If you're a neutral FCS football fan, you should be hoping for a North Dakota–San Diego playoff matchup. For starters, these are two very good teams. Fighting Hawks are lead the Big Sky at 8-2 (7-0), and the Toreros are at the top of the Pioneer league with a record of 7-1 (6-0), so you know you'll get some good football. But another intriguing factor? You'd get to see twin brothers face off.
Jacob Arnell catches passes in sunny southern California as a wide receiver for USD. His brother Zach stops people from catching passes in maybe not-so-sunny North Dakota as a safety for UND.
As stark as their climatological and positional differences are, they're only the beginning of the list of things that differentiates this pair. The Arnell brothers are fraternal twins. Zach is four inches taller and weighs at least twenty pounds more.
"Yeah, we don't even look alike," Zach laughed.
(We'll let you be the judge — Jacob is pictured right, courtesy of USD, Zach is pictured left courtesy of UND).
Both brothers transferred to their respective schools after playing at Santa Barbara City College for two years. Santa Barbara was an ideal choice for the pair, as it's only three hours north of San Diego, where they grew up.
"I was trying to just get out of there," said Zach. "We saw a trend going on, where people stay in San Diego and drop out of school and don't really do anything."
So he decided to get about as far away from San Diego as you can get: North Dakota.
The decision to play thousands of miles from his friends and family wasn't easy, but Zach didn't actually realize how tough it would be until the separation had already happened.
"I've been playing with him on the same team my entire life since I was 3 years old," Zach said. "It's like natural, I'm not thinking about him being on my team. It set in that we wouldn't be on the same team when I played a whole extra year at community college than him because I redshirted my freshman year. That's when it really set in.
"I'm obviously close to a lot of my teammates but having my brother on my team it's different, and I didn't realize it until we went our separate ways, it's just a different feeling that I can't explain."
Teams are often described as a brotherhood of sorts, but they'll never be as close as actual brothers — especially when those brothers are also teammates.
With such a bond there also comes a little bit of sibling rivalry as well.
"Yeah, I know there's definitely siblings that are just as competitive as us and all that but we're very competitive- especially with football. I'm always telling him if we do play each other in playoffs, we probably text about this every week, how I'm going to beat him and I'll give him reasons and he does the same. He plays slot receiver and I play safety so we'll definitely be matched up in different times of the game."
Jacob Arnell, wide receiver for the San Diego Toreros. (San Diego Athletics)
If that happens, expect it to be one of the best matchups in the playoffs. Zach agrees.
"I obviously have the size and the strength," he said. "But he has the shiftiness and he's quick and runs really good routes. I'm not going to sit here and say I'm going to beat him every time, he's going to get his and I'm going to get mine. Even in practice, everyone would look to see who would win because it's twin on twin. I can't even imagine how it would feel in a legit playoff game covering my brother when it means something instead of just a practice drill."
The sibling rivalry and competition is a big part of why Zach feels his game has developed so much since high school.
"I mean, in high school, he was better than me. I'm not saying that he's not better than me now, but he was in high school. He had that quick step and I was a tall, lankier kind of guy so actually at junior college I redshirted my first year. When I redshirted and he played, I grinded really hard in that offseason and after grinding I could tell the difference in my game. That competitiveness is what drove me because I wasn't trying to be the twin brother that didn't make it, I wasn't going to let that happen."
In his second year at Santa Barbara, Zach tore his labrum and it required surgery to fix it. He arrived on North Dakota's campus in January 2015, but spent all of his time in the physical therapy room rehabbing. Then after he finally got his shoulder right and was fit to play, he suffered a gruesome injury in North Dakota's third game last season against North Dakota State.
"One of their tight ends was trailing me the entire play. I was waiting for the running back to cut my way just in case. The same exact time as a tackle happened the tight end came up behind me and he cut me from the back. He put all of his weight on my lower right shin, and it dislocated my ankle and I fractured my fibula."
You never want to see an athlete get injured, but Zach's injury was even more heartbreaking because he had just recovered from another major injury.
"I've been in the physical therapy room more than I've been on the field here. The recovery on the ankle was a lot different for me, they're both pretty major but the fact that I couldn't walk made it rough. A lot of people said that I wouldn't be able to play at this level again or the level that I played at before the injury so in the back of my head that was another motivation for me."
But these struggles and challenges help define Zach Arnell the football player. Now that he and his brother are on the field, contributing to their teams, he says this is his favorite year of football so far.
"It's been special for my mom because she's had us in sports ever since we were in diapers basically, so to see us playing at this level and accomplishing goals, I feel like she thinks all her hard work has paid off in the long run."
Fingers crossed we can watch all of their hard work pay off with a playoff run that would lead them back to each other.
