With Weak Link This Strong, De La Salle on a Higher Level

Concord De La Salle has a precise and sophisticated passing offense and a sophomore quarterback who has the quick feet of a tap dancer, the soft hands of a baker and the deadly aim of a sharpshooter. And then the Spartans will hit you until the screws come out of your helmet, until your fans are sitting in the stands and passing around X-rays of the possibly broken bones of your players.

The destruction of Mater Dei was total. The Spartans won their 91st straight game 42-0 Saturday night at Amos Alonzo Stagg Stadium on the campus of the University of Pacific. Some 15,819 people were left breathless at the utterly fearless play of a 16-year-old quarterback named Matt Gutierrez. He is 6-feet-4 inches tall and seems made of 196 pounds of string.

Gutierrez is lanky and lithe and throws complex timing plays as well as many pro quarterbacks. In the first big game of his life, Gutierrez was 15 of 22 for 300 yards and six touchdowns. His coach, Bob Ladouceur, said afterward that he would have been happy with 150 yards of passing offense. Six touchdowns? “Unbelievable,” Ladouceur said.

And Gutierrez was supposed to be the weak spot, the question mark of this allegedly inexperienced team. How could that be? Ladouceur was sandbagging us, wasn’t he? He must have seen how quick Gutierrez’s feet are, how swift his release is, how he sees the field so well, where the receivers are, where the defenders are coming from.

There was one play in particular that showcased the best of the Spartans.

It was in the third quarter. De La Salle already led, 28-0. Gutierrez took five steps back and in his face and on all his sides were four Monarch defenders. At just the last tenth of a second before he was going to be flattened, Gutierrez dropped the ball softly over the defenders.

D.J. Williams, the Spartans’ senior star who is considered the top prep linebacking prospect in the country and who is, as well, a talented running back, caught the ball and headed up the sidelines. Mater Dei’s Matt Grootegoed, as usual, was closing in. Grootegoed seemed to have the angle figured out and was going to be able to force Williams out of bounds.

But at the very last tenth of a second, just before Grootegoed was going to knock the snot from Williams again, the 6-foot-2, 225-pounder did a complete 360 twirling turn on the dead run and left Grootegoed reaching for Williams’ exhaust. This became a 36-yard touchdown.

The film of this game should be required viewing by all California high school and college teams, for the Spartans are the best-coached in the state. Period. It wasn’t as if De La Salle was smashing some traditionless powder puff, either.

Yet Mater Dei coach Bruce Rollinson was left to say afterward that, “I don’t know how you’d beat them. Hope their bus crashes?” And of Gutierrez, Rollinson used fewer words. He didn’t need many. “Wow,” Rollinson said. “He’s added a new dimension to them.”

Grootegoed is a top college prospect, too, and he knocked the snot out of Williams twice and just about anybody else who got in the game for the Spartans at least once. That’s the kind of game it was, hitting hard but clean. Tackles made with authority.

But for Mater Dei it didn’t matter. Grootegoed was the only Monarch who could find space to run or room to breathe and all his effort did was leave him totally exhausted even when he was still trying to find someone to hit at the end.

“We could stop the run but we couldn’t stop the pass,” Grootegoed said.

This was because the Spartans play a passing game unfamiliar to most high school football teams. Anywhere. And some college teams too. De La Salle’s band plays the Notre Dame fight song. The Fighting Irish would love to borrow the De La Salle offensive sophistication.

The way the Spartans pass-blocked, the way Gutierrez was able to sidestep trouble and throw both soft passes to a certain spot and also heave the ball downfield, it just exposed how tough it is for the Monarchs to have two quarterbacks and not a particular method of scoring.

Grootegoed is the starter for the first play of the game, but junior Matt Leinart plays more. When Grootegoed is the quarterback, he’s more likely to run. When Leinart is the quarterback, he’ll throw more. This means that in practice, where a Gutierrez is taking all the snaps and his receivers are all learning how strong an arm he has, how well he times his passes, how likely it is that the ball will go where it is supposed to, the Monarchs are splitting time between two completely different quarterbacks.

This Spartan winning streak doesn’t seem anywhere near an end. Gutierrez will only grow stronger and get better. He can’t get any smarter or more intense. Can he?

“I watched film of Mater Dei every day of summer,” Gutierrez said. “I was up at 2 and 3 in the morning watching film of Mater Dei. I know they’re not up watching film on us. I’ve been coming to De La Salle football games since when I was five years old, before the streak started. Most guys grow up wanting to play in the NFL or for some college. All I’ve ever wanted to do was play for De La Salle.”

If this kid gets any more mature, high school football in California won’t be fair.

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com