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Offensive line might be the toughest position in college football to earn a starting job as a true freshman.
Ben Gula isn’t worried about history, though. He’s coming to Colorado next month with confidence.
“I definitely think year one, I’ll be a contributor,” said Gula, who signed with CU last week. He is set to graduate from Cypress Bay (Florida) High School and enroll at CU in January.
Since freshmen became eligible in 1972, only 16 have made starts at CU on the offensive line. Only three of those were centers, but all three of those have been recent. Van Wells was the first true freshman to start games at center for CU, in 2022 (six starts), while Hank Zilinskas made two starts in 2023 and Cash Cleveland made four starts in 2024.
Gula is hoping to join that group, and he knows there’s a spot open with this year’s starting center, Zarian McGill, graduating. He also knows it won’t be easy to win the job.
“If it’s not in it for me, which I believe it is, I still want to contribute to the guy in front of me, the guy behind me,” he said. “I just want to make everybody better because at the end of the day, I’m a football player at the University of Colorado, not just an individual.”
The 6-foot-5, 285-pound Gula was a four-year starter at Cypress Bay, starting 41 games overall and allowing just one sack in over 1,500 pass protection snaps. Mainly a left tackle, Gula has played all over the line and said CU projects him as a center.
“(I’ve been working on) footwork, pad level, just everything I can to ready myself,” he said. “I’m going to have some great coaching this spring here. … I’ve definitely done my best to be as explosive and ready as I can.”
A basketball player through much of his youth, Gula realized during his freshman year of high school that football could provide a better path to the future. Gula earned a start on varsity in the second game of his freshman year and took off from there.
“(Coaches) just kind of told me if I put some weight on, I’d be a real force to be reckoned with,” he said. “Ever since then, I’ve just done everything I can to be the best player I can.”
Gula recorded more than 250 pancake blocks during his prep career, and his smile beamed when asked what he likes about being a lineman.
“It’s amazing. I love it,” he said. “Being able to show that I can go out there and have a 20- or 25-pancake game and just completely dominate the people in front of me, it’s amazing. You know, what else can you really ask for? I enjoyed every single second of it and will continue to enjoy every single second of it because that’s what I want to learn how to do against some legit competition.”
Gula powered through some out-matched opponents in high school, but said he’s looking forward to going against his CU teammates in the spring.
“I’m very excited to see where I can stack out against those people,” he said. “I’m going to get dominated sometimes. Maybe I’ll dominate them. But I just want to have that fierceness and aggression through everything I have. I know I’m going to fail. I know I’ll have a lot of success. But just being able to go out there every day and do what I can is really what I aspire to do.”
Gula said he has studied the game quite a bit and looks forward to learning more about the game when he gets to CU.
“It’s strategic and blocking is not 100% always going to be flat-out through the roof, you’re going to try to run your face through this guy and blow him over,” he said. “It’s a lot more technical than a lot of people give credit to it. But I’m very excited.”
Gula had 21 scholarship offers, but he said CU stood out because of the overall environment, and the coaching he’ll get in the offensive line room.
“I think if more kids really realized how great Colorado really can be, especially the offensive line room, a lot of kids would commit here and a lot of other kids would be here,” he said. “But, you know, they’ll see eventually.”
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Brian Howell
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