![\"Mentor](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/TNH-L-MentorD1s-01.jpg\")
Mentor has a trio of Division I college recruits on its offensive line this season (from left) – Colin Prichard (Kent State), JoJo LoDuca (Naval Academy) and Landry Brede (North Carolina State) – Tim Phillis, (For The News-Herald)<\/p>\nThree years ago, during a break in the preseason football scrimmage between Mentor and Chardon, Cardinals coach Matt Gray took notice of a group of players parading in from the far end of the stadium.<\/p>\n
Taking his whistle out of his mouth, Gray got the attention of a few scrimmage onlookers and pointed to the group, which was being led in by a handful of rather large human beings.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at those guys,\u201d he said, pointing to the linemen on the freshman football team that was just entering Jerome T. Osborne Stadium. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be a special group when they get up here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cup here\u201d Gray was referring to was the varsity lineup.<\/p>\n
The \u201cwhen\u201d he yearned for has arrived.<\/p>\n
When the Mentor season opens Aug. 22 at Olmsted Falls, it will do so with an offensive line that is bigger than most in the program\u2019s history. That offensive line boasts four college commits, including three who have committed to Division I college football programs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true the Cardinals\u2019 offense, in general, boasts some outstanding talent this season, including Miami (Ohio) commit Justen Hodge at receiver and running back Jackson Farley, who ran for more than 1,900 yards last season. That being said, if Mentor is to reach the destination it wants this season, which is the Division I state championship game, the Cardinals will have to lay it on the line.<\/p>\n
As in the big, experience, college-level offensive line.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the foundation of a football team, it starts up front,\u201d Gray said. \u201cIt starts with the offensive and defensive lines. The guys we have on our offensive line have played a lot of varsity football for us. More importantly, they are unbelievable kids, great leaders and workers. They set the standard for our program every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mentor has a trio of Division I college recruits on its offensive line this season (from left) – Colin Prichard (Kent State), JoJo LoDuca (Naval Academy) and Landry Brede (North Carolina State) – Tim Phillis, (For The News-Herald)<\/p>\n
The line features:<\/p>\n
\u2022 North Carolina State commit Landry Brede (6-foot-6, 310 pounds) a left tackle.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tiffin University commit Gabriel McLendon (6-3, 275) at left guard.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Naval Academy commit JoJo LoDuca (6-3, 285) at center.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kent State commit Colin Prichard (6-5, 265) at right tackle.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Amari Bradley (5-10, 255) at right guard.<\/p>\n
Gabe LaSpina (6-0, 250) is coming off ACL surgery and is also in the mix. He gives Mentor depth and flexibility to go with six offensive lineman in short-yardage and\/or goal-line situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been here since 2013 and we\u2019ve had some really good teams here,\u201d Gray said. \u201cEach and every one of those good teams had a common denominator \u2014 a strong offensive line. The average teams were average up front.\u201d<\/p>\n
Combine size and talent with experience and chemistry, and that is where Mentor\u2019s magic can be found. McLendon, Prichard and Bradley all played together at Memorial Middle School, while the rest were together at Ridge.<\/p>\n
When they were freshmen, they started a bond that still exists today.<\/p>\n
\u201cChemistry is 100 percent the most important thing,\u201d McLendon said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t work together with the guy next to you, you can\u2019t achieve anything. It starts up front. If you don\u2019t have chemistry, you don\u2019t have anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
LoDuca burst onto the scene first when \u2014 out of necessity, Gray said \u2014 he was called up to start a handful of varsity games as a ninth-grader. The rest of the group played freshman ball that year and were quickly elevated as sophomores.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe moved them into our PM class, our afternoon conditioning class, early,\u201d Gray said. \u201cWe knew several of them would play on Friday nights as sophomores. Moving them into that experienced conditioning group sped up the process for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mentor\u2019s offense churned out the points and yard over the past two years with the line leading the way, including the 2024 season in which Mentor averaged 37.4 points and 412 yards of offense per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve played with these guys a long time, so yeah that helps,\u201d Brede said. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked hard and have gotten better every day. We\u2019ve got guys with experience who have played together for a long time. That\u2019s going to make for a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mentor\u2019s skill-position players know where their bread is buttered, and it\u2019s with the behemoths up front who open the holes to run through, give the quarterback time to throw and receivers time to run their routes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys have gotten bigger and faster every year,\u201d said Farley, who scored 26 touchdowns last year behind this line. \u201cI feel so comfortable with those dudes up front. (To reach our goals), we need to set the tone up front, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
First-year starting quarterback Brogan Jones said he is \u201cgrateful\u201d for the group, noting, \u201cthose are the guys who are going to protect me me and keep me safe this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the area\u2019s \u2014 and Ohio\u2019s \u2014 best receivers is Hodge, who caught 51 passes for 973 yards last year, a gaudy 19-yard-per-reception average. If the line doesn\u2019t block, he doesn\u2019t have time to get downfield for those big-yard receptions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we can focus on what we need to do to get us that goal of a state championship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gray said what makes the line special isn\u2019t just their God-given size, but how they have developed themselves. For instance, he pointed out how Brede\u2019s mentality and physicality transformed him him from \u201ca big freshman who wanted nothing to do with playing offensive line\u201d to a Power Four recruit.<\/p>\n
And he marveled how Prichard went from a 6-foot-4, 185-pound receiver in eighth grade to getting a full-ride scholarship at Kent State.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys all did it the right way,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not big, sloppy guys. They\u2019re big, high-character guys who worked very hard to get to where they are today.\u201d<\/p>\n
How will it translate come season\u2019s start? That\u2019s yet to be seen. However, the Cardinals have big goals this season and if those goals are to be met, it will be thanks in large part to those big human beings up front that three short years ago were sitting at the turf at the JTO during a Mentor-Chardon scrimmage watching the action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis line sets the standard for what this team is going to be this year,\u201d Gray said, \u201cand these guys embrace that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three years ago, during a break in the preseason football scrimmage between Mentor and Chardon, Cardinals coach Matt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,7,3131,8519,929,39324,6,996,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-295823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-high-school-sports","14":"tag-hs-football","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-mentor-cardinals","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-ohio","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115045109093152496","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}