COLLEGE FOOTBALL ‘99: THE COMMUNITY COLLEGES : FACTS AND FIGURES

SHORT STORY

Santa Ana Coach Dave Ogas promises that it is not by design, but his recent teams have featured dominating running backs he often described as either “Smurfs” or “sawed-off.”

This year is no different, what with the return of 5-foot-8 Cameron King, who had 966 yards last season.

King will be joined by Steve Warfield and Joseph Tagaloa, who are each 5-6, and Saul Frusto, who is 5-8.

NEW GUYS IN TOWN

Orange Coast’s Mike Taylor, who spent the last 13 years as the Pirates’ defensive coordinator, is in his first year as head coach.

Mark McElroy, who was the coach at San Clemente High for the last six seasons, is coach at Saddleback.

“We’ll take our lumps early,” McElroy said. “But we’ll get better as the year goes along.”

The two won’t be strangers for long. Orange Coast and Saddleback meet Sept. 18 at OCC.

“It’s been different because I don’t have a group to coach,” Taylor said. “so I spend my time going from group to group, and I really like that.”

COACHING WISDOM

Fullerton’s Gene Murphy always has interesting and amusing things to say about football, and this year the coach, who just turned 60, offered this:

“I hate scrimmages. I’m a big proponent of playing 11 games instead. You play vanilla and then you trade film. The only good thing is you see how the freshmen react against someone new.”

DAY OF REST

For years coaches lamented the timing of byes, which often came after the first or second week of the season.

But last year it was finally decided the Mission Conference teams would all take the same week off at the season’s halfway point.

The coaches stuck with the same plan this year, and all teams will have byes on Oct. 16.

1998 IN REVIEW

Orange County football teams combined for their worst record (12-38) in history, so it is no surprise that highlights were hard to come by. The teams had never previously combined to win fewer than 21 games.

Santa Ana was the best of the bunch at 4-6, and the Dons had a chance to win the Central Division but lost to Palomar, 58-14. After the game then-defensive coordinator Tom Nelson said, “The bottom line is our defense gave up.”

Nobody in the Central Division had much success against the Comets. Palomar beat the other four Central Division teams by a combined score of 255-57 and nearly half of those points were scored by Fullerton in a 48-26 loss. Palomar beat Long Beach, 34-6, in a bowl game and then dropped City College of San Francisco, 30-21, in the state championship game.