Cerritos College’s ‘Double-Dirt’ Players Thrive on Basics : Football: Coach Frank Mazzotta’s team loves contact drills. Their physical approach has gotten them to the Orange County Bowl.

When the Cerritos College football team lost two of its first three games, veteran Coach Frank Mazzotta went back to the basics.

“We have double-dirt kind of guys,” Mazzotta said of his players. “All they want to do in practice is hit (and get dirty), and we weren’t doing it.”

So Mazzotta put away the tackling dummies and let the players pound on each other every day in practice. And Norwalk-based Cerritos (8-2) won seven consecutive games and the Northern Division title of the Mission Conference.

On Dec. 7, the Falcons will meet Central Division champion Saddleback College (9-1) of Mission Viejo in the Orange County Bowl at 7 p.m. at LeBard Stadium in Costa Mesa.

The story of how Cerritos got off on the wrong foot goes all the way back to July, when Mazzotta visited the training camp of the Washington Redskins.

He noted that professional football players spend most of the time in practice walking through drills or hitting heavy bags. To avoid injuries, playing head to head against teammates is discouraged. Most of the hitting is left for game days.

When Cerritos opened fall drills, Mazzotta, a 14-year veteran with a record of 85-55-4 at the school, thought it would be a good idea to install such a format with the Falcons.

But following a lackluster 23-12 victory over Palomar College of San Marcos on Sept. 14, the Falcons lost to Fullerton, 25-11, and Orange Coast of Costa Mesa, 35-15.

“I had seen how the pros did it, and I thought it would work here,” he said. “But the kids we had didn’t want to hit a bag; they wanted a piece of another guy. So we started hitting.”

Mazzotta replaced three starters and returned to a more disciplined practice regimen. The Falcons have not been severely challenged since.

A 55-6 victory at San Diego City College on Sept. 28 got the ball rolling. In its final Mission Conference game Saturday, Cerritos defeated visiting Mt. San Antonio College, 60-32, setting school records for most yardage in a season (4,254) and in a game (670).

Players give Mazzotta good ratings.

“We have great coaches,” said linebacker Earl Brooks, the team’s leader in tackles with 86. “They always prepare us big time before a game.”

As other area community colleges have struggled on the field in recent years, Cerritos has prospered under Mazzotta. There are several reasons for that, he said.

Cerritos has a staff of six full-time instructors who coach football. By comparison, none of the 10 coaches at Long Beach City College, which finished 1-9, are full-time staff members.

Mazzotta also credits the school’s administration for providing adequate financial support, even in the face of tightening budgets.

Mazzotta said he does not know how much of the athletic department’s $2.07-million budget is intended for football, but when he needs new equipment, the school just takes care of it. Cerritos also supplies football shoes for its players, a rare practice at the community college level. When the Falcons travel to away games, they are given both lunch and dinner.

“We still do all the things that we did 25 years ago,” Mazzotta said.

Mazzotta attended El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera and Long Beach City College, where he was an All-America tight end and played in the 1964 Potato Bowl, considered the granddaddy of junior college bowl games.

He went on to play at the University of Utah and took his first head coaching job at Warren High School in Downey in 1973. Four years later, he became an assistant coach at Cerritos under Ernie Johnson, who had been his high school coach at El Rancho. Mazzotta replaced Johnson in January, 1978, and in his first season led the Falcons to the co-championship of the South Coast Conference and to an Avocado Bowl bid, where they lost to Golden West of Huntington Beach, 29-7.

The Falcons have appeared in five bowl games under Mazzotta, but getting into this season’s Orange County Bowl has been particularly satisfying, he said, because his players remind him of himself as an undersized linebacker and tight end in high school.

“We are not the most physical team we have had here,” he said. “I can’t describe (why we are winning). If you walked onto the field and took a good look at my guys, you’d be amazed that we are winning.”

Mazzotta’s son, Frank Jr., an All-South Coast Conference wide receiver for Cerritos in 1987 and now coach of the team’s wide receivers, also says he has seen more-talented Falcon teams.

“When I played,” he said, “we had a much more balanced attack, but we didn’t play as well together as this year’s team does.”

Casey Mazzotta, Frank Jr.’s younger brother, is a sophomore defensive back who earned all-Mission Conference honors last season. He pointed out that because many of the Falcons used a redshirt year, they have been at the school for three years. During that time they became close.

“This group is pretty much like family,” he said. “We are very close-knit. We get along well.”

Like the others, however, Casey Mazzotta has been amazed by the team’s success.

“A lot of us here are overachievers,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of (big, tall) guys here. We just are hard workers.”

Statistics bear that out. Cerritos, ranked 12th in California, is just above average in most statewide categories, according to the JC Athletic Bureau, which compiles weekly community college statistics. Three other Mission Conference teams, including Saddleback, the Central Division champion, rank ahead of the Falcons in team offense.

One exception, however, is running back Darrell Thompson, who ranks third in the state in rushing, averaging nearly 150 yards a game. He gained more than 200 yards in each of his last five games and set a school record with 1,527 yards rushing this season.

Said Mazzotta, the head coach, of Thompson: “He is a great running back--maybe the best we have had at this school. But to look at him, he isn’t flashy. He just gets the job done.”

Thompson has been at Cerritos four years. He missed his first two seasons because of personal problems and injuries.

Although he missed five games with injuries last season, Thompson still rushed for 547 yards on only 82 carries and was named to the all-Mission Conference team.

Like the other players, he credits the coaching staff with his success.

“That’s what Cerritos is all about,” he said. “We wanted to win. . . . We knew we had to win, and (the coaches) instilled that in our minds before the season began.”