Big, bigger and even bigger appears to be the menu among offensive and defensive linemen in the state this year. It's the offseason programs. When Concord High football coach E.Z. Smith was a senior there in 1969, he was considered a big lineman for that time at 6-4 and 245 pounds. Smith said that team had 20 players who weighed 200 or more pounds and there were always big linemen, by that standard, in the Salisbury, Lexington and Thomasville area, for instance. But today, nearly every school or area has guys with Bubba Smith-like size.
Dietary changes is also a factor.
More and more people today are eating better. The ability of the student-athletes to also run faster is equal to or running a close second to their growth spurts, so the high school football played in North Carolina today has changed decade by decade. You used to have big kids who had good first two steps. Today, they're so much more athletic. Those kids are dangerous.