Welcome To The Shark Tank

Quarterbacks that have played against Linfield's defense understand the feeling of getting put on their back. For a long time Linfield has been an aggressive and physical defense that gets to quarterbacks often.  However, the past three seasons Linfield's defensive sack numbers have exploded to the heights where Linfield has been the top sacking team in all of Division III in 2010 (49 sacks), 2011 (47 sacks), and 2012 (63 sacks).  In fact, Linfield has twice led all of the NCAA in team sacks (2010 & 2012) and has the most sacks in the country over the past three seasons (159 sacks).

Fans of the 'Cats might have noticed some shark fins popping up on the field after big plays and that's for a good reason.  A few of the players on the team coined the nickname of "Shark Tank" during the 2011 season and that name has been embraced by the 'Cats.

I'll let Linfield All-American Defensive End Brynnan Hyland explain:

"When Kyle Wright, Tyler Murphy, Nick Popma, and myself lived in a quad in Miller last year we were trying to come up with a name for the room. One night, all of us, plus Tyler Robitaille and Kel Poomaihealani, were watching a terrible shark movie (I can't remember the name but it was horribly campy) and I said we should call the room the "Shark Tank". Because we always had a bunch of football guys in the room the name carried over to practice and we started being referred to as the Shark Tank guys. Finally in the Willamette game throwing up the fin caught on as a celebration. After that game it took on a life of its own and the rest of the defense picked up on it. That's the birth of The Shark Tank."

One note I do want to make is that the video is a QB grinding video but a crew that deserves their fair share of the credit are the Linfield defensive backs.  The 'Cats have had a tremendous secondary over the past 4 seasons and made QB's hold onto the ball a number of times a little longer than they want.  The end result are more chances in getting to the QB.  The video won't show it but they also deserve their fair share of credit.