Martin Snaps Out of Season-Long Slump : Football: Granada Hills quarterback passes for 398 yards and six touchdowns in tuneup for playoffs.

For most of the season, Granada Hills High quarterback Bryan Martin has missed. Pressing, he missed again.

In short, Bryan Martin has been a missing person.

The following is a brief look at the season of Martin, a can’t-miss prospect fallen on hard times.

Try to remember that time in September . . .

Pundits pound out prose: Martin, a 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior, is tabbed as one of Southern California’s most promising Division I prospects at quarterback by a variety of preseason publications.

After passing for 1,414 yards and 15 touchdowns as a junior, Granada Hills’ air apparent is ready to fly solo. Both totals matched or surpassed marks posted as a junior by 1987 graduate Jeremy Leach, who threw for 2,666 yards and 35 touchdowns as a senior.

Martin is impressive at the UCLA invitational summer camp and in high gear as the Highlanders cruise through off-season passing-league competition.

Did somebody say off season?

Martin pounds the blacktop: After completing just 11 of 39 passes for 86 yards in a 14-0 victory over Reseda six weeks ago, Martin was seen an hour after the game walking alone in the parking lot behind the Granada Hills football field.

It was pitch black. So was his mood.

“I was frustrated,” Martin said. “I was at a low, low point. I’m thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not as good as I think I can be. Maybe I lost it.’ ”

Martin’s back is pounded: In a 21-0 victory over El Camino Real two weeks ago, Highlander receivers drop five Martin strikes, one a sure touchdown. Martin is approached on the sideline by Granada Hills alumnus Dana Potter, who holds the school record for yardage (3,214) and touchdowns (36) in a single season.

Martin was in the process of completing four of 13 passes for 43 yards. Potter, a real estate agent who still chalks up acreage, draped an arm around Martin’s shoulder.

Said Potter, dispensing the same advice he gives to buyers of toxic-waste sites: “Don’t dwell on it.”

Seven days later, Martin came out glowing. And throwing.

Martin pounds back: In last week’s 68-21 pasting of Chatsworth, Granada Hills co-Coach Tom Harp sent in pass plays on 21 of the Highlanders’ 22 first-half plays. Martin, who twice scrambled and was unable to throw, responded by completing 14 of 19 attempts for 258 yards in the first half alone.

By the time the strafing was concluded, Martin had completed 22 of 29 for 398 yards and tied the mark set by Potter (1970) and John Elway (1978) for touchdowns in a game with six. Both of Martin’s marks represent single-game highs among area quarterbacks in 1990.

“We threw medium, short, we even threw deep a few times,” Martin said. “Everything worked. We really mixed it up.”

Martin, as mixed up as they come for a few weeks, had finally put things together. The kid who moved to Granada Hills from Decatur as a sophomore showed everyone what this Illinois noise was all about.

Martin had gone from panned to panacea and said he learned something about himself in the process.

“To tell you the truth, I’m kind of glad it happened,” he said. “It’s better that I learned to deal with it now.”

The experience has been educational. Martin said colleges are not calling as often. His ego has shrunk to Lilliputian proportions. And while the team has been winning, everyone involved in the program knows that any shot at a City Section 4-A Division title depends heavily on the success of the passing attack.

The Granada Hills coaches, aware that the passing game might soon go into hibernation for the winter, decided to put the ball up as often as possible against Chatsworth. It was a gamble of sorts; Harp had tried a similar tack against Reseda, with disappointing results.

“You throw the ball 39 times and only complete 11,” said Martin, who admittedly was numbed by his numbers against Reseda. “Just the thought of that was, ‘Whoa.’ ”

Everybody had ideas about the reasons behind Martin’s slump--his windup and release were even targeted as a problem area. At midseason, a rival Northwest Valley Conference coach said he didn’t think Martin was getting rid of the ball as fast as he used to, a problem Harp discussed with Martin.

“The problems can’t be placed in one area,” Harp said. “It can be a lot of things: Bad blocking, the receiving or a bad throw.”

To be sure, Martin is hardly the lone culprit. Although he has completed less than 50% of his attempts (98 of 202 for 1,564 yards and 16 touchdowns), Martin has thrown just four interceptions for a touchdown-to-interception ratio of four to one. Last year, Martin set a school record for fewest interceptions with two in 194 attempts.

Furthermore, he has regained the area City passing lead--not a surprising development in that Highlander quarterbacks have turned the trick in four of the past five seasons.

“I still think he’s a Division I quarterback,” Harp said. “He’s the quarterback in a balanced attack. It’s hard to throw every down when you have a guy in the backfield averaging eight or nine yards a carry.”

Fullback Brett Washington is, indeed, averaging a school-record 8.96 yards a carry and has rushed for 1,317 yards. And the Highlanders (9-1) aren’t exactly struggling.

But believe it--having Martin on the upswing gives the whole team a lift. Call it a definite plus.

“We needed it,” Harp said. “The offensive team needed the positive reinforcement.”