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With five returning starters, YSU’s offensive line expects to dominate
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Pratt
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Elkins
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Two years ago, Youngstown State coach Eric Wolford drove through a town full of turkey farms to find the leader of his offensive line.
The lineman’s name was Mark Pratt and he was at Snow Junior College in Ephraim, Utah, a city filled with turkey farms and elk farms and cow farms — and all the lovely scents that go along with them.
“It’s just out in the boonies and it smells terrible all the time,” Pratt said, chuckling. “The best part is just before the snow starts hitting, they take all the sheep from the mountains and run them down Main Street. It’s kind of like the Running of the Sheep. They close the road down.
“It’s pretty funny. It’s pretty neat.”
Pratt, who turns 24 on Oct. 26, is the offensive line’s oldest starter. He’s already done a two-year Mormon mission, he got married in June and he owns the distinguished title of YSU’s hairiest man.
“He’s the elder statesman of the group,” said offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo. “What is he, 45?”
On the other end of the spectrum is true junior Chris Elkins, a Beaver Falls, Pa., native who just turned 20 and who, in the race to grow the best facial hair on the offensive line, tripped on the starting line.
“He kind of has a half-mustache and a couple spots on his chin and that’s about it,” Pratt said.
When told that Bricillo wants to shave his back and give it to Elkins, Pratt smiled and said, “You might as well. I have enough [on my chest] and back. I could probably give him a full beard and then some.”
(Elkins’ response? “It just doesn’t grow,” he said. “I don’t know why.”)
The two played side-by-side in all 11 games last season, grading out as the team’s two best linemen. They enter this season as preseason all-conference selections, which isn’t as fun as it sounds.
“In our room, it’s more of a source of bemusement,” Bricillo said. “They’ve been torturing each other about it, saying, ‘Oh, so you’re preseason all-conference?’ when they screw up.
“They really get on them about that.”
YSU returns all five starting linemen from last season — the others are senior tackles Andrew Radakovich and D.J. Main and senior guard Lamar Mady — and Bricillo is expecting even more from a unit that led the conference in rushing by nearly 50 yards per game and allowed the second-fewest sacks.
“Right now, we are good. We know that,” Bricillo said. “But we want to be great.
“I keep preaching to them that we’re an unfinished product. Good is the enemy of great.”
Bricillo believes the team left 75-100 yards per game on the field last season due to missed assignments.
“We have not achieved any of our goals as a unit in the last two years,” Bricillo said. “We’ve talked about wanting to lead the country in rushing. I think that’s possible, with the running backs we have and the system we run.
“We’re nowhere near where we want to be yet.”
But, he said, they’re getting there.
The best offensive lines are cohesive, with trust as important as talent. That’s been built on YSU’s line through 11 games last year, through spring and summer practices and through offseason workouts.
“We’re like a brotherhood,” said Pratt. “We know how to play together and we trust each other, which is really important up front.”