Semoball

Jackson offensive lineman Thomas Ruch takes one for the team

Jackson's Thomas Ruch (55) stands on the field during the Jackson Indians' matchup against the Cape Central Tigers on Friday in Jackson.
Jacob Wiegand ~ Southeast Missourian

Thomas Ruch doesn’t look much like a quarterback.

“I bulked up over the summer and put on 30 pounds.”

Ruch was a third-string signal caller for Jackson and it was clear he was going to spend the 2019 season holding a clipboard backing up Cael Welker. Welker, a first-team all-state quarterback, is in the same grade as Ruch, so there was no path to displacing Welker on the depth chart.

A junior, Ruch says he was offered an opportunity to play and he took it.

Ruch had sustained a knee injury and was sitting in the press box months ago when Indian assistant coach Darron Bardot made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Bardot coaches the offensive line for Class 5 No. 4-ranked Jackson (3-0, 1-0 SEMO Conference North) and said the team had a starting spot available. That is, if Ruch was willing to become the center.

“My parents support me but my mother was cautious about the move,” Ruch admitted.

Was she a little nervous too?

“Yeah, maybe that as well,” chuckled the player who now anchors the offensive line that manhandled the Cape Girardeau Central defense Friday in a 35-0 win at “The Pit.”

Prior to this season, Indian coach Brent Eckley singled out Ruch, as well as a few others, for making “tremendous strides in gaining strength to compete.”

Not every quarterback is willing to give up playing the game’s most celebrated position.

Former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy and later refused all entreaties to switch to flanker. Today, he’s out of the NFL and trying to establish himself in professional baseball.

Ruch just wants to be out on the field and in the mix, but admits it’s quite different when you are the center and not under center.

“In the locker room, we say the O-line gets the blame but not the fame.”

Ruch is a lineman now and doesn’t want his old job,

“When you’re a quarterback, you have to see the whole field,” Ruch explained. “Playing center, I bring with me that QB vision that helps me be better for my team.”

Acknowledging the anonymity associated with being a blocker, he enjoys hanging out with teammates like Connor Tollison, a comrade on the Indians O-line who is the focus of college scouts at 6-foot-6 and 285 pounds.

Ruch is pointed toward college and he’d like to continue to play football at the next level. If it happens, he says he’d prefer to keep suiting up with the big guys up front.

Playing is better than sitting, Ruch insisted.

He hopes that an undefeated season is ahead for Jackson and perhaps a rematch against Vianney in the playoffs.

“Whatever I can do to help the team,” Ruch concluded, “I’ll do.”

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