Mentor football: Jojo LoDuca gets rare freshman starting nod for the Cardinals in win over Brunswick
Sep. 26—Life comes at you fast. No one has to tell that to Jojo LoDuca.
Back on Aug. 1, LoDuca was a freshman two-way starter for the Mentor ninth grade football team. Seven weeks later, he was starting at guard for the Cardinals in their Greater Cleveland Conference opener at Brunswick.
"It was cool," the 6-foot-3, 245-pound freshman said after Mentor's 35-14 win over Brunswick on Sept. 23. "I had so much fun out there. The guys believed in me. I just have to keep working."
LoDuca and a few others made their first varsity start against Brunswick because a trio of Mentor offensive linemen were unavailable for duty. The difference between LoDuca and the other first timers is that he's a freshman — and freshmen rarely start at Mentor, one of the biggest Division I teams in Ohio. How rare was LoDuca's starting nod? He's only the fourth freshman since 1997 to start a game, and the first to do so on the offensive line.
Mike Korecz started at running back as a ninth-grader in 2010, Brenan Vernon started at defensive end as a ninth-grader in 2019, and Scotty Fox started three games at quarterback last year.. Vernon is now a senior, four-year starter for the Cardinals, while Fox is a sophomore signal-caller this year.
"He's earned it," Coach Matt Gray said. "He's gotten better and better. We moved him up from the freshman team right before Week 1 and he kept learning. He's a sponge."
After moving up from freshman ball, LoDuca was soon at No. 2 on the Mentor offensive line's depth chart. A few days prior to the Brunswick game, he found out he was getting the starting nod.
"It was pretty nerve-racking," he said of the pressure of starting a game as a freshman. "After a few plays, I got comfortable. My team had my back, so I was just doing my thing. ... I did my thing in practice, earned an opportunity to play so I took it."
With LoDuca, and fellow first-timers Berk Demirci and Joey Jonke, on the line, Mentor piled up 300 yards of offense on the Blue Devils. Quarterback Scotty Fox threw for 268 yards and five touchdowns with the makeshift offensive line in front of him.
"Jojo, a 14-year old freshman, made his first varsity start and (sophomore) and Demirci didn't find out until (the day before the game) he'd be starting," Gray said after the game. "I'm really proud of the way the guys stepped up."
Gray raved of LoDuca and his ceiling — if he has one — as an offensive lineman. He said the Mentor offensive game plan package didn't change at all despite the youth on the line.
"(The mental part) is huge," Gray said. "It's not like freshman ball when you just say, 'Hey, go block that guy.' Jojo plays hard. When you do that and you're smart like he is, you've got a chance to be really good, especially when you have a frame like he does."
LoDuca said he chatted at length with his brother Benny, who was a starting defensive lineman the past two years at Mentor before graduating this past spring.
"He talked to me a lot and taught me things, the mental things, to help me get through it," LoDuca said.
Gray said the three linemen missing at the Brunswick game will eventually return to action, but added LoDuca isn't going anywhere. His days of freshman and maybe JV football are over.
"He's really good. He's staying with us," Gray said.
Which is fine with LoDuca.
"I just want to play some more," he said. "I'm excited."
