Prep notebook: Up and down season for city grid teams
Half the city’s high school football teams made the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs this year, but the 2011 season had a decidedly glass half-empty feeling.
For the first time in decades, Armijo and Fairfield played in the season finale to see which would finish last in the Monticello Empire League and had just three wins between them, their lowest combined total since they had three in 1968.
Vanden and Rodriguez played one of the most thrilling games in city history, a 54-49 nail-biter won by the Vikings in the final 5 seconds. Both teams made the playoffs, but both were drilled in the first round and had long bus rides home to figure out what went wrong.
Rodriguez had the added distraction of not rehiring John Bent, who’d coached the Mustangs to an improbable Solano County Athletic Conference title in 2010, his only season at the helm, and replacing him with Jason Ott, who was seemingly under fire from upset parents from the second he got the job.
The biggest problem was that Ott wasn’t hired until July — an absurdly late date to get yourself a football coach — and he was playing catchup from day one. As unorganized as the Mustangs sometimes looked and whatever disagreements there were over Ott’s coaching style, they lost all they games they should’ve lost and won one more than they should’ve, upsetting Benicia in the SCAC opener.
Figuring out who the Rodriguez coach is going to be in 2012 — since Ott’s an off-campus coach, the process is ponderous — should have started the second the Mustangs finished their postgame handshakes with Pleasant Grove on Thursday.
If it’s Ott or if the school decides to go with its fifth head coach in five years, never a good idea, they and their players deserve to have an entire offseason preparing for 2012.
But next season is still nine months away. Here’s a look at the best and worst for 2011 for each city team:
Armijo
The Indians snapped a city-record 17-game losing streak by beating Valley 29-13 on Sept. 9, but they ended the year with an eight-game skid, tied for the sixth-longest in school history, and have dropped a school-record 23 straight MEL games.
On the plus side, the 19 rushing yards and 72 total yards allowed to Valley were fifth- and tied for fifth-lowest, respectively, in school history.
As you might expect, the negatives are many for the Indians, such as a 62-0 loss to Napa ranking as both their second-biggest margin of defeat and shutout loss.
Let’s look at a few of those negatives that show Armijo is heading in the right direction.
The 637 rushing yards by the Indians ranks second-worst in school hsitory — to last year’s 626. The 392 points allowed are fifth-most, last year’s 465 the most. The Indians also showed improvement in rushing yards allowed (2,508, seventh-most, compared to last year’s 2,753, the most) and total yards allowed (3,781, fourth-most, compared to last year’s 3,812, third-most).
Keep in mind that last year a running clock was employed in seven games, which kept opposing team’s stats down, compared to five running clocks this season.
Sometimes silver linings take on odd shapes.
Fairfield
The only notable statistical positive for the Falcons was their 42-0 blanking of Vallejo, which ranks as the ninth-biggest shutout in school history.
Challenged both offensively and defensively, the 172 points scored by Fairfield were its fewest since amassing 171 in 2002. The 300 points the Falcons allowed ranks seventh.
The 2-8 record was Fairfield’s worst since going 2-8 in 2006, but losses to Bethel, Rodriguez and Vintage were by a combined 11 points. Turn those three games around and you have one of the most improbable playoff qualifiers in the section.
Rodriguez
Befitting a talented team that had less than two months with its coach before the season began, the Mustangs had some of their best and worst games ever in 2011.
Rodriguez’s 48-6 win over Vallejo ranks as the second-biggest margin of victory in school history, the 34-0 blanking of Armijo as the fourth-biggest shutout.
City and school records aren’t available for defensive stats, but Nathan Dollar’s 18 sacks, including six against Fairfield, ranks as one of the best defensive seasons ever in this area.
On offense, Myles Burton’s 174 yards rushing against Vacaville and 172 against Vanden rank sixth and seventh, respectively, on the school single-game list. His 978 yards, just 22 shy of 1,000, are fourth-best, his 1,594 career yards also ranking fourth. His 114 career points put him sixth.
Burton’s four 100-yard games are sixth on the single-season list, his seven overall 100-yard games tied for fourth — with Stevie Johnson, now of the Buffalo Bills — on the career list.
With quarterback Jordan Riggins chipping in 610 yards on the ground, the Mustangs finished with 2,459 yards rushing, third-most in school history.
Riggins struggled at times at quarterback, but persevered throughout and threw for 216 yards, third-most in school history, in the upset of Benicia.
On the down side, the Mustangs gave up 352 points, second only to the 414 surrendered during the school’s inaugural campaign in 2002, and the 736 passing yards were second-lowest.
As turbulent a year as it was for Rodriguez, it extended its streak of making the playoffs to six seasons, second-longest in city history to Vanden’s nine from 1994-2002.
Vanden
The only team to make a dent on all-time city marks was Vanden, led by quarterback Ben Scott.
The UC Davis-bound senior set city career marks for attempts (758), completions (436), yards (7,154), touchdown passes (82) and passing yards per game (204.4). He also set new single-season standards for completions (183), passing yards (2,804) and yards per game (254.9).
Scott tied his career-high of 320 passing yards — twice — and has six of the top 10 passing games in school history.
Cody Holbein, one of Scott favorite targets, wound up sixth in the city in career receptions (79), third in receiving yards (1,578) and tied for third in receiving touchdowns (20).
Holbein’s 12 receiving touchdowns this year tied for fifth, while Christian Basden’s 50 receptions rank third.
J.J. Hong’s 32 points against Rodriguez are tied for third, his three receiving touchdowns tied for fourth.
On the down side, Vanden had just one 100-yard rushing game all season — Oshea Bryant’s 107 against Benicia — easily the fewest over the last 30 seasons. The previous low was five in 2008.
The Vikings also had one of their worst defensive seasons ever, the 331 points allowed ranking third-worst in school history, the 2,439 rushing yards, 1,194 passing yards and 3,623 total yards allowed all ranking fourth-worst.
No one knows better than Vanden that offense wins games, defense wins championships.
Reach Paul Farmer at 425-4646 Ext. 264 or pfarmer@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=108178
Posted by Paul Farmer
on Nov 14 2011.
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