Justin Dunk
CFL.ca
A steady pipeline of Calgary Dino offensive linemen has been flowing up to the professional ranks since 2005.
Over the last seven Canadian drafts, seven University of Calgary road graters have been chosen by Canadian Football League teams, the most of any school north or south of the border over the same period.
The man behind the scenes, developing Calgary’s young hulking linemen that have been making pro scouts drool is Dinos offensive line coach Rohn Meyer.
“Coach Meyer has to take most of the credit,” Calgary head coach Blake Nill said.
Meyer knows very well what it takes to go from the Dino football program to the CFL. He played on the offensive line at the University of Calgary during the early 1990’s before carving out a six-year CFL career that ended in 2000.
He spent five of his six pro seasons with the Calgary Stampeders where he was coached for a few years by renowned offensive line guru, Dan Dorazio, the current offensive line coach for the BC Lions.
“Coach Dorazio is recognized as an excellent offensive line coach in the CFL,” Nill said.
“Coach Meyer brings many of those attributes that he was exposed to from coach Dorazio to our program. He’s a great teacher, understands the game, knows how to make adjustments and the kids respond very well to him.”
Meyer started coaching at Calgary in 2002. When you look at the timeline on the run of Dino linemen drafted to the CFL, it’s clear that Meyer’s impact on Calgary’s football program has been huge.
After three years of working and molding his offensive line group the Meyer way, the run of Dino blockers to the pros began in 2005; a run that certainly looks like it will continue this year.
Ranked fifth in the January 2012 scouting bureau rankings, Dino offensive lineman Kirby Fabien will likely extend the stream of Calgary big men to the CFL.
Fabien, who looks to be a sure-fire bet to be selected early during the 2012 CFL entry draft in May, and under-the-radar lineman prospect Carson Rockhill, will be examined by CFL player personnel evaluators in Toronto from March 2-4 at the CFL’s annual Evaluation Camp.
Just two more in what is becoming a long line of Meyer protégés.
“Coach Nill always tells us that that Coach Meyer is basically like a pro coach,” Fabien, a 2011 first-team All-Canadian, said. “Coach Meyer played in the CFL and was an All-Canadian in university – he’s been there.”
“When you first meet [Coach Meyer] you’re intimidated by him,” Rockhill said. “He’s one of those coaches that demands perfection. You could be rushing the ball for 300 yards a game and you’ll still be getting yelled at during meetings. He’s a tough love kind of coach.”
“Coach Meyer has done everything we want to do. You have so much respect for him. You work as hard as you can for him and you hope that will get you the same places that it got him.”
Turns out the first interaction Fabien and Rockhill had with a professional coach was at the 2011 CIS East West Bowl in London, where Meyer’s old coach, Dorazio, is in attendance every year to put the country’s top offensive linemen through his paces.
“He gave me a lot of pointers,” Fabien said, on his experience of being coached by Dorazio. “He’s an intense coach and he was on our case a lot.”
“He’s a different type of coach than coach Meyer. He’s loud and he gets his point across that way. Coach Meyer, because of his presence, doesn’t have to be that loud.”
Meyer’s coaching is one part of the Dinos philosophical approach towards developing their linemen. Nill likes to recruit big men who are good athletes. Bring them in, beef them up, but keep them lean.
“Our linemen are not the biggest guys anymore,” Nill said. “But they’re very athletic, and consequently the pro scouts are taking a liking to them.”
Scouts on both sides of the border, that is. Nill said he has received calls from all eight CFL clubs doing their homework on his two draft eligible linemen. He’s also fielding phone calls from Philadelphia and Indianapolis in the NFL.
“I think we run a professional system, both in terms of our blocking philosophy and our [pass] protection philosophy,” Nill, who played six years in the CFL trenches as a defensive lineman, said. “So they come into [E-Camp and professional training camp] already being exposed to a pro system.”
Along with having played in a pro-type offence, and the coaching they have received from Meyer, it doesn’t hurt that both Fabien and Rockhill have the prototypical size scouts like to see in potential next-level linemen. Both are said to be six-foot-six and over 300 pounds, official measurements pending at E-Camp.
Despite the likeness in size, scouts have taken more of a liking to Fabien. Leaving Rockhill flying somewhat under the radar.
“I don’t know how he’s not in the top group. I think that E-Camp is going to help him put his name out there,” Fabien said of his teammate.
“I think they’re both first round quality guys,” Nill said. “I don’t know if they’re both going to go in the first round, but whoever gets [either one of] them is going to have a chance at an athlete who is going to be a long-time pro.”
If the recent past – seven offensive linemen drafted in the last seven years, with six of those draftees currently on CFL rosters – can offer any indicator of future success, it seems the Dinos will have at least one more, possibly two, linemen come from their pipeline this year and make the CFL grade.
