Getting Passing Grades at Santa Monica : Corsairs Are Off to a Fast Start Behind Quarterback Jeff Barrett : Community colleges: Sophomore has already broken school record for career touchdown passes. He is nearing several other records.

The most difficult passes that Santa Monica College quarterback Jeff Barrett has to complete are the ones he has to drive through on his long trips from his home in Burbank to school.

“No one from the (San Fernando) Valley should play for Santa Monica College,” Barrett said. “The drive is awful. I think I get more headaches from the drive than from football games.”

On the football field, the 5-foot-11, 185-pound sophomore from Burbank Burroughs High doesn’t get headaches; he gives them to opponents.

The Corsairs are 4-1 and off to their best start since the 1980 team finished 11-0 and ranked first in the state. Barrett’s accurate passing is a big reason why.

Barrett, who didn’t win the starting quarterback job until the middle of last season, has broken the school record for career touchdown passes with 29, including 16 this season.

The old record of 25 was held by Craig Austin (1983-84) and John Erdhaus (1965-66). Erdhaus, who also holds the school’s single-season record of 2,393 passing yards, threw his 25 scoring passes in 1966, when SMC finished 8-0-1 and ranked first in the nation. Jim Powers, whose Corsair teams usually disdained running the ball and exalted the pass, was the SMC coach when Erdhaus was there.

Barrett is third in SMC history with 2,952 career passing yards, behind first-place Kevin Bray (3,319 yards in 1985-86) and Angelo Gasca (3,071 yards in 1978-79). In career total offense, Barrett trails Bray, who had 3,300 yards, and Gasca, who had 3,097.

Through four games, Barrett was the state’s top community college passer with an efficiency rating of 187. His nearest competitor, Richard Fanti of Rancho Santiago, had a 165.7 rating.

Barrett was efficient last week, completing 21 of 27 passes (77.7%) for 284 yards and two touchdowns as the Corsairs (3-1 in the Western State Conference) rolled to a 38-14 road victory against Santa Barbara City College. For the season, he has completed 87 of 131 passes (66.4%) for 1,442 yards and seven interceptions.

Barrett has long been an excellent passer. In three years at Burbank Burroughs, he passed for 6,083 yards, fifth on the all-time CIF-Southern Section list for career yardage. The passers in first through fourth place are Todd Marinovich with 9,182 yards, Pat Haden with 7,633, Bret Johnson with 6,653 and Dan McGwire with 6,559.

So Barrett has strong credentials--strong enough, one would think, to have earned him a scholarship to a four-year school, as did the quarterbacks ahead of him on the career passing yardage list. He did receive a scholarship to Nevada Reno, but he spent his freshman season there as a redshirt, playing quarterback for the scout team that simulated the offenses of opponents.

“I kind of got beat up every day,” he said.

He also tired of Reno’s bucolic atmosphere and its snow.

“I like snow, but I don’t want to live in it,” he said.

Barrett might not have signed a national letter of intent with Nevada Reno, but he said he signed early (in the fall of his senior year) because he did not realize that there was a later deadline for letters of intent. If he had, he might have had more offers and gone to another college.

During his freshman year at Nevada Reno, he decided to go to a community college back home and started checking out places such as Los Angeles Valley and Glendale colleges. Things didn’t work out for him at those schools, so he took the advice of Todd Deeds, a Nevada Reno linebacker who had played at Santa Monica College, and visited the latter school.

Barrett said he “didn’t want to play junior college ball for more than one year, but I really liked Santa Monica College and Steve Butler,” the SMC football team’s offensive coordinator.

He said that he hasn’t been surprised at his passing success at SMC.

“You practice, practice and just execute,” Barrett said. “Then good things happen.”

He said he has also been fortunate that he has had a host of good receivers. This year the wide receivers include Jason Lucky, Turhon O’Bannon, Napoleon Banks and Greg Hooks and tight ends Jeff Williamson and Jermaine O’Bannon, Turhon’s brother. Lucky, who starred at St. Bernard High, leads the Corsairs with 23 catches for 458 yards and four touchdowns.

Gasca, the former SMC quarterback who also played at Venice High and Cal State Long Beach, has been coaching SMC quarterbacks for two years. He said that he has been fortunate in having Barrett for a pupil and that he will deem it an honor if Barrett passes him in the record book.

He said the SMC players “tease me about my records’ being broken, but it’s good when a guy like Jeff has something to shoot for and surpasses it. It’s an honor to be mentioned with him. He is really a good player. He is very smart, and he is tough and unselfish.”

Gasca, who had a tryout with the L.A. Express of the defunct United States Football League, said Barrett’s “biggest strength is his understanding of the game.”

“I’ve never been around any quarterback who understands the game as well as he does,” Gasca said. “I think his understanding gains the respect of his teammates and brings out the best in them.”

Gasca said Barrett also has “excellent receivers, who each could easily catch 60 or 70 passes this season. But they won’t because we spread the ball around so much. I think that if Jeff stays healthy, he will break every record they have here.”

Barrett said all the talk about records misses the point. “I’m not for setting records, but for winning games,” he said. “I don’t think that all a quarterback has to do is throw the ball. The quarterback who stands out is the guy who completes the pass. There’s more to being a quarterback than having a great arm.”

There’s more to Barrett than just wanting to play more football, at a four-year school and, perhaps, in the NFL.

He said that he plans to major in business and specialize in marketing or real estate and that he wants to go to a college “where a degree means something.”

“I’ll take football as far as I can, but I have to think of my education first,” Barrett said. “If it’s possible for me to make it in pro football, that will be great. If not, I have to have something to fall back on.”