Brea Olinda Has Roll of Quarterbacks

They have a saying about Wildcat football up on the hill.

“We don’t have second- and third-string quarterbacks at Brea,” Coach Jon Looney said. “We move them to the offensive line.”

Nothing could be more truthful.

Consider this: Michael Perrance, who began the season at quarterback, is a 6-1, 185-pound pulling guard on the right side. Justin Dixon, last year’s reserve quarterback, is a 6-3, 230-pound offensive guard on the left side.

And if that isn’t enough, when the Wildcats (10-1) host Woodbridge (8-2-1) tonight at 7:30 in a second-round Southern Section Division V football game, they will start speedy Deonta Birdsong at wide receiver and cornerback. Birdsong, a transfer from Long Beach Poly, started one nonleague game at quarterback and has accounted for 306 yards total offense.

Travis Blood, a transfer from La Mirada, was named Brea’s starting quarterback in the fifth week and has stayed there, passing for 1,109 yards and 10 touchdowns. Earlier in the season, Looney was going crazy trying to choose a quarterback.

Dixon, who played a few downs at quarterback last season, eventually wound up alternating at tight end. He was an easy choice to move to the offensive line this season because of his size.

Perrance, the other tight end in 1996, became the quarterback in spring practice because there was no one else to do the job. He admits he was not a natural passer, but his coach figured he would only need to throw about 10 times a game in Brea’s run-oriented offense.

When Birdsong, who moved in with his father, and Blood, who moved to Brea with his mother, showed up within three weeks of each other last summer, Looney had a pleasant problem.

“We decided to give all three players starts in the [nonleague part of the schedule] and see who would win out,” Looney said.

They presented different options. Blood is a drop-back passer. Birdsong was an option quarterback and Perrance was familiar with the Brea I-attack worked but wasn’t a true quarterback. He was the first to seek another position.

“I just wasn’t getting the job done,” Perrance said. “I didn’t like it anyway because I was just handing off the ball to someone and letting them do the rest. I never got to hit anyone, but now I do.”

He agreed to shift to guard after Looney couldn’t teach the defensive linemen to play both ways.

“I thought they could just come over to the other side of the ball. These were good football players,” Looney said of his defensive linemen. “But they were greener than I anticipated and they just got further behind as time went on.”

Birdsong might have made a fine running back. But the Wildcats already had Scott Lieng (884 yards rushing and five touchdowns), Rasuli Webster (541 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns) and Eric Albrecht (six touchdowns).

“We ended up with an All-Orange League defensive back,” Looney said of Birdsong, “And he’s as good a punt return man as there is in the county. Nobody wants their quarterback to be returning punts anyway.”

Albrecht, a linebacker, leads the team with 75 tackles. Webster, a corner back, has 60 tackles, three interceptions and five defensive touchdowns. Birdsong has been in on 38 tackles and has three interceptions.

“We have so many athletes,” Blood said. “The coaches put the team together and where we got to play just worked out. I can’t really explain it, but it just happened.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WOODBRIDGE VS. BREA OLINDA

Featured Game

When: 7:30 tonight.

Where: Brea Olinda High.

Records: Woodbridge 8-2-1, Brea Olinda 10-1.

Noteworthy: Brea Olinda and Woodbridge play tough defense and neither has a high-powered offense. “I don’t expect a lot of 70- or 80-yard drives in this game,” Brea Coach Jon Looney said. The game figures to be a low-scoring one.