High school football players getting too big?

[Taualumna]

From today's Toronto Star:

If size matters, the senior football team at Trinity College School has an offensive line for the ages.

In fact, the five starting linemen at the private boarding school in Port Hope are believed to be one of the biggest in provincial high school history.

They are so big — an average of 273 pounds — they nearly match up with the defending Grey Cup-champion Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League

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I come from a land of the Polynesian power, where the average size of an offensive lineman is 300+ lbs. Of course, obesity is something to always be concerned about, but considering it's in their genes that they're large, no one really gets alarmed.

[AchtungBaby80]

Whoa, that's a far cry from how it used to be...my stepdad's about 5'7" and was teeny tiny in high school (his old letter sweater fits me) and he was on the football team!

[ISUKappa]

If the high school has a good coach/weight program and kids with good genes, they're going to be bigger players.

Husband was 6'4" 225 in high school because he went to a small school. Good team, there just wasn't an established weight program for the football players. After his first year of college ball, he was up to 285 (and this was only at a DIII school).

One of the guys with which he used to play semi-pro ball is the weights coach at a local high school here and I'm guessing those kids are getting the workout of their life.

[KSigkid]

A lot of it is what position you play; if you're an O-lineman or D-lineman, you're expected to be bigger than the backs or receivers.

Also, is 273 considered average for CFL linemen? In the NFL (and NFL Europe), linemen are on average about 20 pounds larger. Heck, Boston College's O-line only has one member under 290.

The fact is that colleges (from D-1 to D-3) want their linemen to be big. If you're a top high school player, you're going to want to be big to attract that attention. One of the guys who went on to play D3 from my high school was up to around 230-240, and he was a linebacker/safety. I was friends with a few of the O-linemen, and they were all in the 250 and above range.

It is getting to be a problem in the NFL though, where guys are in the 330-340 range and are breaking down to the point where they can't function after football. I'm wondering if there will be a breaking point where the numbers start to go backwards.