Offensive linemen generally don’t get the recognition they deserve, and they certainly don’t get enough credit for all the hard work they put in.
They are the guys up front, digging their heels in on a weekly basis trying to fend off opposing defensive lines while allowing the quarterback and other skill-position players a chance to make a play.
Just look at Utah State’s record-setting offense this season, which continues to set new standards on a weekly basis. As a result, sophomore quarterback Jordan Love has garnered a plethora of weekly accolades, including five Mountain West Offensive Player of the Week honors, while junior running back Darwin Thompson has been named the conference’s offensive player of the week once.
Thompson knows how valuable the guys in the trenches have been to the team’s success and his individual success.
“As cliché is it sounds, what is a team without an O-line?” Thompson said. “The attitude, or swag, of a team starts with those five players up front. I like to believe they play with a huge chip on their shoulder, and it affects the entire team. A train can’t run without its tracks. Rob (Castaneda), Sean (Taylor), Quin (Ficklin), Roman (Andrus) and Alfred (Edwards) are the best train-track layers around.”
Of those five aforementioned offensive linemen, Andrus is the Swiss Army Knife of the bunch.
The 6-foot-4, 310-pound native of El Dorado Hills, California, earned honorable mention all-Mountain West honors after starting all 13 games at left tackle as a junior in 2017. He had an overall performance grade of 91 percent, which ranked second on the team, and tallied 33 knockdowns. He also garnered academic all-MW accolades.
Andrus has started all 10 games for the Aggies this season – eight at left guard and two at left tackle. He has also seen time at right guard and right tackle.
“He is super versatile,” Quin Ficklin said of Andrus. “The guy has played four positions on the offensive line this year, with the exception of center. He has the second-most in-game reps this year behind me because his helmet came off in one game, which I won’t let him forget, so he has missed five plays. He is playing very well and at a very high level. This year, he has been our most consistent offensive lineman week in and week out, which is really impressive because he’s going from one drive playing left tackle to the next drive playing right tackle, to then playing left guard or left tackle.”
Andrus has helped pave the way for a Utah State offense this season that currently ranks first in the nation in scoring (51.3 points per game) and 10th in total offense (517.5 yards per game). Furthermore, Andrus and the offensive line are only allowing 0.80 sacks allowed per game, which ranks fifth nationally.
“They have been great all year, and they are the glue behind the offense,” Love said of the O-line. “They get every play started, whether it’s running or passing, and I don’t think they have gotten enough credit for how good they are.”
Heading into Utah State’s game at Colorado State this weekend, Andrus has played 627 snaps and recorded 19 knockdowns, including a season-high six in the Aggies’ 62-24 Senior Day win over San José State last Saturday afternoon.
“This year has been a blast so far,” Andrus said. “It was great to come back this year with a lot of guys that I played with last year. It’s cool because we kind of came in, in similar positions. We were all brand new starters last year, and then we have just grown as a group, not only with our chemistry together on the field but off of it as well. It was awesome to just pick up right where we left off from last year and keep rolling with it. These guys have become some of my closest friends.”
When USU opened the 2017 campaign at Wisconsin, all five of the Aggies’ starting offensive linemen – Ficklin, Sean Taylor, Rob Castaneda, Andrus and then-sophomore Moroni Iniguez – played in their first career games in the program.
It marked the first time in school history the Aggies started five offensive linemen who had never played a game at USU. In fact, Taylor was the only person of the group who was a member of the team in 2016 as he redshirted the season.
By season’s end, though, that group was a mainstay in the trenches up front. Andrus, Castaneda, Ficklin and Iniguez started all 13 games in 2017, while Taylor started all 11 of the games he played in at right tackle. Those five combined to start in 63 of a possible 65 games last season.
Heading into the 2018 campaign, Utah State was one of just 18 Football Bowl Subdivision programs to return all five of its starters on the offensive line. The last time USU returned all five of its starting offensive linemen from the previous season was in 2013, as that team finished with a 10-4 record, including a 6-2 mark in Mountain West play, culminating with a win in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl.
“Last year, it was like trying to herd cats, so to speak, just trying to get them all to go the same direction,” said Utah State offensive line coach Steve Farmer. “We’d have multiple missed assignments within a game and things like that, but it was never from a lack of effort. It was just having not been there before and growing pains. Now, I think they’ve taken it upon themselves that football is a hard game, but it’s not going to be a setback from our group.
“We’re not perfect by any means, but I think it’s really important to them. And it’s really important to them to be successful and make sure their teammates are successful. It’s a great group. I’m going to miss them when they’re gone.”
Prior to becoming a fixture on Utah State’s O-line the past two years, Andrus spent a total of two seasons at BYU as he redshirted in 2012 and appeared in one game on the defensive line against Wagner in 2015. In between those seasons, he served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Mexico.
After leaving BYU, Andrus played in 10 games on the defensive line at Snow College (Ephraim, Utah) during the 2016 season, recording 18 tackles, including 1.5 sacks. He then made his way to Utah State, where he switched to the other side of the ball and has been rock solid ever since.
“He has done a wonderful job transitioning from a D-lineman to an O-lineman,” Farmer said of Andrus. “He was just unbelievably successful and quiet about it a year ago, and this year he’s kind of been a jack-of-all-trades for us, playing upwards of three positions within a game and never complaining. He never gets us in a bad spot and is always one of the guys that is going to grade out the highest.
“Roman is incredibly intelligent, incredibly physical and this game is incredibly important to him. He is going to be sorely missed next year. He is a special player and a guy that has definitely put the team first because honestly, asking someone to move to guard that started out at left tackle and transferred in as a D-lineman is asking a lot out of a young man. But, he has never complained and has done nothing but put the team first. Quite frankly, that’s why the NFL scouts are so interested in him because he is so versatile and does it so effortlessly.”
Due to the fact he was a late bloomer – “My junior year, I was 6-foot, 166 pounds, and couldn’t bench 135,” he said – Andrus only played one year of football at Oakridge High School in El Dorado Hills.
“I was a shrimp, but then in my senior year, I started getting a little bit more size and some twitchiness to me, so I played some defensive end,” Andrus said.
Andrus did not receive any offers out of high school, so he joined the BYU program as a preferred walk-on.
Athletics run in Andrus’ family as his father, Alan, played basketball at both Utah Valley and Hawai’i.
“My dad played basketball and my mom (Kahna) was a dancer, so I just kind of picked football up on my own because a bunch of kids my age, when I was 8 or 9 years old, were doing it,” Andrus said.
Andrus, who is majoring in Spanish and minoring in chemistry, is on track to graduate from Utah State in the spring of 2019. Once he does that, Andrus would love to continue his career in the NFL, but if that doesn’t pan out, his plan B is medical school.
“Utah State has been amazing, and I have loved my time here,” Andrus said. “I couldn’t have hoped for anything better.”
What will Andrus miss most about his time at Utah State?
“It will be the people I’ve met and the relationships I formed,” he said. “Some of the experiences we’ve had in games is something I’ll never forget. The crazy things that have happened, the jokes, the practices, the grind; it all just kind of comes together and it’s something that I’m going to miss. You’re going to look back and you’ll wish you had more when it’s all said and done.”