HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PREVIEW : Contreras Has Rio Mesa Ready to Take Wing

George Contreras is a head coach again and for opponents in the Channel League, that can mean only one thing:

“Pass out the aspirin,” Buena Coach Rick Scott said.

Contreras was promoted this season from assistant to head coach at Rio Mesa after John Reardon retired. He has brought in his reliable old offense, the Delaware Wing T.

“The rest of our league better hold on to their fannies because they are going to see some stuff that they’ve never seen,” said Scott, who coached at Newbury Park when Contreras was running the Wing T at Westlake in the 1980s.

The Wing T was designed at the University of Delaware specifically to help physically overmatched teams compete. The Wing T calls for four players in the backfield: a quarterback, a fullback, a a halfback and a wingback.

Wing T offenses begin with confusing shifts and players in motion. “It’s the closest thing to Canadian football that American football has,” Scott said. After the snap, there are a series of fakes and misdirections, so no one is quite sure who’s got the ball.

“There’s more counters off it than Carter’s got liver pills,” Scott said.

Contreras began researching the Wing T when he took over the program at Westlake. In 1978, the school’s first year of varsity football, Contreras had no seniors and needed to find a way to compete.

He was intrigued when he heard about the innovative offense they were running in Delaware and a few other places around the country. One year, Marv Levy used the offense with the Kansas City Chiefs.

“It was just so unusual,” Contreras said. “We’d never seen anything like it, so we started researching it. Everything we heard about it said you don’t need big players because everything is (based on) angles.”

Contreras read books. He attended clinics. He watched films. He even flew to Delaware, where he learned he didn’t quite understand the offense as well as he thought he did.

“I was watching (Delaware) practice,” he said, “and I went straight to a pay phone and called one of my assistants and said, ‘When we get back, we are having a staff meeting, because we have been doing this totally (wrong).’ There are so many nuances.”

After 11 years of running the Wing T at Westlake, there are few nuances Contreras doesn’t know.

“George is the best at it,” Scott said. “That’s not just a pat on the back to one of my peers, but he is the guru. I’ve probably faced (the Wing T) 25-30 times in the past 30 years, but no one runs it like him. . . .

“George truly knows if you take something away from him (defensively), you have to give something up. The only thing that can stop him is lack of talent.”

Sometimes, not even that.

“One year he had a tailback that was flat out slow,” Scott said, “and he still gained 1,000 yards.”

Contreras ran the offense so well at Westlake that the Warriors won three league titles. The Wing T even spread through the Marmonte League, with Royal and Channel Islands adopting it.

Scott predicts the same might happen in the Channel League.

“Other teams are going to run the stuff to prepare and they are going to see stuff that they like,” he said. “And other teams are going to run the Delaware just because it works for Rio Mesa.”

With the Wing T, Rio Mesa is expected to give its opponents headaches, but the Spartans may still not be able to overcome teams such as league favorites Ventura and Santa Barbara.

“The bottom line,” Contreras said, “is we are still going to be playing with a lot of sophomores and juniors with not a lot of varsity-level experience.”

Channel League at a Glance

1993 STANDINGS OVERALL LEAGUE PROJECTED FINISH Ventura 8-3 6-1 Ventura Buena 9-4 6-1 Santa Barbara Santa Barbara 8-3 6-1 Buena San Marcos 4-6 4-3 Rio Mesa Rio Mesa 6-4 3-4 Oxnard Dos Pueblos 2-8 2-5 Dos Pueblos Oxnard 3-7 1-6 San Marcos Hueneme 1-9 0-7 Hueneme

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PLAYERS TO WATCH

Player School Pos. Ht. Wt. Yr. Nate Coyle Buena LB/FB 6-2 210 Sr. Khalid Hurst Santa Barbara RB/DB 5-9 160 Sr. Ramsey Jay Ventura WR 6-2 170 Sr. Ronnie Jenkins Hueneme RB 5-11 160 Jr. Taj Lewis Oxnard QB 5-9 180 Sr. Erik Olson Ventura QB 6-1 190 Sr. Phil Pipersberg Santa Barbara RB/DB 5-11 165 Jr. John Raymond Buena OL 6-6 270 Sr. Rashod Rose Rio Mesa FB 5-9 190 Sr. J.T. Stone Dos Pueblos QB 6-5 200 Sr.