<
        >

          Pac-12 Blog

          Stuck in an elevator with Zach Banner and the USC offensive line

          • David Lombardi, ESPN Staff WriterApr 23, 2016, 03:34 AM
            Close
            • Covers the Pac-12
            • Joined ESPN.com in 2014
            • Graduate of Stanford University
            Follow on X

          USC's Zach Banner is 6-foot-9. He weighs 360 pounds. He and seven of his Trojans offensive-line cohorts went off campus to Redondo Beach, California, on Friday night to dine with their O-line coach. The group of large men crammed into one elevator.

          You can probably already guess where this story is headed: The elevator got stuck. Its weight limit was 2,500 pounds; the eight linemen on board estimated that they combined to weigh about 700 pounds over that.

          "We were on the fifth floor and it got stuck in between the fourth and fifth floors," Jordan Austin, one of the lineman aboard, said. "We didn't make it very far."

          So Banner, known as one of the Trojans' funniest players, immediately began documenting the ordeal inside the stalled conveyance.

          The fire department showed up with drinks and snacks.

          That didn't end the struggle, though. Not surprisingly, the temperature inside the elevator increased as firefighters worked on their rescue.

          The Trojans managed to find some humor in the predicament, laying down some vocals for Banner to tweet at ESPN.

          By the time of this final video, sweat is clearly trickling down Banner's face, and his phone seems about to die. This doesn't look fun at all.

          In a tweet time-stamped at 7:28 p.m. PT, Banner finally announced that the linemen had emerged safely.

          So, based on that and the time stamp of Banner's first tweet from inside the elevator (6:29 p.m. PT), we can surmise that the Trojans linemen were stuck in that hot, small space for about an hour.

          At least summer conditioning will seem breezy by comparison now.

          By the way, this isn't the first time that a crew of Pac-12 players has gotten stuck in an elevator and provided social-media updates about the situation. It happened to Oregon in October, and receiver Devon Allen had a Twitter field day with the experience. The USC linemen win this round, though.