One more time: Penn's O-line is together on and off the field

A few things that might be fun to know about the Penn football team's offensive line:

Left tackle John Zepeda likes to write poetry.

Right tackle Jeff Hatch collects shoes and has designs on becoming a pro wrestler, provided a career in football doesn't work out.

Left guard Sam Gottesman is a self-trained computer geek. He likes to take the things apart and put them back together.

Right guard Randy Parker likes country music and, uh, baking cakes.

Center Matt Dukes is in a rock band called "Al Bagnoli," which, coincidentally, is his head coach's name.

Oh, and just a year ago, the five of them worked together to keep the Ivy League Player of the Year off his backside for 10 Saturdays, thereby paving the way for the most potent passing attack in Division I-AA, an attack the Quakers rode all the way to an Ivy title.

The guys aren't protecting quarterbacks or opening running lanes right now, though.

Right now, the five big guys up front are lounging in the first-floor common room of a house near 42nd and Spruce streets, watching the Denver Broncos beat the New York Giants on Monday Night Football, and the chemistry is palpable.

"Look at that! Touchdown!" Parker says as the Broncos score. He's not a Denver fan; he's from Pittsburgh, but he's rooting for the Broncos in order to irk his housemate, senior linebacker Brian Drake.

"He does this all the time," Gottesman says of Parker. "He doesn't care who's playing, he'll just root against whatever guy's team is on [TV]."

Later, the guys encourage Parker to tell his "pasta story." And, after some hesitation, the senior relents:

"When I was going into ninth grade, I weighed 150 lbs...."

"Ha haaa!" Hatch laughs. "A hundred and fifty? You gotta be kidding me."

"Yeah, anyway, coach said, `You're not the fastest player on the offense,' so he told me to gain weight," Parker says. "He told me to eat a pound of pasta every night before I went to bed."

"And a damn good job he did," Zepeda says, sending the room into fits of laughter.

"I didn't do it all the time," Parker says. "But I did it enough, and I gained, like, 100 pounds in a year and a half."

The room again erupts in laughter as Parker assures them that it was "all good weight."

*

Not often in college football does a team return, intact, its entire offensive line, but it's happening for the Quakers this year, and nobody could be more excited than these guys.

"Soooo huge," Hatch says of the line's having a year together under its belt. For example:

"There will be a play call, and I'll know that this is a play that confuses Sam," Parker says. "So I'll say something as we're walking up to the ball."

"This is how it works,"

Hatch says. "Sam is Zepeda's mind, Randy is my mind, and Dukes just handles himself."

The guys chuckle and nod in agreement.

"Last year... it was awesome," Hatch says. "We're all cool with each other, so there was never any animosity. No one is afraid to say, `You fucked up.'"

"By the same token, we're never going to ride another guy for messing up," Gottesman says. "We might say, `C'mon, pick your ass up, let's go.'

"But yeah, we're all boys. I'd go to war with any of those guys, and I know they'd do the same for me. That makes me more comfortable.

"And the fact that we're going to be playing our second consecutive season with the same five guys..."

"I can't wait for the game!" Hatch says.

*

These guys are excited. They know there's a Ferrari engine idling behind them, and they know exactly what they have to do to make that baby purr.

"The fact that we won the Ivy title and led the nation in passing, that's something you can tell your grandkids about," Gottesman says.

"We want to top what we did last year," adds Dukes.

How do you do that? Easy -- run the ball.

The Quakers will feature a healthy Kris Ryan this year. The senior workhorse running back missed the bulk of last season after leading the Ancient Eight in rushing two years ago.

The mention of last year's season finale at Cornell -- in which a finally healthy Ryan ran for 250 yards and four touchdowns, and Hoffman threw for 300 more -- elicits a long, low whistle.

"That's what we want to do every game," Hatch says.

"That's when the whole offense finally came together," Parker says, shaking his head. "That game was just, like, top of the mountain."

"When we played Princeton a week ago [in a scrimmage], I thought it felt like that Cornell game," Gottesman says.

"Dude, it's gonna be [like Cornell]." says Hatch. "I can't wait for, like, Game 4, once we're all totally cohesive. It's gonna be awesome."

*

It may be important to contrast just how excited these guys are with the fact that out of the 22 offensive and defensive starters, these guys get the least respect.

Funny, because if you saw them sitting side by side at Smoke's, you'd respect them.

If you saw them walking shoulder to shoulder down Locust Walk, you'd get out of their way.

And if you ever pissed one of them off, you'd do well to run very far, very fast.

This isn't to say that the Quakers' offensive line is a collection of meathead jocks -- quite the contrary.

This is just to illustrate the fact that the only place that Zepeda, Gottesman, Dukes, Parker and Hatch want respect -- on the football field -- is where they get none.

These guys never score. Hell, four of these guys never touch the ball. The only time you hear about, oh, say, Randy Parker is if he jumps before the snap or holds up some big-ass defensive lineman trying to get to the quarterback.

The quarterback is, of course, Gavin Hoffman, the guy who also happens to hold virtually every Quakers passing record.

So, you can see the fix that Parker and his teammates are in. If the D-lineman's got you beat, you can, on the one hand, grab on to whatever's handy in an attempt to slow this big train charging past, thereby setting your team back 10 yards, or you can let the guy by and hope he doesn't damage the goods. Either way, it's trouble.

Ask this group if it's underappreciated, and what you get first is a lot of snorts and chuckles.

"Yes," Zepeda says.

"A resounding yes," says Gottesman.

"Absolutely man, no doubt," Hatch chimes in.

"You know what's funny?" Gottesman asks. "You'll hear [John] Madden on TV talking about the `hogs in the trenches,' but then, that's all you get."

Even then, you're a nameless "hog in a trench."

"But you know what? That comes with the position," Gottesman says. "I don't think anyone's playing O-line to get his name in the paper."

"If Kris Ryan runs for 200 yards or Gavin breaks records, you know somebody did something right," Zepeda says.

"Your satisfaction has to come vicariously through Kris and the receivers and Gavin's records," Hatch says. "It's the only way you get it. You can pancake your guy every play, and half the people there won't know what the hell, whether you played good or bad or what."

But these guys don't bitch, and they don't care that their names aren't in the paper everyday. Hell, they don't even talk shit to the defenders when they're down in the trenches.

"We'd just rather kick their ass on the field," Zepeda says.

"Yeah," says Hatch. "It's more eloquent that way."

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