Have you ever thrown a punch?
Maybe it was in a play fight with a sibling, or when sparring with a friend, or (hopefully not) in an actual all-out brawl. In any case, think about what your hand looked like when you swung. Did you have any fingers sticking out or was your fist clenched into a tight jab?
Penn offensive line coach Kyle Metzler coaches his front five to make sure their unit resembles, interestingly, a fist.
“It’s a perfect analogy for what the O-line is, because there’s five fingers on your hand,” Metzler said. “If all five of us are working together, we’re all on the same page, and we’re in unison, it can create a very powerful thing. You can punch someone with a fist, but if one of us is on the wrong page — your finger is sticking out. You try to punch somebody, you’re going to break your finger.”
Last season, Penn’s offensive line got off a clean punch.
The Quakers’ front five gave up just 15 total sacks — best for No. 9 in the FCS. This number is increasingly impressive when considering that the line had to adjust to blocking for a different quarterback halfway through the season. Following senior quarterback Aidan Sayin’s season-ending elbow injury, then-junior quarterback Liam O’Brien stepped in. O’Brien was more prone to use his legs to pick up yardage and extend plays, unlike his predecessor, forcing the line to adjust to a different play style.
The boys up front now have five games and an offseason under their belt blocking for O’Brien, who enters the season as the starting quarterback.
“It’s awesome to get used to that type of playstyle,” senior offensive lineman Netinho Olivieri said. “Because we were thrown into that [play style] in the middle of the season, it feels good to be able to have that chemistry going into the season — [just] knowing how [O’Brien] moves around in the pocket and not having to think about where he’d be.”
Senior offensive lineman William Bergin put it more bluntly: “Bottom line, no matter who’s back there, we’ll protect him with our life and always our life.”
Olivieri and Bergin — both FCS Football Central Preseason All-Americans — headline an offensive line that is bringing back all five starters from last year. Bergin noted that the experience the line has together adds another layer of trust for the entire offense. The team captain described having complete trust in each other as the “name of the game in football.”
The line also has the advantage of going into its second season under offensive coordinator Greg Chimera. The offense, as a whole, showed some early growing pains before notching a much-improved finish in Chimera’s first season as the primary play-caller. Overall, Penn came in No. 5 in the Ivy Leaguee in points scored per game.
With all this consistency, though, there is a major question surrounding the offensive line: Who will they be blocking for? Last season, the line paved the way for sophomore running back Malachi Hosley’s Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year campaign. With Hosley departing for Georgia Tech, though, the offensive line will be tasked with run blocking for a by-committee attack.
The current running back room consists of senior Julien Stokes, junior Sean Williams Jr., and sophomore Donte West. With Stokes converting from wide receiver and West not recording a snap last season, Williams was the only one to record any rushing yards in 2024, netting just 28. But Metzler is not losing any sleep over the transition.
“[Hosley] was a very talented kid, but we’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine at the running back position,” Metzler, who also serves as the run game coordinator, said. “We’re going to have great, explosive runs. We’re going to be good. I’m not worried about them. They’ve been working their butts off, and they’re gonna continue to work their butts off.”
Metzler’s unit is hoping that the long offseason proves fruitful for the unproven run game and the offense as a whole. Olivieri claims that around 90% of the offensive linemen on Penn’s roster were on campus for morning workouts the whole summer, including a grueling annual run to the Philadelphia Art Museum to scale the “Rocky Steps.”
“We got a lot of guys bought in,” Bergin said. “A lot of people’s minds are in the right place coming into this season. We’re treating each other as one unit and not 17, 18 individuals.”
