In Close, They Try to Score in Bulk

The big guy tends to get excited, his heart pumping a little faster. So, just before the snap, the running back leans close and whispers.

Maybe to remind him which direction the play is headed. Maybe to crack a joke.

This is not brain surgery. This is simple, brutal physics.

The big guy leads the way and the runner follows, a quarter-ton duet of bone, muscle, skin, teeth, cloth, leather and various layers of plastic and rubber padding. Their job is to push the football over the goal line.

In the parlance of the game, it is called the “Tank” formation and USC employs it on specific occasions, when the offense gets within a yard or so of the end zone.

Faaesea Mailo, at 330 pounds, steps back from his position on the offensive line to become a fullback. Petros Papadakis, at 210 pounds, enters the game and crouches directly behind him at tailback.

“It’s hard to see past him,” Papadakis says. “He’s got a big butt.”

This is no joke.

“It’s huge.”

*

Simple physics.

In theory, the offensive line battles the defensive line to a standoff. That leaves a linebacker and perhaps a safety at what football people call the point of attack.

That’s where Mailo comes in.

His first name is Samoan for: “Someone who does things differently.” He dabbled in sumo wrestling for a while and spent two years on a Mormon mission in Japan before returning to school to play football.

A good portion of that sumo belly remains, along with tree-trunk legs and the big butt. This is not a svelte man.

Most times when Mailo uncorks the helmet from his roundish head, there is a smile across his face, a spread of teeth flanked by Elvis-like sideburns. He seems as affable as a person can be.

But, make no mistake, Tank is revenge.

When he plays right tackle, Mailo hunkers down in a stance at the line of scrimmage, a sitting duck for any linebacker who cares to take a running start at him.

“I like to line up in the backfield and get myself some of that momentum,” he says. “I get to run downhill on that linebacker.”

So Tank is the most fun he can have on a football field.

“It doesn’t matter if the other team knows what we’re going to do,” he says. “We’re still going to do it.”

And there is always the hope for something more, a lineman’s fantasy.

“Maybe they’ll give me the ball,” he says. “Maybe one day when we’re beating somebody 100 to nothing.”

*

Tank is a matter of pride for the running back known to most as a jokester.

Papadakis is always talking, singing, aping or otherwise vocalizing the thoughts that flitter through his brain. He is unusually well read, even for a college student, but acknowledges to speaking in an authoritative tone on subjects he knows nothing about.

A year ago, he was tackled on the practice field and felt a burning in his right foot, saw bones sticking out.

He might have quit right there. He had never been a star, not in college, not enough moves. Still, his father and brother played for USC and Papadakis was not ready to end his football career. After surgery, after weeks in a wheelchair, he struggled through a painful rehabilitation.

The foot still hurts him after practice some days and one toe points northeast.

Tank is his reward.

The Trojans use him for other duties, mainly as a change of pace from the faster, shiftier Sultan McCullough. But as Papadakis says, “Tank is what I’m good at.”

Most defenses show him only two or three formations on the goal line. As Papadakis lines up for the play, after he whispers to Mailo and before he crouches behind his fullback, his eyes search out the linebackers and safeties across the line.

“There’s always going to be a free hitter, so you’d like to know where the impact is coming from,” he says. “So you can brace yourself.”

That’s the extent of Tank strategy.

“If there’s one guy and he’s not a big defensive lineman,” Papadakis says, “I can get past him.”

*

Early last season, USC was having trouble scoring from short yardage, an embarrassing deficiency for a football team with a heritage of running the ball.

In a fit of desperation and inspiration, the coaches solved the problem by putting Mailo in the backfield. Chad Morton was the tailback then, a 5-foot-8 runner who played hide-and-seek behind the monstrous new fullback, cutting right or left off his block.

“Not to take anything away from Chad,” Mailo said, “but it was more of a finesse play.”

Tank is now a straight-ahead affair with the larger Papadakis, whose running style consists mainly of wrapping both arms around the ball and putting his head down. This is not brain surgery, but so far it has worked against Penn State and San Jose State.

“Faaesea just goes in there and mows everyone down,” Kennedy Pola, the running backs coach, says. “Then you have a madman running behind him.”

Everything gets quiet. Even if the crowd is cheering and the defense is yelling, Papadakis blocks it all out. He hears only the explosion of the impact, pads clacking, the odd sound of air being forced from his body as he bangs his way toward the end zone.

“You ever play football?” he asks.

The runner tries to explain. Something simple and brutal.

“It hurts,” he says. “I should have played tennis.”