Aztecs Headed to NFL Combine

SDSU linemen earn spot at annual scouting showcase

During the final week of February the NFL will hold its annual scouting combine at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN. This year 332 players have been invited to work out for then be poked, prodded, questioned, analyzed, psychoanalyzed and otherwise disassembled by professional football teams.

Two San Diego State Aztecs made the Combine cut. Neither guy will be hard to miss.

Offensive tackle Pearce Slater and offensive guard Darrell Greene will be on the field in Indy. Slater is 6’7” and weighs 335 pounds. Greene is 6’4” and 325 pounds. Those two behemoths have started the last two years together on the right side of the Aztecs line, helping SDSU become the 14th-ranked rushing offense in the Football Bowl Subdivision (the artist formerly known as Division 1-A).

Both Slater and Greene are NFL prospects for their size and success, and they likely will not be the last Aztecs to pique the interest of NFL scouts. SDSU’s line averaged 320 pounds last season, making it one of the Top-5 largest lines in the nation. It would have tied the Aztecs with the San Diego Chargers for the 3rd-heaviest line in the National Football League in 2015.

So how are all these monsters landing on Montezuma Mesa instead of the traditional “power conference” schools?

“Because they want to be in the NFL and we run an NFL offense,” says head coach Rocky Long. “They’ve seen it on TV. In the NFL they run power plays. They try to knock you off the ball. Then they have to have the great big guys on the corners with the long arms to keep the guy away from the quarterback.”

In college football these days the spread offense, where teams try to run 80 or more offensive plays a game, is what’s hot. But it’s not a real good way to develop top-notch offensive linemen.

“Spread teams, they throw the ball so fast you can’t get there if you want to get there,” says Long. “They don’t have to block anybody. They just get in the way.”

In 2015 the Houston Texans led the NFL when they averaged 69 offensive plays per game. The Aztecs ran 68 plays per game (again, same as the Chargers). Believe it or not, SDSU expects its incredible bulk to get even bigger in the next few years.

“These kids have a chance to come here and prove they’re NFL football players,” says Long. “Besides that, I love giants anyway. I just like walking out there and looking at them.”

Rocky has a few of them on the way already. San Diego State’s 2016 recruiting class includes linemen that weigh 345, 340, 305 and 300 pounds. If this keeps up there will be a steady pipeline that leads from SDSU to the NFL. They just need to make sure it’s very tall and awfully wide because the young men going through it are not small human beings.

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