It started with a simple gain of six yards. Then came another mauling run for five yards. Then another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And, well, you get the idea.
Six minutes later, Watsonville senior running back Matthew Barcelo fell into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown run to culminate a 13-play drive in last week’s double-overtime win over North Salinas.
That slow, sometimes snooze-inducing, pace has been a staple of Watsonville’s Double Wing attack over the last five seasons under head coach Ron Myers. Like waves endlessly crashing onto the shore, the Wildcatz’s offense operates at an almost soothing clip that steadily thumps opposing defenses in long, frustrating drives.
In an era of football where spread offenses are in vogue, and the acronym “RPO” — meaning a run-pass-option concept — is seemingly weeks away from being added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, Watsonville’s offense feels like a relic of a simpler time on the gridiron. And I can’t make up my mind on what is more impressive about it: the fact that the kids like it, or that it works.
Watsonville is 4-1 overall and 1-0 in Pacific Coast Athletic League Mission division play despite passing for less than 100 yards over five games. According to the stats kept by MBayPreps, which are incomplete, Watsonville’s senior running back James Sandoval is the team’s leading passer.
He has one completion: a 21-yard touchdown pass to junior receiver Eric Maldonado.
“It’s fun to play in this offense,” Sandoval insisted. “There’s a lot to it that people don’t see.”
It’s not uncommon to hear people sitting in the stands yelling out “throw the ball” or “do something different” as Watsonville methodically works its way down the field on four- and five-yard chunks, and makes a Friday night football game feel like a midseason Tuesday afternoon baseball game.
Watching a pile of bodies crash into another pile of bodies for a total of three or five yards is not as fun as seeing a quarterback toss a perfect fade route down the sideline. But both methods produce the same result: touchdowns and wins.
Tonight, fans are expected to see both when undefeated Carmel (5-0, 2-0) comes to town for an important PCAL Mission division tilt.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.
Unlike Watsonville, Carmel likes to toss the ball around a bit more. Junior quarterback Kai Lee is tied for second in the Monterey Bay in passing touchdowns (12) and is third in passing yards (940), according to the stats kept by MBayPreps.
But the Padres are anything but one-dimensional. They have also rushed for 970 yards, creating a balanced beast of an offense that has averaged 43 points per game.
Watsonville’s offense knows it will need to put together its best performance of the year in order to keep pace with Carmel.
“We know it’s a big game,” said Watsonville senior offensive lineman Andres Galvan. “We know we need to step it up. All of us.”
Myers said he has been running the Double Wing offense since his stint with Monte Vista Christian in the ‘90s. He made the change from the Flexbone — an offense still used today by Georgia Tech, Navy and Army — in 1997.
He’s had success with both offenses. He took Watsonville to a pair of Central Coast Section championship games in ’88 and ’90, and back-to-back league titles in ’90 and ’91 while running the Flexbone. And with the Double Wing, he led M.V.C. to the playoffs, and also guided Soquel to a pair of league championships and several playoff appearances.
It might have taken a little longer than Watsonville would have liked, but the running scheme has started to find the same success in the fifth year of Myers’ second term.
He doesn’t see any reason to make major changes, but small tweaks and additions happen all the time.
Many of those innovations come in the summer. The biggest change during Myers’ time running the Double Wing: moving the quarterback from under center to shotgun. The change wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the boom of spread passing offenses in the early 2000s. Myers said it helps open up running lanes, and gives offensive linemen more room to pull.
“Your base stuff stays the same, but you’re always playing around with new concepts,” Myers said. “You look at what other teams are running and try to use it in some way… All coaches are copycats.”
Making those alterations isn’t easy. It’s tough to implement new plays, formations and concepts at the high school level. Mostly because coaches have a limited amount of time to teach the changes to kids who are buried in homework and want to have some semblance of a social life during the season.
Still, Pajaro Valley head coach Kevin Cordova made the tough decision to switch from the spread to the Wing-T after seeing his kids struggle through a 1-9 season last fall. The new run-heavy offense lessened the reliance on the quarterback position, and gave more players a chance to impact the game.
“I knew we weren’t getting the most out of our players,” said Cordova, now in his second year at Pajaro Valley. “Our kids were working too hard in the weight room to not see the results they deserved.”
Pajaro Valley (2-3, 0-1 in PCAL-Santa Lucia) has already surpassed last year’s win total, but the transition has not been an easy one. The Grizzlies scored just six points in their season opener against Watsonville, were shutout against St. Francis and lost 62-19 to San Lorenzo Valley — a loss that flipped into a win by forfeit — during the first three weeks of the year. But they showed real progress in last week’s 40-20 loss to undefeated Gonzales by rushing for nearly 400 yards.
“Our guys are starting to get comfortable in what we run, and that’s big for us,” Cordova said. “You can have the best schemes available, but if your guys aren’t running full speed through them, you’re going to have a tough time moving the ball.”
Aptos head coach Randy Blankenship said having that year-to-year continuity has helped make the Mariners into a power. He has run the Wing-T since 1974, and is always confused when coaches make massive yearly changes to their scheme.
“I’ve run [the Wing-T] since I started coaching, and I’m still learning new things about it every day,” Blankenship said.
Also factoring into Myers, Cordova and Blankenship’s decision to employ run-heavy offenses: being at a public school. Record-setting quarterbacks, 300-pound offensive linemen and 6-foot-3 receivers who run like deer don’t come every year — sometimes they don’t come for decades — but coachable, hardworking players do.
“If you have a great QB and no one that can catch the ball, the spread is useless,” Blankenship said. “If you’ve got a bunch of pass catchers, but your QB can’t throw 30 yards, then that’s useless. You play with what you’re dealt…With [these types of offenses] great backs can offset OK offensive line play, and a great offensive line can offset a bunch of average backs.”
Things are different at the next levels. Colleges can recruit players that fit their scheme, and an NFL team has millions of dollars riding on every player they bring into the fold. In high school, especially public schools, sometimes you get lucky. Most of the time, you don’t.
“We’re not waiting on one kid to come in and do everything for us,” Myers said. “It’s about the team. Eleven guys working together makes more sense than one guy carrying a team.”
Sandoval was raised as a fan of the Miami Dolphins by his mother, Lisa, who lived in Florida for a period of time. As a child, his favorite player was none other than Dan Marino, who retired as the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yardage.
Over the years, he’s idolized other players. He said his second favorite player during his childhood was Michael Vick.
“Watching him run around and throw bombs was why I started liking football,” Sandoval said. “The big plays, they’re fun to watch.”
There have not been any Michael Vick-like plays from Watsonville quarterbacks this season. That’s not to say the team’s starting quarterback, junior Oscar Magana, doesn’t have those plays in him. He simply hasn’t had the opportunities to show his ability, and, more importantly, he hasn’t whined about it.
“We’ve got receivers that can make plays — we’ve got a lot of them — but they get it,” Sandoval said. “It’s not about yourself. You can’t be selfish. If [running the ball] is working for the team, then you got to stick with it. We’ve got a bunch of guys who only care about winning… [This offense] isn’t as exciting as passing it all the time, but it gets the job done.”
And that’s all that matters.
