Position Focus: City High Offensive Line

By Pat Harty

Your Prep Sports
IOWA CITY – At first glance, you probably wouldn’t guess that Joey Schnoebelen is an offensive lineman.

And that’s just fine with the City High senior.

“Every day we stress technique,” said the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Schnoebelen. “Every day we just go technique, technique, technique and staying low and driving our hips every single day.

“I will say it’s really hard being smaller and having to outwork those big 240-pound defensive linemen. But I don’t think of us would want to have it any other way.”

Schnoebelen was referring to his cohorts on the City offensive line where he starts at left tackle despite being the size of a skill player.

In fact, Schnoebelen weighs approximately 20 pounds less than City quarterback Nate Wieland, who is listed at 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds.

“I started last year, too, and I think I was like 195 (pounds),” Schnoebelen said. “But we’re very quick and I think that’s really beneficial to us, especially going against some bigger defensive tackles. We pull quite a bit and we can get off the ball really fast.”

Senior lineman Eduardo Estrada is one of the biggest players on the team, listed at 6-1 and 241 pounds. But even with his size, Estrada relies more on quickness and playing at a fast pace.

He said the lineman worked throughout the offseason to build their endurance.

“You have to be in good shape,” Estrada said. “You have to have lots of stamina. You need lots of endurance. You need all of that. And we’ve all been working on that through the whole offseason. We basically didn’t take a break throughout this offseason. There were a bunch of us who worked out.”

Senior center Lewis Howard was part of that bunch.

“We rely on our quickness and technique,” said the 5-9, 193-pound Howard. “We’ve worked hard to improve in both areas.”