Controlled Insanity

By Lee Goddard
Caller-Times

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Mathis brothers George (second from left) and Raul (23) Villareal serve as the Pirates' primary wedge busters on kickoffs and punts.

Robert Ruiz explains what happens to him on the football field in the most brutal terms possible.
   "It's like a car wreck," said Ruiz, a senior at Moody High School. "It's explosive. Like hitting a wall."
   Ruiz is a wedge buster, and in a game where players constantly find themselves slamming into opponents with little or no regard to themselves, the wedge buster just may be the most reckless player on the field.
   The wall that Ruiz and his wedge-busting peers hit is the wedge. On kickoff returns, a wedge of players may be formed to help the returner find additional yards. The wedge may take on a straight line of players, or mesh into a V-shaped formation, many times tightly packed together, with the returner following the blocking of the wedge.
   It's the job of a kicking team's wedge buster to crash into the wedge and scatter the members like pins at a bowling alley.
   "That's us," said George Villarreal, who pairs with brother Raul to form Mathis' wedge-busting twins. "We're just trying to get the human strike."
   'It's just go and hit'
   To keep the structure against anybody trying to break up the wedge, members of the wedge might grab onto one another's shirts, pants, whatever. Just anything to keep together.
   Even holding hands and locking pinkies are ways to hold the wedge in place.
   "Oh, you don't want to do that against us," George said of holding hands. "If we bust through, we're going to rip your arms off."
   It usually takes someone a little different to be a wedge buster. The wedge buster isn't on the field to make the tackle, only to clear away the kicking team's blocking so his teammates can have an open shot on the kick returner.
   So it takes someone who would - willingly - lay himself out for the team to be a wedge buster.
   "Our body parts don't matter," George said. "We don't care how good we are or how good they are. Our mindset is nothing. It's just go and hit."
   'I use the fear'
   What they do end up hitting can vary in size. The number of players that form the wedge, or the shape of the wedge itself, changes from team to team. But when George and Raul size up an opponent's wedge, they usually count five or six.
   And they're always aiming for the pointer - the man in the middle of the wedge, and the player they call "the quarterback of the wedge."
   "We hit it on the side and go for the angles," George said. "Or if we hit the pointer, it can have the domino effect where everybody goes down."
   Victimized by the likes of Ruiz and the Villarreals are the members of the wedge. They are retreating or coming in to a point around the 25-yard line. The players assigned to bust them are storming in with about a 35-to-40 yard running head start.
   Unless your last name is Villarreal, with both professing "no fear", there is a little bit of a terror factor to overcome on both sides.
   Refugio's Shane Myers is in the middle when his team forms a wedge. While you get used to the collisions, he admits fear must be overcome.
   "At first, it's kind of scary with people coming down and trying to knock you over," Myers said. "You try not to be scared. For most guys, it's a small fear. But you get used to it. After a couple of practices and a couple of games, it's not that bad."
   On the other side, Ruiz confesses he has jitters before the kickoff, but he uses it to get motivated.
   "I play with fear. I use it to get my butterflies out," Ruiz said. "I use the fear. That's my momentum: fear."
   'We just want to hit'
   The twins are always pumped up. Each points out that they do not like to taunt opponents, but they have a couple of pre-kickoff rituals that can instill fear into any wedge member.
   First, they like to take turns and point out which player they are going after on the kickoff.
   Second, they ask their kicker, B.R. Moreno, who they stand on either side of before the kick, to deliver a kickoff that will result in collisions.
   "Every kick, B.R. goes, 'This is for y'all'," Raul said. "We're like, 'Hey, B.R., give us a shot.' He goes, 'It's going high and deep for y'all.' We just want to hit. That's all."
   'We see nothing but red'
   It's here that the twins get psyched up, almost like bulls charging a matador.
   "We see nothing but red," George said. "We want to kill. If anybody gets in our way, just knock them down."
   Members of the wedge know exactly what's in store. The key to their survival is to make sure the hits they take aren't knockout shots.
   "They're running fast toward you," Refugio's Tom Fagan said. "What you want to do is absorb the shot, or get out and knock them down. The hitting's not too bad, but sometimes it can get gruesome."
   And confusing. Fagan's worst moment on the wedge was when he went to block for his returner, but the return man ran too far ahead of the wedge and instead was knocked down by Fagan.
   'They were scared of us'
   Wedge members do get their revenge. They may get a clean shot on a wedge buster and take them out early. Raul Villarreal recalls a game in which he didn't see the pointer - until the pointer drilled him from the side and laid him out at the 40-yard line.
   At least he occupied a wedge member. Most wedge busters realize they are not there to make the tackle. By delivering the blow to the wedge, they set up teammates to swoop in and stop the returner.
   That still doesn't prevent the buster from claiming his own glory. George has seven solos on kickoffs this season, a nice total for a wedge buster.
   But like everything else on the field for the twins, it all comes back to contact.
   Each gladly recounts what happened in a game earlier this season. The Villarreals had rampaged through the opposing team on a few kickoffs, and the wedge was physically and emotionally beaten late in the game.
   "They were scared of us. By the third quarter, they didn't want any part of us," Raul said. "We went flying down and the wedge broke up before we got there."
   Unfortunately for the return man, he was coming up through the wedge as it scattered. At that point, the twins arrived at the returner simultaneously with a 40-yard running start. They both hit him - Raul on the left and in the ribs and George on the returner's right and near the shoulder - and he went flying back five yards.
   Unlike the twins, Ruiz can't recollect a favorite hit. He recalls the injuries - pulled tendons in his chest, sprained ankles, neck injuries and a few too many knocks to the helmet.
   As for the glory, while they do take a few for the team, wedge busters enjoy any attention. The twins still remember games when opposing coaches have come up to them after the game and congratulated them on their hitting.
   But it would be nice to get more attention, they said.
   "Our dream is to be on the cover of the paper," George said. "We'd have a picture and it would say 'wedge busters.'"
   Consider it done.