COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOOTBALL ’92 : Snowden Busy Reading Putts and Defenses

When Tim Snowden came to Saddleback College, he knew he’d need to pick up several things if he was going to be the No. 1 quarterback.

He’d have to learn the Gauchos’ intricate offense, and how to read defenses more complicated than ones he faced while playing at Mission Viejo High School.

But the first, and maybe most important, thing he picked up was the golf bag of Saddleback offensive coordinator Bill Cunerty.

Cunerty, a top-flight amateur player, often invites his quarterback prospects to caddie for him in summer tournaments.

“It’s a relaxed pace out (on the golf course),” Cunerty said. “Sometimes football gets a little too intense and we tend to talk about things in machine-gun fashion. Doing it this way slows things down. We just don’t talk about plays, we talk about concepts.”

Snowden, who is a fair golfer, first worked as a caddie for Cunerty before last season and eventually won the starting quarterback job. Saddleback was 10-1 and the Gauchos finished No. 4 in the nation in the J.C. Grid-Wire ranking.

“We are out there for a long time (on the golf course),” Snowden said. “I like it because there are some very good golfers to watch and we get a chance to talk about a lot of things and eventually football comes up.”

One of the major things Cunerty and Snowden have chatted about this summer on the links is a way to prevent interceptions.

Snowden threw 18 passes that were intercepted last season. Cunerty said six of those bounced off Gaucho receivers into the hands of defenders.

But Snowden had many exceptional moments last season, too. He completed 136 of 247 passes for 2,284 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Maybe the best example of Snowden’s up-and-down season came in the Gauchos’ 22-21 victory over Orange Coast.

At one point in the first half, Snowden had three consecutive passes intercepted. By the end of the half, he was three for 14 and had been intercepted five times, and OCC led, 21-7.

In the second half, he was four for seven for 56 yards and no interceptions as Saddleback rallied.

The OCC game was Saddleback’s seventh of the season and Snowden had been intercepted 15 times at that point.

He was much sharper in the final four games, throwing only three interceptions.

But, while Snowden has worked hard to eliminate mistakes, he has no plans of changing his head-first style of attacking defenses.

“I’d rather be aggressive and throw an interception than be passive and take the sack,” Snowden, 19, said. “I know it’s probably wrong but that’s the way I play.”

Cunerty: “He’s an aggressive guy and at times he’s trying to fit (the ball) in between three defenders but that’s the way he plays and we don’t want to take that away from him. We just want him to make better decisions.”

Snowden’s brash style helped Mission Viejo win the South Coast League title in 1990 but while he had the title, he got little attention.

Instead the raves went to a pair of quarterbacks from the same league--Capistrano Valley’s Tony Solliday and El Toro’s Rob Johnson.

Solliday went on to lead Capistrano Valley to a Southern Section title that fall and is now a backup at the the Naval Academy. Johnson’s El Toro team finished second in the league and he is now starting at USC.

Snowden didn’t get any serious offers from Division I colleges to play football, so he decided to play at Saddleback.

“He just took charge of the team almost from the first day,” Cunerty said. “They tended to talk about Solliday and Johnson a lot when he was a senior in high school and both are terrific, but Tim is finding his success and belongs in the same category.”