Briggs Headed on Collision Course : Football: Moorpark College’s All-American linebacker seeks to bag a few more sacks in the Orange County Bowl.

People tend to roll their eyes when Tom Briggs plays football.

Some do it consciously, in awe of the monstrous talents that have enabled him to record a team-leading 19 1/2 sacks for Moorpark College; others do it unconsciously, like the poor high school quarterback Briggs hit so solidly “he didn’t remember his name for days.”

“I don’t like to do that (injure someone), but that was kind of a good feeling to hit someone so hard,” said Briggs, who cracked the quarterback’s helmet on the play and has been nearly as destructive in college football. “I’m just keying on the snap of the ball and trying to annihilate the quarterback. That’s the best feeling, when you blindside a quarterback and see his eyes roll back.”

Briggs, 6-foot-6 and 235 pounds, wears No. 99, but to opposing quarterbacks, his jersey probably looks like a pair of deep sixes.

“The most important thing, I think, is getting off the ball,” said Briggs, who plays strong-side outside linebacker and recently was named a first-team J. C. Grid-Wire All-American. “I don’t accept being blocked. I’ll do what it takes to get to him.”

Opponents soon learn that their quarterback can’t hide, and that their backs can’t run when Briggs is on the field.

“No one has quite figured out how to handle him yet,” Moorpark Coach Jim Bittner said. “I can remember times when the game would be on the line and they’d run right at Briggs, and I’d think, ‘Geez, that’s not a very good idea.’ ”

With 4.6-second speed in the 40-yard dash, Briggs has the quickness to elude 300-pound tackles and the athleticism to jump over or run through blockers.

The overall strength of the Moorpark defense, ranked second in the state, gives Briggs the freedom and opportunity to make big plays. And today, in the Orange County Bowl against Rancho Santiago, Briggs again will be counted on to make the big play for the Raiders.

Rancho Santiago quarterback Scott Wood likely will become familiar with Briggs, who has nearly two-and-a-half times more sacks than any teammate. Briggs also has recorded 16 1/2 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.

After a less-than-scholarly high school career, though, it looked as if Briggs couldn’t hope to sack anything but groceries.

Briggs, a lanky defensive end, was a fifth-team all-state selection in New York and his Liverpool High team won the large-school state championship. His grade-point average, however, was a frosty 1.7.

Despite scoring a respectable 830 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, Briggs quickly was discarded by college recruiters who quailed at his grades.

“All I cared about was screwing around,” Briggs said. “Every weekend, we’d go up to bars and get in fights. All I’d do was hang out with friends and drink beer and get in fights.”

If Briggs wasn’t earning high marks in his classes, he was earning high marks in his fights. In fact, one mark was on his neck, and he still carries the scar.

One night, Briggs and his high school buddies wandered into a Syracuse, N. Y., bar and ended up in a tussle with a group of Orangemen athletes. A wrestler got caught up trying a takedown move on Briggs.

“He tried to give me a bearhug, and when I picked him up, he latched onto my neck,” said Briggs, who ended up in a hospital that night.

The hours spent sitting in the emergency room with a severe bite on his neck gave Briggs time to think, and he realized that his life was going nowhere in Upstate New York.

“I needed to come out here and straighten out,” Briggs said. “Back in New York, there are too many opportunities to get in trouble. All there is to do here is play ball and go to school, and that’s what I needed.”

With financial support and encouragement from his father, Briggs came to Moorpark and started growing up. He said he hasn’t fought since arriving in California, and he believes he may raise his GPA to 3.0 by the time he graduates in the spring. He also has changed some other things.

“We kind of changed our defense because of his athletic abilities,” Moorpark defensive coordinator Gil Mendoza said.

In the past, Moorpark dropped the strong-side linebacker into pass coverage about one-third of the time, but Briggs rushes on nearly every play. Opponents adjusted their offenses and tried to stop Briggs by keeping their tight end in as a blocker.

“Which takes away a third of their offense,” Mendoza said. “Those last three games, they (tight ends) didn’t release at all. . . . He has that unique personality where he would like to hit somebody aggressively.”

Rancho Santiago cannot afford to let Wood, an honorable-mention All-American, get caught in Briggs’ brig.

“He’s definitely a force to be reckoned with,” Rancho Santiago Coach Dave Ogas said. “My tight ends are going to have to block him.”

Ogas does not want to limit his tight end to blocking duties, but said, “we will if we have to. It’s not part of our plan, but he’s a great pass rusher. He’s got that great height, and every time we turn around, he’s batting the ball down on film.”

Major-college coaches soon will begin perusing Moorpark game film, and they’ll see a vastly more physically and emotionally mature Tom Briggs than the one who left New York with a chip on his shoulder but not much else on his 205-pound frame.

Because of a poor academic record in high school, Briggs will have to graduate from Moorpark before he is eligible to play at a four-year college. Universities like to bring junior college recruits in for spring practice, but Briggs needs nine more units and won’t be available until next fall.

Still, Briggs’ top college choices are USC, UCLA and Syracuse, and Mendoza reported that major-college coaches from around the country have been asking about Briggs.

A quick convert to the California life style, Briggs would nonetheless feel a certain vindication in returning to Syracuse as an All-American recruit.

“A lot of people wrote me off after high school because of my grades,” Briggs said. “They said, ‘Aw, he’s going to be a loser all his life.’ ”

The prodigal son may return as the prodigiously talented man, and the only losers around Briggs these days are opposing quarterbacks.