Going into Rutgers Football's training camp in 2023, the wide expectation was that center Ireland Brown - who started 11 of the 12 games in 2022 in the middle - would keep his spot among the quintet in the trenches.
Gus Zilinskas, then a junior with ten games and three starts under his belt, changed that.
He won the job for the season opener against Northwestern, and two All-Big Ten honorable mentions later, never looked back.
Now in 2025, Zilinskas heads into his third straight year as the anchor in the middle of a vastly improved offensive line, with a backup who may be new to the Scarlet Knights, but is all the more familiar with his starting counterpart.
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After two years at Colorado working with head coach Deion Sanders and star quarterback Shadeur Sanders, Hank Zilinskas opted to enter the transfer portal. In 2023, he played in 11 games - with two starts - as a true freshman, before starting the Buffaloes' first nine games as a sophomore in 2024.
He announced his intent to enter late on New Year's Eve - around 9:00 pm on the East Coast, to be exact.
Within 12 hours, he was introduced as a Scarlet Knight.
The elder Zilinskas saw the move as a realized dream across the country from his home state of Colorado.
"I kind of always wanted to play with at least one of my brothers," he said. "It's cool to be able to have that opportunity at the collegiate level."
Head coach Greg Schiano agreed.
"To have Hank here is huge for [Gus]," he said. "They're such a close-knit family, and I know he's excited for his little brother. Nothing would make him more happy [than] if you could have a stretch of years where Zilinskas was the name at center."
In the midst of that stretch, the senior starter has taken on a leadership role, as the unit returns four starters from 2024.
The one departure, however, is a key one. Left tackle Hollin Pierce, headed for the NFL, leaves big shoes to fill - figuratively and literally at 6-foot-8 - but Zilinskas believes in the unit in place, as well as the younger players waiting in the wings.
"We got a lot of young guys that are hungry and competing," he said. "We recognize that last year is in the past, none of that stuff matters, it's a new year, new day every single day, and we're focused on just chopping the moment every single day."
Along with the returning starters in the trenches, the offense's continuity remains at the most important position, with quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis going into his second season as the Scarlet Knights' starting signal-caller. Kaliakmanis has formed a strong bond with the entire offensive line, including his center.
"He's one of my great friends," Zilinskas said. "Obviously as the quarterback and center, but he's really stepped up since he got here, I've gotten to know him pretty well both on and off the field. It's good to have him back and have his leadership around."
The 6-foot-2, 309-pounder has seen his production methodically increase since taking over the starting job. According to Pro Football Focus, his total grade of 68.7 ranked ninth in the Big Ten among centers with at least 20% of a team's blocking snaps. That figure is also an increase from both 2023 and 2022 while playing the third-most snaps in the conference.
"Gus has really just made steady, steady improvement," Schiano said. "Both physically, understanding the position and our offense... He's working hard to be better himself. Now he's one of the upperclassmen, he's one of the guys that has to step up as a leader, and he's doing that."
Not only do the four returning starters all have at least a season of Big Ten experience under their belt, all four have spent at least four years in the program. Zilinskas, tackle Tyler Needham, and guard Bryan Felter are all redshirt seniors, and guard Kobe Asamoah is a redshirt junior.
That experience certainly helps on the field, but arguably it has a greater impact off the field. Offensive line coach Pat Flaherty quipped that sometimes the players in the group are tougher on their own counterparts than he is.
"The standard is the standard," Zilinskas said, echoing one of the program's main pillars. "When you can convey that to the young guys pretty early, the faster they get it, the better off they're going to be. My goal at the end of the day is to leave this place in a better spot when I leave than it was when I got here. To be able to pass that on to the younger guys, and have those younger guys to raise the bar even higher, it's definitely something special."
With Flaherty and offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca leading the way for their third years with the program, it can also help open up a new perspective in learning the offense.
"You start to understand a lot more of the offense," Zilinskas noted. "You start to understand more of the 'why's' and how everything fits together, versus just here's the guys you're going to block and here's the routes you're going to run."
As the older two brothers suit up in Scarlet, the rest of the Zilinskas family heads east as well. After his career at Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, Colorado, Ned Zilinskas, another center and the youngest of the trio, committed to play at Princeton, just down Route 1. All three brothers will be playing Division I college football in the Garden State.
"If you would've told me four or five years ago that all three of us would've been in New Jersey, I would've been like, 'Where's New Jersey?'" Zilinskas joked. "It's definitely cool to have both of my brothers out here."
Despite originally hailing from Colorado, college football in New Jersey has become a Zilinskas family affair, and the oldest has blossomed into a Big Ten standout, and a leader for Rutgers.
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