The Southern California Football Association named Willie Iribarren from Allan Hancock College the Northern League Athlete of the Week on Oct. 27, in the eighth week of this season.
Iribarren plays linebacker for the Bulldogs and leads the team’s defensive line this season with 81 tackles, averaging 11.6 tackles per game and 7.5 tackles for lost yardage.
He is currently ranked as the No. 2 linebacker in California.
“He’s our playmaker,” said linebacker coach Frank Maltagliati. “He’s our leader on defense.”
When the Bulldogs took on College of the Canyons on Oct. 25, Iribarren made 11 solo tackles and assisted in six tackles for a total of 17, which cost the Cougars 31 lost yards.
This season Iribarren, in jersey No. 34, has pulled down 53 tackles for lost yardage.
Although the Bulldogs fell short, 37-20, in Santa Clarita, Iribarren made 10 or more tackles for the fourth game this season and forced a fumble.
His most tackles in one game was during the team’s league opener against Santa Ana College, where the sophomore clenched 19 tackles.
“You’ve got to be physical, you’ve got to be quick, and you’ve got to be smart,” he said.
It’s the linebacker’s job to make the call for the defensive formation. If the opposing offense comes off the line in a passing formation, the linebacker has to change his formation to set for a pass.
Maltagliati said that over the course of Iribarren’s career at AHC, the linebacker has improved considerably in his ability to read the offense and adjust his defense accordingly.
“He’s learned the way we want to play the game, which is different from high school,” Maltagliati said. “We felt real fortunate to get him.”
At the college level, teams tend to throw the ball more than at the high school level, and Iribarren has become more adept at seeing the plays and deciding when to adjust the call for backfield motion, Maltagliati said.
Another area Iribarren has improved is when the offense comes out in a zone scheme and two offensive players are blocking him. He’s now getting the idea of how to get those two blockers off of him in time to make the defensive play, his coach said.
“Everything we do in practice, we see in the game,” Iribarren said.
The 6-foot-3-inch, 235-pound kinesiology major was recruited out of Lompoc High School, where he also played linebacker for the Braves.
Iribarren started playing football in the Youth Football League when he was 8 years old, and he always played linebacker, the 20-year-old said.
Recruiters from four-year universities are paying attention to Iribarren’s performance on the field, but he said he’s not worrying about them right now and keeping his focus on the game. Iribarren does hope to be picked up by a PAC 12 school. His dream school is UCLA.
After Iribarren is done at Hancock, he will be the first person in his family to go to a four-year university.
A big inspiration for Iribarren is his father.
“He told me I could do big things,” Iribarren said.
This article appears in Nov 6-13, 2014.