field as well.

“We probably spend more time with each other than you can imagine,” Stull said. “We know each other so well, we talk about the craziest things, and we just feed off of each other.”

Said Reddy: “I think that’s what’s brought us this far too. I mean, especially when we’re in tight situations in a game, knowing that we can count on each other, really helps us come through at the end.”