With the score tied at halftime of last week’s Class 6A semistate game at Ben Davis, Center Grove coach Eric Moore decided to place his faith in the running game.
The Trojans ran 32 plays in the second half, all on the ground, bullying the Giants and pulling away for a 48-13 victory.
None of the guys on the offensive lines had any complaints about going back to good old-fashioned bully ball.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“It’s really fun,” senior center Carter DeGraaf said. “You go out there and it’s like, ‘We’re just going to punch you in the face over and over again, and let’s see if you can take it.’”
Few defenses have been able to. Center Grove has scored more than 42 points per game this season, destroying some opponents through the air and others by land. The constant through it all has been the largely anonymous big men up front who create room to operate.
The Trojans’ linemen — DeGraaf, guards Austin Wiese and Jordan Cox, tackles Brayden Sturm and Sam Buras and tight end Garrett Keith — are fine with others getting the headlines and the accolades. They find satisfaction elsewhere.
“I’m most happy when all of a sudden I see Daniel (Weems) or Carson (Steele) or Tayven (Jackson) have one of those breakaway runs,” DeGraaf said. “It’s like, ‘We just helped them with that.’ That’s what I get out of it.”
“As long as we’re winning games, I think we’re happy,” Keith said. “Within the team, and we know personally that we’re the reason why the holes are there and stuff like that — not always, but most of the time we are. So it doesn’t really matter to us if we get the attention or not. We just want to go out there and win.”
Center Grove head coach Eric Moore had to cobble together a new line after graduating five starters from last year’s unit; Keith is the lone returning starter.
The cupboard wasn’t entirely bare, though. Sturm began the 2019 season in the starting lineup before getting injured in Week 3 against Carmel, Cox had earned some reps in a reserve role and DeGraaf was a familiar face, having been with the Trojans as an underclassman before moving away with his family to Michigan for a year.
For Moore, the main concern was getting those players to mesh into one cohesive unit without the benefit of a traditional offseason.
“They had some experience in various different ways, but they really hadn’t been all together as one, and that was probably the biggest concern of all,” Moore said. “If you can’t develop an offensive line, I don’t know how you’re going to win. So that was the goal — and then the virus hits, and you don’t get to work with those guys like you want to in the spring and offseason.
“It’s been a credit to them to improve every week. We’ve been up and down, but they have shown improvement every week — and they’ve actually gotten even better in the tournament than I anticipated.”
Center Grove had its ups and downs offensively during the early portion of the season, scoring just three first-half points in a 20-0 win over Warren Central in Week 2, but the line seemed to click the following Friday in a 42-0 rout of Carmel and it’s been firing on all cylinders since.
“The first game we really felt we were all on the same page was the Carmel game,” Buras said. “The O-line, we had had a rough week before that against Warren, but that game, we just all had a great game together.”
This year’s line has faced a different set of challenges than many of its predecessors. In addition to the hurdles put in place by the pandemic, these Trojans have also had to adapt to an offensive scheme that is incorporating a bit more passing than in years past.
Fortunately, they’ve had the luxury of practicing their pass blocking against the most destructive defensive line in the state every day.
“We go up against (Caden) Curry and (Austin) Booker,” Cox said, “so we’re used to good D-linemen and we’re ready for the good defensive fronts to come toward us.”
Not having the opportunity to practice together in the spring meant that the offensive line had far less time to jell than it would have in any other normal year.
But as it turned out, the group didn’t necessarily need to be in the same place physically to get on the same page with one another.
“Our personalities all mesh well with each other,” Sturm said. “That’s why we have so much chemistry as an O-line as a whole — because we communicate, and we understand what each other’s going to do. We understand each other’s weaknesses and strengths as a whole. We get each other.”
The line has hit full stride at the right time; Center Grove has scored 183 points in four postseason games, and it’s proven that it can burn you in any number of ways.
Key on the run, die by the pass. Take away the pass, get pounded by the run.
Regardless of which poison opposing defenses pick, the Trojans’ line has been up for the task.
“Usually we set the pass up by the great running game,” Moore said. “This year, probably, because we’re so dangerous there, it’s set the run up more through the passing game, but then you see the other night, we throw six balls and still score 40 points. So we’re a run football team — I didn’t say run first, but we’re a running football team and we’re going to make people tackle you and be physical.”
And getting physical is what the Trojan linemen live for.
“The more you hit people, the less will they have to keep playing,” Keith said. “And you notice it, and it’s just fun to watch that happen.”
