FOOTBALL FREQUENT FLIERS : Orange Glen Hopes to Take an Air Route to a Section Title

Orange Glen High School has built a tradition passing the football. But this time, in the middle of a Tuesday practice, a running play was called.

Quarterback Cree Morris took the snap, turned and handed to his fullback. On the other side of the line, a junior varsity player filled the hole.

Whistles blew. Line coach Rob Gilster nearly blew up.

“Salsbury!” Gilster screamed in a light-hearted way. “You’re not supposed to be there. You’re supposed to be on this side.”

Head Coach Dave Lay laughed, then was interrupted.

“Salsbury?” an onlooker said. “You mean you’ve got another one coming?”

Lay knew what the question meant. He shook his head.

At Orange Glen, the name Salisbury (spelled differently, sounding the same) is the one that links the school to a passing-fancy past.

Sean Salisbury was the county’s player of the year in 1979 and went on to play with USC and the Seattle Seahawks. In 1985, Brett Salisbury, Sean’s brother, led the county in passing and Orange Glen to an 8-2 record, its best since 1977.

Kevin Salsbury, the junior varsity sophomore, isn’t related and plays the line. “When I first heard about him, I thought we had another one,” Lay said. “It’s too bad.”

Not necessarily. Kevin Salsbury may someday contribute to the success of a football team currently ranked No. 4 in the county. And the Orange Glen passing attack has continued to flourish; through 6 games, the Patriots have passed for more yardage than any team in the county.

What’s better for Orange Glen is that all six games were victories, and for the first time since the passing lanes opened wide here in 1979, the Patriots are thinking about a Palomar League championship and maybe even a trip to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium for the section 3-A championship game.

“So far, this team has shown the ability to be able to put it all together,” Lay said. “We’ve always passed for a lot of yardage but every year, it has been Vista and Fallbrook that made the playoffs. This could be the year we just have the right combination of players.”

That combination includes a good offensive line and a running attack to keep opposing defenses honest. But the keys are Morris, the quarterback, and wide receivers Jake Nyberg and Glen Reyes.

These three are causing quite a stir. And they are the main reason Orange Glen has moved up and down the field for 34.7 points per game this season, third best in the county.

Morris, at 6-feet 7-inches, has the best sight lines to his receivers of any area quarterback. Reyes, the section champion in the 100 meters last June, can get downfield faster than any wideout. Nyberg, smaller than Morris and not as fast as Reyes, can get open and catch the ball. He’s second in the county in receptions with 39 and leads receivers in yardage with 676.

“They all do complement each other very well,” Lay said. “Glen can spread the defense out in a hurry, and Jake can run patterns underneath. It’s hard for secondaries to cover us.”

Of course, if everybody is open, you still need a quarterback to get the ball there.

When Morris started for the freshman team, he always threw deep. He’s now learning patience, and it’s paying off. Morris has completed 82 of 131 passes for 1,481 yards (best in the county) and 13 touchdowns.

“I always wanted to play quarterback ever since I was little,” said Morris, although “little” is a word that hasn’t applied lately (he was 6-4 as a freshman). “Now I’m here, and I just want to the best job to help us win. We’ve got a good, solid passing offense, and we’ve got the players who have the confidence to be able to run it.”

Morris grew up in Escondido, but it wasn’t clear whether he would attend Orange Glen until just before his freshman season. His parents wanted him to go to Santa Fe Christian, but Morris wiggled out after a dispute with one of the physical education coaches there.

“He was telling us about losing weight, and he was this big, fat guy. We didn’t get along, and he sent in a referral on me. I had wanted to go to a public school, and this problem helped me convince by parents to let me go to Orange Glen.”

Lay is happy to have him. Just as he’s happy to have Nyberg, who grew up in Minnesota and was groomed by his father to be a receiver.

“From when I was in kindergarten until eighth grade, my father would teach me about catching a football,” Nyberg said. “I’d step off the school bus, and he’d take me running in the snow. He wanted me to be in good shape. Then, he’d throw me passes. I learned how to catch with one hand, two hands and even no hands, or so it seemed. At the time, I didn’t like it so much. But I’m happy now.”

Nyberg moved to Escondido before his freshman season, but he couldn’t play as a freshman because of a separated shoulder. He made the junior varsity as a sophomore and started on the varsity as a junior.

Now, he’s flourishing as a senior.

“This is going to sound weird,” Lay said. “But I coached at Colorado State (for 5 1/2 years), and I coached when they had Kelly Stouffer (now with Seattle). We did not, in the time I was there, have a receiver who had as good a pair of hands as Nyberg does.”

Said Nyberg: “My father deserves a lot of the credit.”

Reyes, on the other hand, can credit a God-given ability he has to run, fast.

“I was always the fastest guy on my Pop Warner football teams, but I never knew how fast I was,” Reyes said. “Then I was hand-timed in the 100 in eighth grade, and it turned out I was running times that seniors in high school were running.”

Reyes took up track and won the San Diego Section long jump title (23 feet 5 inches) and the 100 meters (10.8) as a freshman. As a sophomore, an injury sidelined him for the section finals, but last June, he won both events again.

Everybody thought Reyes’ first love was track. But it wasn’t.

“Football has always been my favorite,” Reyes said. “I loved it in Pop Warner, and I was good at it. (He says he scored 67 touchdowns in 5 years). But I got off football because everyone said I was good at track.”

Last season, however, as he watched Orange Glen games from the stands, he started getting the itch to play football again. He tried out and immediately became a starter.

“A lot of track guys can run fast but they can’t change directions, and they’re not tough,” Lay said. “But Glen can change directions, and he’s proven he’s tough. We can really stretch a defense with him.”

With secondaries stretched, a guy like Nyberg running free inside of them and a guy like Morris guys looking over lines to see into the open spaces, the Orange Glen passing attack will probably continue to click.

And, finally, after all these years of passing, Orange Glen may get thrown into a battle for a championship.