DIXFIELD — Dirigo senior Bryce Whittemore said his favorite quote is. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

Replace “dog” with “cougar” and you start to understand where Whittemore is coming from.

Whittemore doesn’t look like a prototypical offensive guard, and you can say the same for most of his fellow linemates. But that’s where Whittemore’s favorite quote comes into play.

“I feel like no matter what size we are, we have some of the biggest hearts and the most intensity,” Whittemore said. “I feel like that kind of outweighs some of the lines that we’ve faced. Our tenacity and stuff definitely helps outweigh our size.”

“We wouldn’t be able to do what we’ve done this year without high-character kids. I think we got great character across the front, and the whole team,” Dirigo coach Jim Hersom said. “To play on a line, you got to have good character kids. I mean, it’s tough in there, right? You may get beat one play, but the next play you bounce right back and you get the next one. You don’t do that without character kids, and we think we got a good offensive line.”

Junior tackle Dalton Berry said playing line is sometimes more about mental will than physical strength.

“You need to know that you can go out there and no matter how big the guy is across from you, you’re going to win that,” Berry said. “You’re going to win the battle every time. You got to think that in your head.”

And that’s coming from one of the Cougars’ bigger lineman.

“Dalton’s not too tiny … but there’s definitely some smaller guys on there that are busting their (butt) every day to make up for that,” Whittemore said.

And to add insult to injury, the Cougars not only are relatively small in stature, but also small in numbers, with just 19 players currently on the roster. And they haven’t been the picture of perfect health, meaning that number has shrunk on some game days.

“It’s fairly tough, but I think the low numbers that we have, the people that aren’t already in that starting order, they’ve been paying attention all year, they know exactly what they need to do at any situation,” Whittemore said. “So we have people that are ready to go in any time we need them. Those people that aren’t playing in there, they have multiple positions in their mind ready, so any time someone’s out anywhere they can jump right in and fill in.”

Berry added that the only bonus for having smaller numbers is the familiarity that the players have with each other. They’ve all been playing together for a while, and there’s not much adjustment needed when the line gets shuffled.

Another area where the Cougars have been small in numbers at times has been on the scoreboard. Dirigo has been shut out, scored just one touchdown once and two touchdowns twice. Part of that is by the design of the offense.

“I don’t think is a team that we’re going to wow people,” Hersom said. “I just think it’s going to be, we’re going to try to run the football. We knew this time of year you’re going to have to run the football. We take that challenge that we’re going to be a ball-control team.”

The Cougars will be tested Friday night, when they take on a Winthrop/Monmouth team in a rematch of a 14-6 Dirigo loss. Whittemore said the key will be for the team is “just staying tough and together.”

“We got to have a little bit of anger and a little bit of hunger in us, too,” he added.

There will be plenty of both in these Cougars, who are out to prove that they’re not the underdogs they appear to be.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com