Good luck facing Ferndale’s front 4

Ferndale all-league senior linebacker Taylor Bellefeuille expressed frustration following last week’s 12-7 nail-biting loss to Squalicum.

Besides enduring the pain of a heartbreaking defeat, Bellefeuille didn’t feel he made the defensive impact he wanted.

But that wasn’t Squalicum’s doing.

Ferndale’s front four was so dominant, Bellefeuille rarely got to the football before one of the Golden Eagles’ defensive lineman.

“Taylor is one of the best linebackers in the league, and he has a lot of help because the guys up front are occupying bodies,” Ferndale coach Jamie Plenkovich said in a phone interview. “He was frustrated because he didn’t get to make tackles, because the guys in front made all the tackles last week.”

Not a bad problem to have.

Ferndale senior defensive ends Christian Rodriguez and Austin Honeycutt, senior all-state defensive tackle Chris Hernandez and junior DT Winterhawk Leighton have been a force all season long, setting a physical tone in the trenches while anchoring a Golden Eagles defense that is arguably the Northwest Conference’s best.

Lynden’s offensive line will certainly be tested when the Golden Eagles welcome the Lions (4-2, 3-1 NWC) for Whatcom County’s biggest annual rivalry at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, at Ferndale High School.

Ferndale (4-2, 3-1 NWC) is yielding 85 rush yards per game in league play, and even that number is deceiving given Anacortes racked up the majority of its 139 rushing yards after most of the Golden Eagles’ starters were pulled during a 55-14 win.

Burlington-Edison ran for 87 yards against Ferndale, Blaine tallied 46 and Squalicum logged 67 last week.

“It allows us to not have as many guys in the box,” said Plenkovich on the advantages of having four standouts clogging up running lanes and getting after quarterbacks. “All four are very aggressive and have pretty good size. I’ve been real happy with how they have developed over the course of the year.”

And while each players shares a penchant for being physical at the point of attack, each one offers different attributes.

“I think Honeycutt brings more of a pass rush and is good at coming from the backside,” Rodriguez said in a phone interview. “Winterhawk (Leighton) and Chris Hernandez both take on a lot of double teams, and sometimes that frees me up to make plays.”

Honeycutt brings much of the speed and explosiveness to the defensive side of the ball that’s helped him become one of the league’s top running backs, at 6-foot-5, 305 pounds, Hernandez has been billed as one of the state’s top defensive tackles, Plenkovich said Leighton played the best game of his career last week and Rodriguez makes plays week in and week out.

Ferndale always has placed a high emphasis on being the more physical team.

In today’s age of spread offenses and exotic schemes placing a premium on speed, the Golden Eagles value smashmouth football.

“It’s really the foundation of what we want to do on both sides of the ball, and there are a lot of football teams going away from that,” said Plenkovich of Ferndale’s physical brand of ball.

Hernandez, Honeycutt, Leighton and Rodriguez help set that tone arguably more than any other of the team’s positional groupings.

And after a while, it’s hard to blame an offensive line for caving after battling Ferndale’s front four for 48 minutes.

“We have noticed that in a few games,” said Leighton, when asked whether he’s ever noticed a defeating feeling coming from the offensive line he’s facing. “We’ll start getting more pressure on the quarterback, or the O-line will start to get down on each other. It’s a boost of confidence.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2015 at 8:44 PM with the headline "Good luck facing Ferndale’s front 4."