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 Thursday, October 25, 2001
House of Pancakes
By Marc Connolly
ABC Sports Online
Growing up in Hauula, Hawaii, you would think all 340 pounds of Nebraska's left guard Toniu Fonoti would have undergone some kind of seismic upheaval when he moved to the Heartland two years ago. That was hardly the case, but he did mention having to get used to eating a lot of corn and steak.
Funny, because the food that most people relate to the 6-foot-4 mammoth junior is that of a pancake, a statistic that he's been racking up at a higher rate than he could ever match with a fork and a canister of syrup.
|  | | Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch looks for a receiver while guard Toniu Fonoti (77) tries to block Oklahoma defender Ryan Fisher (94) during Oklahoma's 31-14 victory over Nebraska last year. |
The knock-down block for offensive linemen that has taken on the name of the pig-out breakfast food over the last decade (behemoths like Jonathan Ogden and Orlando Pace certainly helped in creating this stat) has only been recorded by Nebraska since 1995, but no other Big Red O-lineman in the past two years has made it his personal trademark like Fonoti. After registering 155 pancakes to set the team record last year, the soft-spoken All-America candidate already has 128 in eight games this year, including a ridiculous total of 32 last week against Texas Tech that shattered the single-game mark of 23 held Russ Hochstein and Josh Heskew.
Leading the way for star quarterback Eric Crouch and I-back Dahrran Diedrick, the Nebraska offensive line has helped the Huskers vault to the top of the nation in rushing offense, which if all stays intact, will be the 13th time Nebraska has done so since 1980. While the center and right side of the line features three new starters, the left side is set in stone with Dave Volk at tackle and Fonoti at guard. Though offensive line coach Milt Tenopir prefers to look at his players as a unit rather than individuals, he admits to not being able to help himself when it come to Fonoti.
"Off the top of my head, I couldn't come up with anyone who could compare with him as far as physical tools," says Tenopir, who has coached four of the 15 offensive lineman named to the school's All-Century team and a bevy of NFL players. "He's as powerful a young man as I've ever worked with. For a 360-pound man, he has tremendous quickness and balance. If you see him in person, he's astonishing. Normally, people think of a 360-pounder as a big butterball, but this guy isn't that way.
"Combine that with solid technique, good blocking angles, and he gets a lot done in a one-on-one situation."
It's clear that Fonoti is much more than a massive frame strong enough to overpower defensive tackles that dare stand in his way. For one, he's somewhat of a perfectionist, claiming that he wasn't confident and didn't "play well" last year. Shouldn't every All-Conference, record-setting player fare so greatly when not playing up to his own standards, especially as a mere sophomore?
He's also taken full advantage of Nebraska's offensive line tradition to improve his techniques and strengthen his football knowledge.
"I've gotten a lot out of watching the older guys like Dom (center Dominic Raiola) and James Sherman or some old tapes of guys like (guard) Aaron Taylor and (center) Josh Heskew," said Fonoti. "Coach has us watching them to take note of how they move and what they do."
That helped him tremendously when he became just the third Husker to play on the O-line as a true freshman back in 1999. Tenopir knew he had the size to help the team, but was always cognizant of putting him in situations to succeed during each of the 13 games he played in.
|  | | This is the third year Toniu Fonoti has been blocking for Eric Crouch. |
"The thing that he had going for him as a true freshman was all the physical tools he needed to handle the beatings you take in this conference for a running team," says Tenopir. "The thing we were very careful to do with Toniu was to make sure when he was in the ball game that he had the starting left tackle on one side and the starting center on the other side so they could coax him through a lot of things as far as the mental part of the game. He learned as the year went along."
It was that kind of understanding that brought Fonoti all the way across the Pacific and halfway across the country in the first place.
"I liked the way the coaches were with the guys," he remembers. "A lot of them told me when I visited that they viewed many of the coaches as father figures. That stuck with me."
The fact that Fonoti drew the interest of a full-on college football powerhouse like Nebraska may not have come about if his family hadn't made a sacrifice when he was 15 years old. After his high school in Hawaii (Kahuku) had a poor year in Fonoti's sophomore season, it was clear that he was going to have to find the scouts, not the other way around.
"I guess my parents felt that I'd get more exposure up in California," says the Outland and Lombardi Trophy candidate. "They moved me up there to my mom's sister's house to stay with them for a year."
He played only one season for El Camino High School in Oceanside, Calif., but made his mark as an all-state honorable mention and in the mind of his coach Herb Meyer.
"An outstanding young man," says Meyer. "Toniu is unbelievably coachable. He had awesome natural power and he really wanted to learn how to get better."
Once his mailbox started to resemble a weigh station, he made a curious move by moving off the mainland for his senior year.
"I just figured I'd go home and play in front of my family and friends and finish it all off there," says Fonoti, who mentioned Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky and BYU among his top choices. "I figured I'd left a mark there, so I wanted to see if they'd follow me or not."
Nebraska certainly wasn't there from the beginning, but the Huskers knew a good thing when they finally saw him on film.
"I had one of the tapes of him that I got late in the recruiting process," says Tenopir. "He was impressive as a dickens on there, knocking his guy down every other snap and was superior to everyone he played against. I had a hunch that he'd develop into something special."
Of course, that's exactly what has happened in Lincoln. As a consensus midseason All-American by all media outlets who publish such lists, Fonoti is in a place on the college football map where O-linemen don't normally roam. And his budding legend can only grow with a powerful performance against second-ranked Oklahoma -- a team with a better defense than the Detroit Lions -- this Saturday (ABC, 12 noon ET) when he tries to spring Crouch by opening holes on the left side or with punishing blocks as the pulling guard on option right.
"We'd like to see him downfield," says Fonoti with a matter-of-fact tone. "For us, it makes it easy having Eric back there because he knows the offense up and down. He knows how to hit the holes hard, and when to do it."
That's easy when he runs behind Toniu Fonoti. All he has to do is look for the pancakes.
Marc Connolly is a senior writer for ABC Sports Online. He can be reached at marc.connolly@abc.com.
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