BUTLER TWP — Butler High School's football roster numbers are finally increasing.

Except for the offensive line.

That position is on the decrease — at a concerning rate — for the Golden Tornado.

While 70 kids have signed up for football in grades 10-12, Butler only has 11 total offensive linemen, none of them seniors.

“That's so frustrating because the offensive line is where games are won,” Butler coach Eric Christy said.

It's also been the most effective path Butler football players have used to move on to college ball. Jake Kradel (Pitt), Nate Cornibe (Cornell), Nick Stazer (Slippery Rock), Sam Enslen (Slippery Rock) and Anthony Scardina (Grove City) are Tornado linemen who have joined college football in the past three years, despite Butler losing 26 of 29 games during that stretch.

“We want to have a junior varsity team this year to get more kids on the field,” Christy said. “In terms of offensive linemen, 20 to 25 guys is what we need.”

Butler line coach Nick Sciarro coached the line at Butler in 2010 and said the team was able to run three full sets of lines at practice.

“Last year, we struggled to get two groups and it's only getting worse,” Sciarro said.

Slippery Rock University student Kyle Heller is a 2017 Butler graduate and a former Tornado offensive lineman. He is helping to coach the position at Butler now.

“I played alongside Jake Kradel and our whole line, we were a close group,” Heller said. “Some of those guys were my best friends and we worked hard every day.

“We only won two games my senior year, but we knew we were a big reason why we won those games. It meant something to us.”

Times may have changed in that regard.

“There's no glory in it right now. You don't get credit for anything,” Heller said of offensive linemen.

Christy said few players coming out for the team are willing to even try the position. Some kids may opt to quit the team rather than play on the line.

Christy mentioned some players have told him their fathers won't allow them to play football if it's “only” going to be as a lineman.

“This never used to be an issue,” Christy said. “Kids would be asked to move to the line and they would say, 'whatever is good for the team, coach.' Parents would tell them to listen to the coach.

“Now you ask a kid to move to the line and you hear an “Awww' before anything else. And parents know more than the coach does these days.

“We're trying to bring more incentive to playing the position, glorify it a little more,” Christy added.

Butler's coaching staff is considering having a Lineman of the Week, passing out t-shirts to those players, naming one as a captain before each game, among other things.

“The nature of the position is tough,” Sciarro said. “Newspapers never cover linemen, they cover the guys scoring the touchdowns. The kids watch the ESPN highlights and it's always the skilled positions in the limelight.”

Christy admitted convincing a kid to play on the offensive line is a hard sell.

“When a play doesn't work, they get blamed all the time. And they don't get the glory when a play goes well,” the coach said.

“The plus side is that five of the 11 positions on offense are on the line, linemen don't get injured as often and, as our history shows, there are good chances to advance football into college.”

The other incentive, of course, is their role in determining the outcome of games.

“If the offensive line doesn't move people, you're not going to win. I mean, that's football,” Heller said.