Dylan Conner loves movies.
The redshirt junior has been known to quote his whole way through a movie. It’s an experience that Jared Dorsa and Eric Popp are all too familiar with.
The night before a game, Ohio’s three starting linebackers all gather in the same hotel room and watch a scary movie as a way to relax before three hours of bruising physicality.
They each take turns buying the movie on iTunes, too.
“I’m not a huge scary movie guy,” Popp said with a nervous laugh.
Collectively they all three enjoy The Office. It’s a show that they have watched time and time again, especially the episode titled “Stress Relief,” where Dwight starts a fire and a whole debacle of events occur.
They all enjoy the time spent in front of the screen. It’s another opportunity to hang – and where they don’t have to wear shoulder pads. That’s how it’s been for the three of them ever since they arrived at Ohio. They immediately clicked off the field, and throughout their careers, it’s gelled on the field, too.
When they took the field for the first time as freshmen at Ohio back in the fall of 2016, they didn’t know what to expect.
They were all bigwigs a year prior at their respective high schools. Popp and Dorsa played at rival high schools just 20 minutes apart in the Cincinnati area. When it came time for roommate selection heading into that first season, Dorsa chose Conner instead because he didn’t know if that rivalry would carry over.
“I didn’t know how it was going to go and Eric was like, ‘What the heck, dude?’” he said. “We still pick at each other for that.”
But the time spent as big shots and the top guys on their football teams ended quickly. They immediately went back to being nothing more than the guys who held the padded blocking shields for starters during individual periods. Then, they got roughed up by the starting offensive line as scout players.
They stood on the sidelines and watched names like Quentin Poling, Cody Grilliot and Chad Moore wrack up the tackles and sacks on Saturdays.
Poling, Grilliot and Moore came to Ohio together, too
Seeing that bond between the older players as freshmen is something Dorsa claims has the linebackers group where they are now.
“We’ve been inseparable ever since,” Dorsa said. “We’re always watching film, and on the field, we’ve just always done that, and a lot of that has to do with them (the older linebackers).”
Now Dorsa, Conner and Popp are the older ones setting the standard. Behind them is a multitude of freshmen and redshirted players in their second season.
The three of them are some of the more experienced players on the entire defense. They’ve played in a combined 89 games. While the defense hasn’t lived up to the normal standards yet this season, Dorsa is confident the Bobcats can turn things around and return to the same level the trio remembers watching from the sidelines.
“It’s definitely an execution thing,” Dorse said. “We were in the right spots. We can make those plays and we have made those plays. But as a whole, were putting it together.”
That doesn’t faze them, though. They’ve been in tight spots before, but they’ve gotten through them together.
Last year when they were first-year starters and when Popp received valuable playing time behind Evan Croutch, the game felt too quick for them. Often times when they’d get to the bench to discuss what had happened after a defensive series, they needed some time to process what they just saw before analyzing what they could do better.
Now that the game has moved slower, it allows them to play faster. That’s something Popp revels in.
“It’s cool to see,” Popp said. “I came in my first practice in fall camp and thought, ‘This is insane. I don’t know if I can do this.’ The more reps you take, though, the slower it goes.”
Soon enough, the game will stop.
All three of them have plans that don’t relate to football after college. Those futures range from being an engineer to going to medical school. While they all collectively love the game, they know it’s a means to get to where they’re going.
But for now, they have at least eight more Fridays to watch a scary movie and quote The Office.
