Winning at football's 'hardest position' is key to Monmouth's success

With a loaded group of returning players in Bryce Rooks, Brendan Bigos, JJ Lewis, Hunter Watson, and Sebastian Achaempong, Monmouth is poised to build on last year's success. One final ingredient is the competition on the other side.

Iron sharpens iron. And despite losing four starters from last year's offensive line, this year's group has looked a twinge sharper with a slight edge through spring practices. While Cole has sparked a stark turnaround and is only heading into year two with Monmouth, offensive line coach Brian Gabriel is entering his 22nd season with the Hawks. Although the journeys are dichotomous, they are arriving at similar results.

Brian Gabriel during practice in 2025.

"The new age of college football, especially at a university like ours, this is gonna be the nature of it. You're gonna have to develop guys." Gabriel said. "The new group this year, I'd certainly say there's so much talent, but there's so much inexperience. It's like we started from ground zero and we're building every single day."

As the Hawks aim to soar even higher in 2026, that aerial superiority will be built upon the unsung work in the trenches.

'We're gonna come out, we're gonna dominate.'

The impact Cole had on the defensive line was immediate in his first season at Monmouth. The sack totals were largely driven by edge defenders Lamont Lester and Josiah Graham, who combined for 19 of the 31 sacks. Lester was first team All-CAA and named defensive rookie of the year, while Graham was second team All-CAA. And as is so often the case at the FCS level, both players entered the transfer portal and Lester joined Deion Sanders' program at Colorado (Graham remains in the portal after initially committing to Memphis).

"They all wanted to be great, but they just didn't know what it looked like," Cole said. "So then it was easy for me to tell them, okay you've got to fix your habits. You've got to sacrifice things. You've gotta have a mindset of willing to grow. And then you gotta pay attention to all the details that we are actually talking about. Then you gotta push yourself past where you think you actually are."

The emphasis on faith, toughness, and discipline is a recurring theme, but it also reflects the phases of building his position group. The first aspect is naturally about spiritual wellness in addition to building camaraderie that translates once the players hit the field. The toughness can only be honed through the grind of practices, and this spring was the first taste.

"We got out here this spring, and then you start seeing people start making flashes at different plays," Cole said. "They're playing together and they're building a community with each other in brotherhood. But from there we had to become tough, right? Because then people started getting banged up, people started getting injured. The returners in the middle kind of start getting banged up so the next guys need to step up and they had to own their role. So mentally and physically, they became tougher."

New Hampshire football beats Monmouth 34-13 on Nov. 8 in West Long Branch.

Bryce Rooks was one of those top-flight experienced players that navigated some minor injury setbacks this spring. The 6-foot-1 and 300-pound defensive tackle is one of the returning starters who flourished in his first season under the tutelage of Cole. This year, he's now in a position to pass it along to the team's new additions.

"It's really special. You see a lot of these guys like Lamont and Josiah left last year, and now you see guys coming in and making plays like Jahide, (Donovan) Dyson from new schools," Rooks said. "Interior wise, we're a lot deeper than we were last year. We're doing very good. Coach Cole has been teaching us everything we need to know. I feel like we're bound to have a breakout season this year, all of us."

The defense as a whole is well-aware that although plenty of strides were made last season, improvement is still needed after the unit ranked 77th (of 126 teams) in scoring defense in the FCS in 2025. But there were also signs the unit was turning the corner, like the top 20 sack total and the 44th ranking in defensive turnovers.

But the defense also returns eight of 11 starters plus several more key rotational players in the front seven. The third aspect of Cole's philosophy, discipline, will be crucial across the entire unit. Monmouth was an abysmal 100th in the third down conversions allowed last season.

Codey Cole coaches from the sideline against Bryant.

"On the edges, the guys picking up the scheme the way that we need them to be and that was a mental toughness thing because we kind of gave them a lot this spring. But we wanted to be able to give to them to see how they could execute it. And so then they became disciplined," Cole said. "Once we've seen that FTD foundation come together, then we started to be able to come out here and make plays."

Cole's superb coaching has attracted more premier athletes coming to Monmouth this offseason. Lesaine spent his first two seasons at the Power 4 level with Syracuse and was a three-star recruit coming out of Irvington High School. Donovan Dyson is another FBS transfer from UMass that produced 20 tackles and two tackles for loss last season, and he was also a three-star recruit coming out of St. Frances Academy in Maryland. And former Wall standout Jake Davis, a graduate transfer from Penn, will be joining the group in the fall.

"The pride and the amount of respect and time (Cole) puts into us, we feel like we've got to give it back to him. He's a great coach, he's one of the best coaches I've ever had," Rooks said. "He's teaching stuff that d-line coaches just forget about. And he's always doing the little things. Like your foot, it's like a two inch difference. He'll come back at you, he'll yell at you. You've just got to be ready for that. But he's like a big brother to all of us."

There is no fast-tracking development. Inch by inch and step by step, the players are being refined at the micro level to produce unprecedented results at the macro level. But it's still an arduous process, as demonstrated by Lesaine's reps in 11-on-11 that were a mixed bag. The immense physical tools are evident, but there are no easy victories against Monmouth's offensive line.

All signs point to marked improvement in 2026, but the front four will be the tip of the spear. With the pieces in place and a coach with a proven track record of success, the defensive line has earned the right to be as bullish about their outlook as they are as power rushers.

"It's been a challenge a little bit for us," Rooks said. "We put ourselves to the highest standard possible. Every day, we come out to practice like we're trying to play the Eagles in the NFL. We practice how we play. We're gonna come out, we're gonna dominate. We're gonna stop the run. We're gonna rush the passer. That's what we do."

'All the answers to what the defense does.'

While the defensive line is in the midst of a sudden surge and upward trajectory, the offensive line has been a steady uphill climb. In 2025, Monmouth rated among the top blocking units in the FCS as they were led by tackle JT Cornelius, now a prospect that has received interest from several NFL teams. But four starters must now be replaced, including two who transferred up to the FBS level.

But even as the team strives to maintain the elite level of play last season that was the key to Monmouth being the top-ranked offense in yards and fifth-ranked offense in scoring, offensive line coach Brian Gabriel believes this unit could be as good as any in his 22 years of coaching with the Hawks.

Brian Gabriel looks on from the sideline during Monmouth's 42-31 victory over Towson.

"It's one of the most talented groups I've actually ever coached," Gabriel said. "Now it's matter of getting the men to work as a group and just perfect all the little things that are gonna make us as explosive and good as we've been historically."

The pedigree of the players in the o-line room is outstanding. Two potential starters have experience at the Power 4 level in seniors Alec Grijalva (Ole Miss) and Matt Fries (Illinois). Fries has a wealth of experience that goes beyond that, as his older brother Will Fries is an NFL starter with the Minnesota Vikings. He was also high school teammates with Monmouth's lone returning starter, Kevin Shriner, at Cranford.

"I'd like to give credit to the coaches and Coach Gabe because they have their rules and they tell us what to do, but if there's things that we're capable of, then they let us mess around with it a little bit," Fries said. "My brother has always helped me out giving me advice, and I've luckily been able to relay that to the other offensive players as well."

Matt Fries gets in a pass set in a game against Eastern Washington in 2024.

Fries had four starts in 2024 and played in eight games last year, making him one of the unit's veterans. But the competition within the tackle group is immense as Monmouth's penchant for developmental success has attracted more talent. Josh Duran, Keyshawn Efese, and Moses Gakodi all possess the coveted length to pass protect with the fluid athleticism to move in space as needed in a zone blocking scheme.

But the speed at which players adapt to the high positional standards might be the most underrated trait of the entire group. Freshman Jayce Grays, an early enrollee who should be finishing his senior year at Glassboro, has shown plenty of pop as an interior lineman. And redshirt freshman Blake Birbilis has been one of the team's standouts kicking inside to guard this spring.

"(Grays is) coming in, hitting the ground running," Fries said. "Blake Birbilis is stepping up. He's playing first team right guard now. Brady O'Hara just came in. All these guys, (Logan) Boston, Bleek (Turner), all these guys are really stepping up and it's been awesome."

O'Hara is another testament to the level of talent the program is now attracting. The massive 6-foot-7 and 295-pound tackle was a high school tight end that redshirted as a freshman at Penn State last season. Although he's still a work in progress, the sheer physical tools are apparent.

Monmouth football player JT Cornelius. Monmouth football players have a lot of support from friends and family, especially local families, who turn out regularly at home football games. Saturday, November 8, 2025 West Long Branch, NJ

"I often take guys that are tight ends or guys that are undersized—they're long, but they're not necessarily grown into their frame yet. JT Cornelius is a perfect example of that," Gabriel said. "Guys who are just bigger than people in high school that can down-block and they look great doing it. They don't necessarily translate to what we're looking for here at Monmouth. And I think part of that is we're an explosive offense that likes the ball in space, likes to get to speed guys. So our offensive line has to match that."

On top of the skillset refinement for individual players to maximize their abilities, Monmouth's success up front can also be attributed to how multiple they are schematically. Most of the Hawks' baseline run game concepts are zone blocking, but their ability to mix in gap concepts with pulling guards on power was an effective counter against defenses.

That type of peak execution is still several months away, but Monmouth is ahead of schedule in the spring. For a team that faced questions on both sides of the line coming into the spring, they once again seem to have all the answers even as the tests won't start coming until August 29 with the season opener against Tennessee Tech.

"What we try to do here is be really good at what we do. So we have all the answers to what the defense does, not just one place to try to beat certain defenses," Gabriel said. "In a game plan, we might have two run schemes that are specific for that game plan. Everything else carries over—little wrinkles, but everything else carries over week to week. So I think it's really the system that Coach Gallo has established her and I've worked with him on building. That allows us to be that fundamental with what we do. Which allows us to do a lot, but really for us, it's pretty simple."

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth football offensive, defensive lines 2026 season preview