The Battle at the End of the Line

Defensive end Zach Hodges shifts his foot slightly.

No fan would notice it. Hodges’ unique blend of size and speed is easier to focus on. His team-record numbers are far more noticeable too, as is the pile of awards he has already racked up heading into his senior season.

But junior tackle Cole Toner notices. He has to.

For the last month, the two have re-engaged in their raw competition. Theirs is the type of battle at the soul of football, but also the kind you might easily miss.

Hodges’ job is to get to the quarterback. Toner’s job is to stop him. Want to know what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Watch.

“That’s a tremendous matchup every time,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “It’s one guy wins one play, one guy wins the next.”

It was not always that way, though.

Toner said that coming in as a freshman, facing Hodges and then-fifth-year senior John Lyon was intimidating. The 295-pound tackle admitted he once appreciated plays in which he did not have to block the tenacious ends, but not anymore.

Now, he is upset Hodges is getting more snaps at linebacker because it means fewer battles. Each snap he now gets against Hodges is that much more intense.

Typical is thrown out of the picture when the two line up against each other. Normally, defensive linemen do not attempt to shed their blocks—grabbing the offensive linemen and pulling them into the defender’s ‘hip pocket’—during preseason practice, but Hodges said “to heck with that” at the beginning of this training camp.

Hodges gained an edge on Toner with the aggressive tactic, but the offensive lineman quickly adjusted, Hodges said, slightly changing his technique to regain the upper hand.

Hodges responded by shifting his feet and aligning differently, and the two have gone back and forth and back and forth, pushing and pulling, ever since.

“It gets really deep down into AP-level stuff, as me and my coach call it,” Hodges said. “It’s more mental now with me and Tone.... I flip my foot a certain way in the way I lock him out, and it may trip him up for a week and then he figures something out to do against it and then I’m figuring some other wrench to throw his way.”

“It’s become a fun mind game of just dueling,” he added.

Toner said their competition puts a lot of stress on their relationship, especially on days when the players cannot wear pads as protection. Recognizing their value to the team, Hodges and Toner now remind each other each day that they need to stay healthy—that they don’t want to hurt each other.

Close combat has fostered deep understanding.

“You can see the ethic of a man in his eyes when he has to stand up in front of you and he has to go face-to-face with you,” Hodges said.

Appreciation has come, too.

“[Toner] comes to fight,” Hodges said. “I respect anyone with that kind of work ethic.”

Coaches limit Hodges’ reps against other linemen for fear of injury and embarrassment, but letting him go against Toner benefits both.

Watching from a couple spots down the line, senior center Nick Easton has seen the two improve through competition. He himself benefitted from facing current Indianapolis Colt Nnamdi Obukwelu ’14 and is now one of the team’s most NFL-ready players, along with Hodges.

Toner has NFL ambitions too, if he is able to stay healthy and improve over the next two years. Holding his own against Hodges one-on-one while watching other teams struggle to double and triple-team the end gives Toner confidence about his future.

The pair’s struggle is made more compelling by their opposing personalities.

Hodges, raised in Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta, Ga., “has a really fierce demeanor that obviously all the great defensive football players really have,” Murphy said.

Toner, meanwhile, from an Indiana town of 50,000 “is very laid back,” his coach said. “He’s not terribly demonstrative.”

Contradictory demands of offensive and defensive linemen make that dichotomy common, Murphy said.

“I think there’s a lot more technique involved in playing the offensive line, where you are running a set play every time,” he said. “The defensive mentality of just turning it loose doesn’t always facilitate great offensive line play. It’s a combination of culture, personalities, and just the nature of offense versus defense.”

Toner and Hodges represent that conflict. They stand in for two cultures, two styles, two sides of a football team. Yet, they stand just inches apart before the snap, and they share a common mission. They push each other, but they also push each other. Each wants to get better. Each wants to win.

Hodges is clear about his motivation.

“I believe perfection is possible,” he said. “And I think that’s really the only thing worth striving for.”

Before Hodges gets there, though, he has to get by Toner.

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @jacobfeldman4.