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Ertz-Luck reunion on Monday night

Eagles tight end Zach Ertz and the Colts quarterback Andrew Luck were teammates at Stanford and remain friends.

Zach Ertz and Andrew Luck are former Stanford teammates who will line up on opposite sides of the field on Monday night.
Zach Ertz and Andrew Luck are former Stanford teammates who will line up on opposite sides of the field on Monday night.Read moreAssociated Press photos

ANDREW LUCK phoned Zach Ertz last week and the former Stanford teammates wished each other luck in their season openers. They also discussed meeting up before Monday night's game at Lucas Oil Stadium, where for the first time in each of their burgeoning professional careers they will play as opponents.

Luck, the Colts' third-year quarterback, and Ertz, the Eagles' second-year tight end, are rising stars at their respective positions. Their talent was apparent early in each of their careers at Stanford, where they connected nine times for touchdowns in two seasons on the field together, in 2010 and 2011.

"I've been blessed in quarterback play, to say the least," Ertz said. "Andrew and Nick [Foles], I mean c'mon, you can't really get much better than that.

"In college we knew Andrew was special. Even before [when] I was getting recruited, they redshirted Andrew his freshman year and [the coaches] were saying, 'You come here we're going to have someone special throwing you the ball.' That kind of led toward my decision as well and obviously he's done so well."

Luck, 24, and Ertz, 23, developed a good friendship throughout their days in Palo Alto, Calif. One year, they were neighbors. They took a lot of the same classes, the star quarterback an architectural design major, the tight end working toward a management science and engineering degree.

"I was trying to keep up with him in the academic side," said Ertz, who worked out with his former QB this past offseason back at their alma mater. "He's real, real smart."

Monday's game will feature a heavy dose of Stanford, even beyond Luck and Ertz. One of Luck's tight ends is another of his targets from college, Coby Fleener, a second-round draft pick in 2012. Former Stanford wide receiver Griff Whalen also plays for Indianapolis.

Pep Hamilton is the Colts' offensive coordinator. Before joining Chuck Pagano's staff before last season, Hamilton spent 3 years on Stanford's coaching staff, his last 2 as offensive coordinator in what were Ertz's last two collegiate seasons.

Ertz said after practice yesterday he thinks he could remember pretty much all of Hamilton's offense. He offered to answer questions about the system to guys on the defensive side of the ball, if needed.

"It's going to be fun playing against them on Monday night," he said, "but at the end of the day all I care about is getting this win."

Ertz could be primed for another big game. Julius Thomas, the Broncos' standout tight end, torched the Colts' defense this past Sunday night for three second-quarter touchdowns on consecutive drives.

The Eagles will surely try to exploit any holes in the Colts' defense they gleaned from film of the opener in Denver. Thomas caught seven of his eight targets from Peyton Manning for 104 yards.

On his first touchdown, on a third-and-goal from the 3-yard line, Thomas beat Colts inside linebacker Jerrell Freeman on a short slant from left to right. His second came from 35 yards out, on a first-and-10 play-action call that saw the tight end beat veteran inside linebacker D'Qwell Jackson across the middle, haul in the pass and run 20 yards down the left sideline. A quick, 5-yard slant in single coverage against safety LaRon Landry accounted for his third score. Thomas was split out as a wide receiver on the play, on which the Colts had seven defenders in the box.

"He made a lot of plays," Ertz said of Thomas. "He was able to go over there and get the ball. He ran a go route on the outside on one of the plays and was able to make a great play down the left side of the field. The linebackers and safety are going to be matched up probably against me again so I've got to make the most of those opportunities."

In the Eagles' season-opening win against the Jaguars, Ertz caught three passes running up the right seam - gains of 26 yards, 25 yards and 26 yards - scoring on the second catch when he ran right between two linebackers and hauled in Foles' pass while falling backward into the end zone.

Pass-catching comes naturally to Ertz, but striving in the offseason to become a more complete tight end, he has progressed with his run-blocking. Against the Jaguars he played 61 percent of the team's offensive snaps (53 of 87), six less snaps than Brent Celek. He said yesterday he feels faster and the game has slowed down to the point where "I'm able to set guys up in my routes maybe, per se, whereas last year I was just almost running the lines on the paper that they would draw up for me."

"Well, I think as you see him evolve as a player, we certainly wouldn't have gotten that out of him first game last year," offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur said of Ertz's expanded role this season. "So I think it's safe to say, he's made huge improvements.

"He did a good job blocking in the running game. The way we were trying to run the football, the tight end cutting off the back side of the defense was huge and they had to do it against some big, physical guys and so all the tight ends did a good job from that standpoint. So he's developed. It's safe to say he's really developing as a player."

Monday night presents Ertz a chance to show that once again, this time with three former teammates and a former coordinator watching from the opposing sideline.