Passing Fancies : Buena, Santa Clara and Santa Paula Use Swift Air Routes to Advance to 2nd Round of Southern Section Playoffs

Only 3 Ventura County high school teams above Division IX have advanced to the second round of the Southern Section playoffs. Is it a coincidence they have the county’s 3 top passing attacks?

Coaches Rick Scott, Steve Dann and Mike Tsoutsouvas of Buena, Santa Clara and Santa Paula, respectively, would say not. And a peek at their games last week backs their claims.

Thousand Oaks couldn’t ditch Buena’s hitch pass, Mary Star of Sea couldn’t handle Santa Clara’s Stars of the Air and St. Monica was sawed to pieces by Santa Paula quarterback Rick Carpenter.

Say hello to offensive sophistication and goodby to most of the county passing and receiving records.

But the Three Bombardiers are hardly clones. In fact, Scott, Dann and Tsoutsouvas are the architects of aerial systems that bear little resemblance to one another.

Before coming to Buena this season, Scott put together perhaps the finest high school passing attack in Southern California while at Hart the past 4 years. His quarterbacks, which included Jim Bonds (now a UCLA redshirt freshman), passed for more nearly 10,000 yards in that time.

Scott figures he is picking up where he left off at Buena (9-2). His junior quarterback, Jason Isaacs, has passed for 1,971 yards, completing 133 of 263 passes.

“I’ve put in about 60% of the offense we used at Hart,” said Scott, whose passing game is characterized by lots of crossing patterns and passes to running backs. “We’ve only put in 3 plays that I didn’t run at Hart and there is a lot of stuff that Bonds could do that Jason can’t do yet.”

But Isaacs, who sets up either 1, 5 or 7 steps behind the line of scrimmage depending upon the call, is swiftly learning. And the more he and the rest of the Bulldogs absorb, the more they are able to adapt to opposing defenses.

Thousand Oaks, for example, employed a man-to-man defense with the cornerbacks giving wide receiver Jim Collins a soft cushion. Tactic: Get Collins the ball via quick hitch passes and let him go 1-on-1 with the overmatched Lancer cornerbacks. Result: Collins made 6 catches for 154 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Muir, however, has tremendous athletes at cornerback, and they play close to the line of scrimmage. So Scott will switch from the hitch to . . .

“Motion. We’ll send receivers and backs in motion to create different formations,” Scott said. “That way a pro set can change just before the snap to a set with three wideouts on one side.”

Scott will try to create confusion in the Muir secondary before the snap, forcing defenders to change assignments while Isaacs is calling signals.

“The philosophy is to make them play positions they are unaccustomed to playing,” Scott said.

And if all else fails, look for Buena to utilize a no-huddle offense.

Something a Scott team will rarely be seen doing is passing out of a shotgun formation. “Most teams put their best defensive lineman over the center,” Scott said. “I don’t want my center having to make a blind snap and also block.”

Accuracy and balance are the foundations of Dann’s offense at Santa Clara. Junior quarterback Tim Gutierrez drops back only 3 or 5 steps, depending upon the call, and the Saints have the best running game of the 3 teams.

“We try to be balanced,” Dann said. “We haven’t run as well as we’d like, but that’s our goal.”

Santa Clara (11-0) has rushed for 1,408 yards and passed for 2,599. By contrast, Buena has rushed for 1,059 and passed for 2,073. Santa Paula has rushed for 839 and passed for 2,366.

Gutierrez, in his second season as starter, is the most accurate passer in the state. The left-hander has connected on 159 of 220 passes for 2,430 yards and 19 touchdowns, while throwing only 4 interceptions. He has not been picked off in his last 134 passes.

“Timmy has a great release,” Dann said. “It’s incredibly quick and smooth. He puts the ball behind his ear and it’s gone.”

The state record for completion percentage is 72.3, by Tom Tunicliffe of Burroughs of Burbank in 1979. Gutierrez’s mark is 72.2%. And for the record, he doesn’t pad his percentage with shovel passes.

Santa Clara sends 5 receivers out on many pass plays because of a superior offensive line anchored by JR Perez (6-4 1/2, 260) and Jim Caballero (6-4, 270). Gutierrez just drops back into a traditional pocket of protection.

“When we see a blitz, a running back stays in to block,” said Dann, whose team rarely uses play-action or roll-out passes. “We only have a few plays where we send out a hot receiver.”

Dann used the term “hot” to mean the receiver who will get the ball in case of a blitz, but he could also use it to mean Matt Young, the team’s record-setting wide receiver. Young, a 6-2 senior, set county records last week for single-season catches (75), career catches (112) and career receiving yardage (1,973).

“He and Timmy have been a passing combination since they were nine years old,” Dann said. “Matt just knows how to get open and he catches everything. He jumps well and has great timing.”

Remember Dumbo the Flying Elephant, the Disney character who was made fun of by the other circus animals? Well, Santa Paula (9-2) got little respect until Tsoutsouvas showed up a few years ago and, like Dumbo, the Cardinals took to the air.

Now look at them fly!

“We use a ball-control passing game, if that’s not a contradiction in terms,” Tsoutsouvas said.

Rick Carpenter, a 6-1 senior, is the third in a succession of pass-happy quarterbacks at the school who lines up in the shotgun formation and throws up to 50 times a game. Tack on the 17 completions in 40 passes for 321 yards and 3 touchdowns Carpenter compiled last week, and he is 168 for 337 with 2,301 yards and 21 touchdowns this season.

And he has played with assorted injuries including a sprained ankle, a sprained knee and a dislocated thumb. He also plays defensive back much of the time.

“Without Rick in the lineup, we go from the shotgun to a popgun,” Tsoutsouvas said.

A defender has to have tremendous stamina to chase Carpenter for 4 quarters. The shotgun, Tsoutsouvas explains, reduces the energy expended by his players while increasing the effort of defenders.

“I see our opponents getting tired before we do,” he said. “The QB sits back there and his vision is good. Meanwhile the defensive players are getting frustrated.

“They stop us a couple of times and then, we pop one for a completion and a first down. They tend to get down on themselves, walking back to the huddle with their heads down.”

Giving up is not something Santa Paula players are accustomed to doing. They have the passing game to thank for that.

“My kids always know they can come back. We are always one big pass from getting back into a game,” Tsoutsouvas said.

And the big pass has been a ticket to the second round of the playoffs for all 3 teams.