HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PREVIEW : Return of Muir’s Brownfield Sends Shudders Across the League

Jim Brownfield has not coached in a high school football game in five years, but he still remembers a few tricks. Such as how to put up the old we’re-really-not-that-good facade.

When told the other five coaches in the Pacific League named Brownfield’s Muir High team the prohibitive favorite, he laughed.

“Now that I’m back, they’re picking on me,” Brownfield, 63, said.

The savvy leader walked away from his coaching job and a 24-game winning streak at Muir after the 1986 season because he suffered from a heart condition associated with stress. He returned this season because the condition had improved and several representatives of the school asked him to come back.

Brownfield’s return, along with Muir’s talent, has convinced the league of the Mustangs’ preeminence.

“The legend is coming back,” Pasadena Coach Mike Merrill said. “That automatically puts extra wins in your belt. He’s the guy that invented football, practically.”

Brownfield, either being overly modest or trying to lull the competition to sleep, shrugs off the predictions. He likes Glendale’s chances.

“The champion is still the champion,” said Brownfield, whose teams won two Southern Section titles in his nine years at Muir.

Although Glendale is the two-time defending champion, virtually all of the players from those teams have graduated, including Pathon Rucker, who gained 1,666 yards and scored 21 touchdowns last year. “Basically, we are a new team,” Coach Don Shoemaker said. “It’s a team that’s probably going to come along slower than some of the other teams we’ve had.”

That opens the door for Muir, where slow isn’t in the vocabulary. The two fastest players are running back Saladin McCullough and quarterback Andy Colbert. Complicating matters for Muir’s opponents is the Mustang’s intricate offense, based on Bill Walsh’s ball-control passing scheme.

“If you scout us, you’d think (it’s a complicated offense), but everything is on a code, everything is computerized,” Brownfield said. “The combinations we come up with make us look more diversified. We do about five things with blocking, five things with runs, five things with passes, five different sets. When you put them together, you come up with an incredible number of possibilities.

“But it’s really simple.”

Simple to understand? Maybe. Simple to stop? Well. . . .

“I don’t know how many people have stopped Bill Walsh,” Shoemaker said. “I think it goes back to the same principle we used last year--you have to keep the ball out of their hands.”

Last season, Glendale beat Muir, 17-16, holding the ball for 20 of 24 minutes in the first half, Shoemaker said.

Brownfield’s offense creates problems by leaving so many options open. Aside from the normal running and passing plays, there are plays that look like runs but turn into short passes.

“The last couple of years (Muir) has kind of been one way or the other (all run or all pass),” Crescenta Valley Coach Jim Beckenhauer said. “But Brownfield has always been a guy who can run the ball or throw, and that’s what keeps us off guard. . . . especially if he’s got better athletes.”

McCullough, Colbert and senior tight end Derrick Norman are three of the best. And all play both ways, although Brownfield said he hoped to find someone for the secondary to allow Colbert to play only quarterback.

Colbert rushed for 946 yards last year but completed only 21 of 50 passes for 320 yards. The new offense, which will allow Colbert to concentrate on short, high-percentage passes, should improve the passing game, Brownfield said.

“You’ve really got to be aware of the backs coming out of the backfield,” Merrill said. “We’ve got to make sure there’s no mismatches with running backs on linebackers.”

If McCullough, who gained 1,617 yards and scored 20 touchdowns last season, finds himself in a one-on-one matchup with a linebacker in the open field, mismatch is not nearly a strong enough word.

“If you give McCullough the ball too many times, the kid’s going to break you,” Hoover Coach Dennis Hughes said.

The Pacific League has two hopes for beating Muir. The first is that Muir will fall apart, which is not unreasonable because the Mustangs lack one element--depth. Brownfield said the team will have only about 35 players. “We went through the team in the spring and summer and eliminated the kids that didn’t have the kind of character we wanted,” Brownfield said. “We knew that would tear up our depth but we didn’t want the street element on our team.

“What happens to you when you do that is it trims your squad down to the barest numbers. Our biggest fear is that when we finish with our (nonleague) games, we will be nothing but chewed-up hamburger.”

The other chance the league has of beating Muir is if the Mustangs beat themselves.

“It’s going to take someone sneaking up on them, catching them napping,” Beckenhauer said.

Football Preview Section: special section on Thursday will take a look at college and high school football teams in the Valley area.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

FINAL 1991 STANDINGS PROJECTED FINISH Glendale 10-2, 5-0 Muir Muir 8-5, 4-1 Arcadia Arcadia 6-4-1, 2-2-1 Glendale Pasadena 2-6-1, 1-3-1 Crescenta Valley Crescenta Valley 5-5, 1-4 Hoover Hoover 1-9, 1-4 Pasadena

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Player School Pos. Ht Wt Class Andy Colbert Muir QB 5-10 165 Sr. Phil Cook Glendale OG 6-3 250 Sr. Nathan Dishington Hoover QB 6-2 215 Sr. Jaiya Figueras Glendale LB 6-2 205 Sr. Al Hamichart Arcadia RB 5-8 170 Sr. Saladin McCullough Muir RB 5-10 175 Sr. Eric Michael Arcadia OT 6-7 225 Sr. Derrick Norman Muir LB-TE 6-1 220 Sr. Phalen Pounds Pasadena OT 6-7 300 Sr. Treyvone Towns Pasadena LB 6-3 210 Sr.