Hart's 2007 prospects:

Defense:

Last season was noteworthy for the number of times the Hart defense really got smoked. In the Herrington era, Hart has allowed 40 points or more only 8 times. Three of those games were last year: 42 by Moorpark, 41 by Canyon and then 56 by Moorpark in the semis -- 42 in the first half. And there also was that 34-0 pasting by Bonnie. It did not appear to me that the problem was a shortage of physical ability as much as a lack of concentration and dunderhead play. If Hart is to do well this season, they will have to play much better defense as a unit. I point to the 1998 and 1999 as the model for defense. In those championship seasons the opponents's first string managed to score 20 points or more only once in each season (Loyola [23] in '98 and Valencia [21] in '99). The defensive talent level at Hart this season may be just about as high. Will the team effort, toughness and focus be there too?

Linebackers: Patrick Larimore (committed to UCLA) set the Hart record for tackles in a season last year and certainly has the ability to exceed his 2006 performance. He is much, much faster than one might think and a big time hitter with a nose for the ball. For long-time Hart fans: he's a faster version of Pat Norton. Dakota Luster too is a returning starter and appears to be fully recovered from a severe facial injury early in the summer. He has the athletic ability to be an outstanding outside linebacker and if he is a more focused player, will have a big year. Junior Demitri Diamond is the third linebacker. He is a very gifted athlete and it seems like the coaches have had him at a half dozen positions, trying to figure to how use his talents to the best advantage. Based on athletic ability alone, this is one of the best groups that Hart has every had. Of course, athleticism alone will not carry the day. They will have to play smart too.

Defensive line: I am not sure who all the starters are (I attended the scrimmage last week but did not have a roster). Eric Plumlee and Mat Kaminski appear to be the anchors at defensive tackle. Given the basic design of the Hart "read and react"/slanting defense, the tackle position has sometimes been a problem, especially if the kids are not too big. Plumlee and Kaminski are both big enough to hold their own and strong and quick enough to chase down quarterbacks as well. I am not sure who the defensive ends are as I simply did not pay close enough attention to that position when I watched the team on Friday (plus there was a lot of substituting). They performed well.

Defensive backs: Again, I am not entirely sure who will play in these spots as it is an all new group. What I can say is that I was very impressed with the development over the summer and their aggressiveness and hitting in the scrimmage against Alemany. They intercepted at least three passes. My perception is that this is a very solid group of football players.

Offense:

Hart has run a spread offense since the beginning of the Herrington era. In the early days most opponents had a really tough time coping with the complexity of the Hart offense. Even when Hart did not have the defensive troops to slow down opponents, they still tended to score a lot of points. Beginning about 2002, there has been a marked change in that regard. The spread offense is not the confusing novelty it once was. In fact, the vast majority of Hart’s opponents in the last two or three years have used a spread formation at least part of the time. It will be interesting to see if there are any new wrinkles in the Hart offense to confuse and confound the defenders (there is no greater delight for an OC than seeing the "Oh s---" look on a defender's face when he realizes that the guy that has the ball or will shortly have it, is already by him).

Quarterback: B. R. Holbrook has all the tools to succeed in the Hart system. He's tall at 6'3", has a big, accurate arm and is fast enough and agile enough to give any blitzers a very tough time. It is clear the Hart staff thinks he has the right stuff. The offense was running plays this summer with Holbrook, a largely untested QB, which I have not seen the Indians use -- at least not in the summer or early in the season -- in several years. Holbrook also has the confidence and leadership factors going for him as well. He already is getting D-1 attention without having started a game.

Running Back: Delano Howell (committed to Stanford) may well hold most of the Hart rushing records by the end of the season. He's a solid receiver as well. Once he's past the line of scrimmage, he's always a threat to score since he's as big and strong as most linebackers and considerably faster. He's fearless and loves contact (and apparently is recovered from that bone-breaking, tooth-loosening, flesh-tearing collision with teammate Spencer Souza this summer). If the O-line provides the opportunity, his performance should be worth the price of admission.

Offensive line: Three-year starter Derek Bickford is the real deal and should get some D-1 attention as the season progresses. Chris Anderson is another returning starter and has looked very solid. Spencer Lloyd also has experience and has looked good in practice and the scrimmage. I think Ricky Aversano is one of the other starters. I'm not sure who the fifth guy is.

Receivers: The big number: 0. Collectively, the receiving corps has zero varsity receptions. Brian Felt, at left wideout was very impressive in the summer, not only for his soft hands but also for his solid route-running across the middle. Spencer Souza (now a "metal head" [steel plates] following his summer head-to-head collision with Howell) looked very good at Alemany. He's only been back a couple of weeks so there should be a substantial upswing as he returns to form. He was very impressive on the JV team last season. Demitri Diamond plays at one of the slots. This is his first foray into the receiving world but he's so athletic he just has to be on the field on offense. As he starts to master the nuances of the position, he'll be a huge threat as he's much faster than most anyone who is likely to cover him and tall as well. Blake Borland, a sophomore, is in the other slot and has really solid hands. I expect that Johnny MacArthur and Dakotah Luster also will see time at receiver.

I comment on this every year: Virtually every receiver I’ve seen at Hart, through about the first 7-9 games as a first-time starter, will usually get very few yards after the catch. The kids works so hard on running routes and catching the ball, there sometimes is an attitude of "my job is done" once the catch is made. Later in the season there is an epiphany: they can run with the ball too! All of sudden receivers start running through or passed defenders after they catch the ball. Possible exceptions to this general observation: Diamond and possibly Souza. Diamond spent his lower-level career as a very capable running back. Souza too had a lot of time in the JV backfield. They are used to running with the ball.

Another factor to watch with the receivers: down field blocking. I watched the Hart highlights films from 1998 and 1999 the other day. The thing that really jumped out was the herd of kids, primarily receivers, who were hammering defenders down field every time the runner passed the line of scrimmage or a receiver caught the ball. If this group does that, the "yards per catch" and "yards after the catch" will soar.

Special Teams: I have no idea what is going on here. Last year, kickoffs, PATs and field goals were a real adventure. Punting and punt returning have often been troublesome in the past. Hopefully, this will become a more consistent part of the Indian game. Howell can be a game breaker as returner and when punting (if he has that job again) is always a threat to run.

The Foothill League:

Canyon: The Cowboys remain a real question mark in my mind. Welch is gone. Varner is in. Check the record book. Canyon has had winning seasons in only 7 of the 21 non-Welch seasons and were 1-9 in the playoffs without Welch; in other words, Canyon has 1 non-Welch playoff victory in its entire history (in 1999 against 5-5 Arcadia). On the other hand, the Cowboys are coming off a season in which they won league, division and state championships and Varner had some impact on that success. That's a lot of momentum and it could be that Newton's First Law of Motion applies here: "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." In other words, it's not unreasonable to expect Canyon to keep on winning. However, the Cowboys lost THE central component of the offense in J.J. DiLuigi -- probably more valuable for his determination and drive as for his athletic skills -- as well the bulk of a stellar defense. (Newton's law again: there is not a "uniform" state of motion at Canyon because of the loss of Welch, DiLuigi and the defensive starters). But they return some terrifically talented players on both lines, particularly AJ Wallerstein on the O-line and Mike Spagnola on the defense (question: why isn't Spagnola on the MaxPreps Canyon roster?). Urbina and Wirthlin are very capable players both on offense and defense and I was very surprised this summer at the level of play of Sean Gavin, the Cowboy QB. I had not really heard much about him. He has a lot of potential. We should have a pretty good idea of where things stand out on the Cowboys' range after the first two games against Notre Dame and St. Bonnie.

Valencia: I was somewhat surprised by an article in the Signal a couple of weeks ago where the Viking coach laid much of the blame on the offensive line for last year's disastrous record. While the O-line may not have been the best collection of offensive linemen ever (the QB was sacked a LOT), Valencia has had offensive success with kids of similar size and talent level in the past. I simply don't recall the O-line ever being a particularly dominating force in Valencia's success. In my view, the biggest shortcoming was on defense. The 2006 Vikings really did not slow down anyone other than Hart, a fairly mediocre offensive group, and to a certain extent Notre Dame where the Vikings gave up yards but not points. The gold standard for Viking defense has to be the 2004 group. Unless they get back to that level, there will be another season in which they will have to rack up a lot of points to win. They may have the wherewithal to do just that. Quarterback Graham Wilbert has a lot going for him. He's big. He's got a year of experience under his belt. He appears more agile than last season when he really took a beating. He's accurate. He's a very good QB and I expect that if his receivers don't let him down, he'll be getting a lot of college attention by the end of the season. Nick Hale, the top returning receiver, will be at RB. Though there is almost no experience at receiver, the group looked good in the summer.

Saugus: Saugus has a very talented running back in Ryan Zirbel. He has the quick acceleration and sufficient power to get through even smalls holes quickly and with OT Shane Watterson there will undoubtedly be some big holes created. Ryan and Justin McKillop are solid, almost maniacal linebackers. I thought Mario Wright was one of the better players I saw last season and was astonishingly underutilized. Desi Rodriguez is a very good athlete at QB. I never mentioned this many Saugus players by name before which is an indication of just how improved the overall talent level at Saugus is when compared to the last few seasons, maybe even surpassing the 1999 semi-final team. The question marks right now from my point of view are: (1) will the Cents have a consistent passing game and (2) will they have the sustained intensity throughout games and the season to win? Desi and Zirbel can run but if the Cents cannot pass and defenses are allowed to concentrate on Zirbel, things may be tough in Cent-ville. Saugus has demonstrated the Cents can play a whole game at a high intensity level (example: beating previously undefeated Atascadero up north last season) but too often have slack periods during games. If they can overcome that tendency, they will be a force in the Foothill League.

West Ranch: This will be WR's first season in the Foothill and I don't know too much about them, never having seen them play in a regular game. They've done very well at the lower levels and against small schools. They have some talented, hard-nosed players. I think they have the ability to beat one of the established programs if all the stars and the moon aligned just right but it doesn't appear that they’ll rise to the top quite yet. The fact that they knocked off Long Beach Poly -- even though it was only a passing tournament game -- ought to give opponents pause.

Golden Valley: The program got off on the wrong foot in just about every way possible. First, there was the wacky attendance area established by the school board which funneled a lot of talent and support -- financial, parental and otherwise -- away from GV and into Canyon. Then there was the decision to hire a coach that, at least from where I sit, was in over his head from the gitgo. The current coach, Steve Pinkston, inherited a mess and has done a credible job improving on a disaster. Hopefully, the kids will get some wins in the pre-league part of the season and score a few points in the Foothill League (last season against the five current Foothill League opponents, GV scored only 7 points while giving up 303). I truly wish them the best of luck.

Summary: The LA Times, the Daily News and the Signal have all picked Hart as the Foothill League favorite. Who am I to quarrel. (But I do note that this is a VERY tough league among the top four.)

That's my take.