RAM REVIEW: Frank Bryant, a former Ram...

RAM REVIEW: Frank Bryant, a former Ram Booster Club president who led an effort to keep the team in Orange County, is still trying to get a team back to Anaheim Stadium. He says it’ll probably take a refurbished ballpark or a new facility better suited to football. . . . So will Bryant be watching the Rams when they open the NFL season Sept. 3 at Green Bay? Says Bryant: “I’ll be watching somebody. “

SCALING BACK: Tom Caffrey, who has coached 11-man prep football the past 35 years, takes over the team at Heritage Christian in Anaheim this fall, which plays in a special eight-player league. How does the smaller team differ? . . . “You must execute the fundamentals because you have fewer players,” Caffrey says. “You’ll see longer runs and longer pass plays. It’s a more exciting game from a spectator’s viewpoint, but more nerve-racking from a coach’s.” . . . Heritage Christian, Liberty Christian and Huntington Beach Claremont high schools field the county’s only eight-man teams.

ROAD TRIP: San Clemente Coach Mark McElroy, when he was hired four years ago, immediately made a promise to his freshman players: They would do something special when they were seniors. True to his word, McElroy is taking them to Hawaii this year to play football. . . . San Clemente opens its season Friday against Honolulu Punahou in Aloha Stadium. Local fund-raising efforts helped raise nearly $140,000 to send the entire team. . . . Says McElroy: “Not bad for a small town in tough economic times in a bankrupt county.”

COLLEGE STUDY: Orange County hasn’t had an NCAA Division I college football team since Cal State Fullerton suspended the sport after the 1992 season. Fullerton is still studying whether to bring football back, but it’s a safe bet you won’t see the sport at UC Irvine. . . . Says its athletic director, Dan Guerrero: “It’s such a costly enterprise now that I would think it would be very difficult to make that commitment.”