It was midway through the third quarter of Allan Hancock College’s season opener when I found myself standing on the sidelines next to Luke Conley, star of a Fox reality TV show and a former Bulldog.
If random local celebrity appearances can be considered an omen, and if you’ll pardon the pun, there might just be (ahem) More to Love about Hancock football in 2009.
That certainly seemed the case on the crisp September evening, when Hancock faced off against Santa Barbara City College on Righetti High School’s stadium turf. The Bulldogs scored early and often against the Vaqueros, showing off a punishing ground game and an equally fearsome defense.
It didn’t take long to find out if the players had shaken off their summer rust. Just minutes after kickoff, an ear-splitting bullhorn sounded for the first of what would be many times that night, as sophomore tailback Thomas Sua hit pay-dirt from five yards out.
Hancock’s run-heavy offense was able to break into the Vaqueros secondary all night long, lead by the bruising 6-foot-1, 224-pound Sua, who repeatedly dragged defenders with him to gain extra yardage.
Looking sharp on both sides of the ball, Hancock held Santa Barbara to consecutive three-and-outs early on. Still in the first, Sua broke through for another touchdown, a 12-yard scamper that gave the Bulldogs a 14-0 lead.
Before the quarter was up, Hancock’s defensive line flustered Vaquero quarterback John Uribe into throwing an interception, which sophomore defensive back Greg Watson returned 25 yards for another Hancock touchdown.
With a few fans still streaming in with blankets in tow, the Bulldogs were already up 21-0. Like a first date gone horribly awry, the Vaqueros would never recover.
The rout continued in the second quarter, when Hancock’s starting sophomore quarterback Gunnar Jesperson slipped away from a sack and proceeded to duck and juke through countless Vaquero would-be tacklers for an electrifying 44-yard touchdown run. Fans and announcers went ballistic, and Hancock took a 35-6 lead into halftime.
Later, with the game’s outcome all but certain, a chill descended over the stadium. High school girls huddled under their boyfriends’ letter jackets. Spike, the Bulldog mascot, butt-bumped me in front of the kickers’ practice goal, apparently trying to coax me to dance. It’s too bad I’m a professional and I don’t dance on the job.
“I wish I had a jacket,” I said.
Keeping in character, Spike said nothing, but shimmied back to the stands, which I noted were still well populated with hometown faithful.
As the seconds ticked away and a full moon rose over the horizon, Santa Barbara City College fell. Hard.
The 42-6 whipping came as a relief to Hancock head coach Kris Dutra, who wasn’t sure what to expect from his team from the outset.
“I’m always nervous about playing Santa Barbara in the opener because they’ve been plotting on us for a whole year,” he said after the game.
Hancock finished the game with 312 yards of team rushing, led by Sua’s 94 yards on 10 carries. Sua left the game with an injury, and his sub, freshman Matthew Macanas, continued the Bulldog’s relentless ground attack, finishing with 77 yards of his own.
The stat line was indicative of the methodical offense that’s become a hallmark of Dutra’s successful coaching run at Hancock, which includes a career record of 52-34 and five bowl game appearances in nine seasons.
“Our goal is to always be balanced,” Dutra said. “We don’t want our defense on the field for a long time, so our philosophy at Hancock has always been control the ball, control the clock, and keep our defense off the field. Most of the good teams you find out there, that’s what they do.”
The Bulldogs are coming off a 2008 season that saw them go 7-4, topped off with a berth in the Southern California Football Association regional bowl game, where they lost to Mt. San Antonio College 52-14.
As good as they looked last year, Dutra thinks this season’s team is stronger on defense and as skilled as any group he’s ever had.
“That’s not anything against those kids last year,” he said. ‘It’s just that we didn’t have enough big guys on the defensive line, and we were just really thin on the secondary. We’re a little bit thin this year, but we have a little bit more experience back there.”
The heart and soul of the defense is returning sophomore linebacker and co-captain Brennan Locker, last year’s first team All-Conference selection and player of the game for the Sept. 5 opener.
“He just makes things happen,” Dutra said of Locker. “He’s all over the place.”
On the other side of the ball, Hancock will look to Jesperson and top wide receiver Marquelo Suel to lead the team to the top of what Dutra called “the hardest league in the state of California”: the SCFA North.
Dutra said the Bulldogs, who play their next home game Sept. 26 against Citrus College, will be pressed to win a lot of close games this year.
“This team is right along with some of the good teams we’ve had over the years,” he said. “We’ll see how we come together, but I think we’re better than we were last year for sure, and I think we have the ability to get back in the playoffs. That’s the beauty of the playoffs: Once you get in there, you’re going to have to back it up.” m
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas doesn’t sing on the job, either. Contact him at jthomas@santa
mariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 10-17, 2009.