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Nampa defensive lineman Ruben Martinez sheds a blocker during drills at practice on Thursday at the Bulldog Bowl. Martinez and the Bulldogs play at Twin Falls tonight in the first round of the 4A state playoffs. It is the third consecutive season Nampa has advanced to the state tournament.
Charlie Litchfield/IPT
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Bruce Mason
bmason@idahopress.com
Friday, November 6th, 2009

NAMPA — The Chicago Bears famously used it with William "The Refrigerator" Perry. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers followed later, experimenting with Warren Sapp. And now, Nampa High is the latest team to transform a defensive lineman into a touchdown-scoring fullback, using junior Ruben Martinez as another dimension in its run-sizzling offense.

Powerful. Athletic. Formidable. The 260-pound nose guard/fullback is a dual threat, playing an integral defensive role with his team-leading 5.5 sacks, and by scoring four rushing touchdowns in the "trio" offensive formation— good enough for third best on the team.

The Nampa junior — nicknamed Baloo, which derives from the happy-go-lucky bear in Disney's "The Jungle Book" — played a big role in pushing the Bulldogs into the 4A state playoffs for the third consecutive year.

Nampa (6-3) plays at Twin Falls (5-4) at 7 tonight.

"He's a big ol' bear," Nampa senior Mike Boyd says. "He plays like a bear, he looks like a bear, but he's always got a smile on his face."

Especially when he crunches an opposing ball carrier.

Martinez chuckles when acknowledging his favorite football feeling: hitting someone as hard as he possibly can. "Just nailing him," he laughs. But equally as impressive as his mammoth ability to fight through double teams, sack quarterbacks and compile tackles-for-loss statistics while playing nose guard, is his ability to move nimbly at fullback.

Whenever Martinez does get the call in the huddle, quarterback Hayden Wright simply tucks the ball into Martinez's midsection, then watches the 6-foot-1, 260-pounder run through would-be tacklers like a bowling ball plowing through pins.

"I just sit there and laugh," Wright said. "I love it.

"People don't expect him to move as quickly as he does, just because he's so big. But for a big guy that weighs 260, 270 — he moves.

"(He's) like a bull in the ring."

Martinez's bulldozing antics provide another facet to the Bulldogs' offense.

There's tailback Mahonri Bostrom, who can juke, spin and run past defenders. He led the 4A SIC with 1,788 yards and 19 TDs. There's Wright, who racked up 660 yards and nine touchdowns on the ground and 683 yards and seven touchdowns passing. And then there's Martinez, who's nifty big-man abilities have accumulated 63 yards on 17 carries and four touchdowns through Nampa's "trio" formation.

The aforementioned three-back power attack is used in various places across the football field, not just in goal-line situations, and it ultimately gives opposing defenses another concern.

"You always wanna have a little bit of a balance," Nampa coach Scott Wooldridge said.

"Ruben's just an athletic kid. He's not just a big slow guy.

"He's a big body and hard to bring down."

Nampa middle linebacker Trechor Kinikini echoes those sentiments. He knows the feeling of trying to tackle Martinez in practice.

The question is: What does Kinikini do when Martinez rumbles into his run-stopping territory?

"Close my eyes, drop as low as I can, and hope he doesn't crush me," Kinikini said. "Ruben's a big boy."

And a gentle giant.

Martinez plays alongside Daylan Lake on the defensive line, and either Lake or Martinez usually draw double-team blocks from opposing offenses. When those situations occur, they create one-on-one matchups for the other player.

The two joke with one another about who's going to reach the quarterback first.

"We keep our high level of intensity, but we always play happy, though," Lake said. "Ruben is an all-around happy guy. He doesn't play angry."

It may appear that way when he receives a handoff and plows through would-be tacklers like a bull in a china shop — ala Perry and Sapp  —  but that's not the case. After all, he has that nickname Baloo for a reason.

"He's just always smiling," Boyd said. "He's always got a smile on his face."