Colleges Give Gonzalez Short Shrift : Prep football: Mater Dei lineman, who will play in California-Texas All-Star game Saturday, was passed over by Division I schools, and will attend Saddleback.

When you stand 6 feet 1, weigh 280 pounds, and can move people out of your way like a hurricane through a trailer park, you tend to get noticed.

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Unless, of course, you’re an offensive lineman.

Even if you were an integral part of an unbeaten, untied Southern Section and (mythical) national championship football team--like Joel Gonzalez was on last season’s Mater Dei squad--unless your name is Matt Motherway, The Times’ Orange County lineman of the year, you don’t expect a truckload of attention.

Which Gonzalez did not.

“I was happy for him,” Gonzalez said of Motherway. “He deserved it; he was a three-year varsity player. He worked his butt off and he deserved whatever he got. Not very many linemen get that much attention.”

Gonzalez and Motherway will play together one more time, Saturday night in the Shrine California-Texas All-Star football game at Cal State Fullerton. They will then go their separate ways: Motherway to Stanford and Gonzalez to Saddleback.

Gonzalez, a Times’ second-team all-county selection, has the weight Division I schools like, but not the height. In this age of behemoth proportions, it’s nearly impossible to find a center (Gonzalez’s position), guard or tackle under 6-3.

So despite “dominating everybody he played,” according to Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson, Gonzalez had no major-college offers.

Rollinson finds that hard to believe.

“We’ve had some great linemen, but Bubba [Gonzalez’s nickname since his Pop Warner days] is one of the best we’ve coached at Mater Dei,” Rollinson said. “He’s got great strength, speed and has a burning desire to excel.

“Within that temperament is a young man very coachable and a tremendous team player. He had this quiet nature about him. But the bigger the game, the bigger the challenge of opposition’s nose tackle, the better he played.

“He got caught up in a size game that four-year coaches are obsessed with. He’s a 6-1 lineman, and was deemed not to have the height to compete at Division I. Yet he dominates every kid across from him that’s going to a Division I school. I would bet you that after people see him play at the game, they will walk away saying, ‘He should have gotten a scholarship.’ ”

Motherway also thinks Gonzalez was unfairly overlooked.

“He was as important to our success as anyone,” Motherway said. “He probably had a better year than I did.”

Gonzalez is just grateful his “Mater Dei family,” as he calls his teammates, feels he is as good as his older brother, Jose, a member of Mater Dei’s 1991 Southern Section championship team who now plays for Nevada Las Vegas.

“When he started his Mater Dei career, I went to a couple of his games,” said Joel, whose family includes three brothers and two sisters. “And when they won the championship, my freshman class decided we were going to do the same thing. That we were going to be as good or better.”

It would appear the culminating moment for Gonzalez and the Monarchs was the 28-21 victory against La Puente Bishop Amat in last year’s Division I title game. But Gonzalez can cite a better memory: Defeating Los Alamitos, 28-24, in the semifinals and ending the Griffins’ county-record 47-game winning streak.

“They were always rated No. 1 in Orange County over us, and they got all the publicity because of their streak,” Gonzalez said. “When we beat them, it was now ‘Mater Dei and Los Al.’ We were both recognized.”

On Saturday, however, Gonzalez will be representing himself. Gone is the comfort zone of prior knowledge about his opponents, be it previous experience or game film. The only thing Gonzalez will know about the Texas All-Star kneeling in front of him is he had to be pretty good to get there.

Another challenge.

“Yeah,” Gonzalez agreed. “I think my selection to this all-star game shows I am able to play with the big guys, the guys who got a lot of attention. I hope this game will help me prove that I can play at the next level.”

Those who know him--or have seen him play--believe no such proof is necessary.