Up Close & Personal: Offensive lineman Bryce Effner
By the time Bryce Effner lacerated his spleen – an injury he now describes as a “fluke” that put him on bedrest for four days – the offensive lineman had already secured a spot in Penn State’s Class of 2018.
He was OK there. Effner had already earned his scholarship offer, plus a dozen others, during his junior year. There was one night in particular that Metea Valley High coach Ben Kleinhans said “really put him on the map.”
But 10 months after that game, the Aurora, Ill., prospect found himself in a buddy’s car heading to the hospital after a summer scrimmage because something just didn’t feel right. He had been blocking someone, just as he had been trained to do. “I pancaked the hell out of this kid,” Effner recalled, “and when I landed on him, I just felt something, kind of like, ‘Boom.’ Whoa, what was that?”
He initially thought he had hurt his collarbone, but he wasn’t sure. He rode the team bus home and toughed it out. Toughing it out, after all, was how he had gotten himself on the radar of college coaches in the first place. Effner had been attracting attention from smaller schools as a sophomore, but then he gained 50 pounds and spurted two inches in one year. At 6-foot-5, 265 pounds, he found that the discussions about his future were starting to heat up, and they continued to gain steam when the Mustangs traveled to Lake Park in late September of his junior season.
Effner was starting at left tackle. Across the line of scrimmage was defensive lineman Jacub Panasiuk, who was committed to Michigan State. Panasiuk also had multiple offers under his belt, including one from Penn State. Looking back at it now, Effner remembers the clash with Lake Park as “my favorite game that I ever played in my entire time in high school.”
But when the ball was first snapped, it was Panasiuk, a senior and one year older than Effner, who got the upper hand.
“He got me the first couple minutes,” Effner said. “I wasn’t used to it. Then I was just like, all right. I [switched to] an angry mood and I said I’m not going to let this happen. Then it was just a battle the whole game, and I thought I came out on top at the end of the game, which was a huge confidence booster.”
That night, he helped lift his team to a 27-19 victory, neutralizing the defense’s best player. It was a special moment for both Effner and Kleinhans, because wins had been hard to come by at Metea Valley, a high school that opened in 2009. During Effner’s junior and senior seasons, the Mustangs won only four games. But following the victory over Lake Park, Kleinhans began fielding more calls from college coaches than before. Before their eyes, Effner was becoming the school’s first major-college football recruit.
“He brought more schools and coaches here than any player we’ve ever had,” Kleinhans said. “I cannot think of a better person to represent our school and program.”
Bowling Green was the first to offer right after his junior season ended. Then a host other Mid-American Conference schools followed. Once Effner hit the road in the spring, coaches got a firsthand evaluation to go along with his highlight film. Kansas was the first Power Five school to offer, a first-ever at Metea. The next was Penn State.
The Lions’ offer came two days after Effner first visited PSU. Offers from Duke, Minnesota and Syracuse soon followed, but he knew right away that Penn State’s scholarship was the one he wanted. “It was just a huge event in my life when that dropped on me,” Effner said.
He verbally committed about a month and a half later, and the conversation quickly shifted, as observers began to speculate about what position he’ll play at the college level. The discussion is ongoing.
“Tackle would obviously be my preferred position, but Coach [Matt] Limegrover made it seem very possible that I could play both [tackle and guard],” Effner said. “He said my body type was perfect to be a swing guy who can fit in at any position, which at first I was worried about. Then he explained that also means I have a higher probability of coming in as quick as possible and filling in at a position that opens up, so I was excited about that.”
First, it’s likely that he’ll be asked to bulk up. A redshirt is likely in the offing. He weighs about 275 pounds and is working with a personal trainer who helps him focus on Penn State’s strength training program, along with footwork and fundamentals. It’s possible, however, without last summer’s freak injury, he could weigh even more.
It wasn’t a broken collarbone after all. It was instead a ruptured spleen.
When it’s injured, the spleen sends jolts of pain through the phrenic nerve in the chest/shoulder area, a symptom known as Kehr’s sign. It was scary at the time, but Effner looks back on that experience as a relatively minor setback on his way to becoming a Big Ten offensive lineman. He couldn’t lift weights for six weeks and was held out of contact drills for eight, thus missing the first three games of the season. By the time he was cleared to play again, he had lost some of the weight he had worked so hard to add.
“That was probably one of the biggest [effects],” Effner said. “I think that’s probably one of the main reasons I’m 275 now, but I lost all the bad weight when I was sick. ... Then I just [regained] as much muscle as possible.”
Leaner now, Effner says he feels lighter on his feet than ever before, even compared to when he was a 170-pound fullback in junior high. Kleinhans describes him as “a great athlete for his size” and predicts that “Bryce still has a lot of room on his frame” to grow and maintain his skill set.
“He has great feet and flexibility to go along with outstanding reach and strength,” Kleinhans added. “Once he gets his hands on you, he is in control. He takes pride in finishing blocks and he is always looking for the next guy.”
And there should be no concern that last summer’s injury will have any lingering effects. “No complications, no long-term stuff,” Effner said. “Just a stupid little thing that happened to me.”