Coaches look back on Pacific League opening games
SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — The Glendale YMCA Quarterback Club, in its 70th year, meets Tuesdays at the Elk’s Lodge. The following are odds and ends from the third meeting of the year.
PACIFIC LEAGUE TEAMS
TURN THE PAGE
It was a forgettable week for the club’s three Pacific League members, as all three were nearly shut out in their league openers.
Only Hoover managed to put points on the board, but its one touchdown came late in its 48-7 Thursday night loss to Burbank, while Glendale and Crescenta Valley failed to score on Friday night in 35-0 and 36-0 losses against Pasadena and Muir, respectively.
The Mustangs were able to turn a close game into a runaway by using their speed to make big-yardage plays in the second half.
“We didn’t play real well on Friday night,” Crescenta Valley Coach Paul Schilling said. “We played a pretty good defensive game, but you can only contain that speed for so long and they would get a big play. And all the times we held them, we couldn’t move the ball. All of our opportunities we couldn’t take advantage of.”
Hoover had some missed opportunities early, as well, including a pair of empty red-zone trips in the first half, before losing starting quarterback Brendon Kerr at halftime to a knee injury.
“We beat ourselves a little bit,” Tornadoes Coach Andrew Policky said. “It got away from us there in the second half. We had some opportunities.”
Glendale’s missed chances came in a different form, as the Bulldogs put the ball on the ground six times, but the Nitros could only successfully recover one fumble on the night.
But first-year Glendale Coach John Tuttle said it was his team’s own turnovers that proved most costly.
“Offensively I thought at times we moved the ball a little bit, but a fumble and two interceptions kind of slow you down,” he said. “We’re not good enough to come back from that kind of stuff.”
BONDS CREDITS KICKER
IN ROAD VICTORY
Mark Verso is better known for his work with the St. Francis High soccer team, but the Golden Knights senior has also helped the football team with his powerful leg this season.
The All-Area soccer pick was named as the football team’s special teams player of the week by coach Jim Bonds during his address of the club on Tuesday after Verso put six of eight kickoffs in the end zone for automatic touchbacks and also kicked three field goals in the Golden Knights’ 38-30 come-from-behind win at West Ranch on Friday.
Verso, who is committed to play soccer at Stanford next year, only practices partially with the football team due to club soccer commitments, but Bonds said he has been a full-time contributor on game nights.
“We convinced him that it would be a great idea for him to come out and kick for us this fall and he wanted to be involved for the school,” Bonds said. “We’re lucky to have Mark out there.”
ARBOGAST BREAKS
DOWN TROJANS
As the well-known radio voice of the Trojans with the historical perspective of 23 years on the job, Pete Arbogast was a perfect guest to talk USC football at the club, which includes more than a few fans of the team.
Among the hot topics were the Trojans’ recent loss to Stanford that rocked the program’s hopes of a national championship after it started the season as the top-ranked team in the AP Poll.
“SC’s football team is doing exactly what they do over the last few years,” he said. “They start out the season kind of average, OK, they get a little full of themselves because they read everything and they believe it and then they go on the road in their first conference game and lose. Every time they seem to do that, from that point forward, they seem to wake up and play very good football the rest of the year.”
While he predicted USC will get back on track to at least a Rose Bowl berth this season, Arbogast said the longer term outlook is not so good with the scholarship reductions stemming from NCAA sanctions looming over the program.
“That really messes with your depth. When one guy gets hurt at a key position, there’s not a lot of talent behind him and now all of a sudden, you’re in trouble,” Arbogast said. “Next year and the next couple years after that, they’re probably going to fall off. No matter what you do in recruiting, when you have 25 incoming scholarship players, the general rule of thumb is that if you hit on 60% of those guys, 15 of the 25, you’ve done a great job in recruiting. Well, if you hit 60% of your 15 incoming scholarship guys, now you’ve only got nine guys who are performing well. You better darn well hit on 12 or 13 of them and that’s asking an awful lot.”