Summer Status Update: San Marcos Football

Jeff Hesselmeyer knows all about the cycles high school football teams go through. He’s experienced the highs and lows for more than 35 years as a coach in the Santa Barbara area.

Jeff Hesselmeyer, left, led San Marcos to a 4-6 record last year, including a 35-13 victory over Santa Barbara in the "Big Game."

Hesselmeyer enters his second year as the head coach at San Marcos. As far as the three local Channel League teams missing the CIF playoffs last season, he surmised that the area was in the downward part of the cycle.

“For our league, the Ventura schools had some really exceptional players last year. Of course, Bonnie (St. Bonaventure) always has,” he said. “They have some really good teams there. I give them a lot credit for that.

“It goes in cycles,” he continued. “Right now they’re on the up and we’re trying to come back into it.”

Hesselmeyer talked to Presidiosports.com about his program at San Marcos and football on the South Coast.

Here is our Q&A with the dean of coaches on the South Coast and in the Channel League.

PS: Are you conducting workouts right now? What kind of things are the guys doing?

HESSELMEYER: The 16th was our last day then we take the mandatory three-week dead period by CIF. Most of the time we’ve been doing regular offense and defensive work, weight lifting, conditioning, everything to try to get better before the beginning of the season.

PS: How many guys do you have out for the varsity?

HESSELMEYER: 40-50 guys have been out on a regular basis, so that’s encouraging.

PS: Tell me about this group?

HESSELMEYER: One of our issues is last year we had seniors who did almost all of the playing. This is an inexperienced playing group that’s going to have to learn as they go. We’re not exceptionally big, but we do have some speed. It’s a year we’re going to have to grow up, and they’re going to have to improve as they go along.

We’re going to have to be the gutty little Royals, I guess.

PS: Who is competing for the quarterback spot?

HESSELMEYER: We have three kids competing for the job. Two are seniors: Joe Rivera and Andrew Griffin, Gabe Loza is a junior. We’re working all in there, giving them a lot of reps. It’s going to hard to make a final decision until we get into the pads and see how we do under live pressure and all of that.

PS: How have they done in passing league?

HESSELMEYER: They didn’t play a lot last year, so they’re trying to pick up knowledge as they go. They’ve had some good moments, and we’ve had some where we need a lot of improvement not just by quarterbacks but by everybody, offense and defense. We tried to play all the kids we have, which is almost 30 kids. We’re learning a lot.

PS: Are the best athletes coming out for football?

HESSELMEYER: I’m sure that we (football coaches) never think we have enough of the best athletes at the school we could get. There’s a lot more specialization with a lot of kids. Rightly or wrongly, they’re being sold on if they do one sport, they’re going to make it at the next level or pro level. Everybody should have a goal, and I don’t want to discourage anybody from that, but if you look at the history of it, it’s not happening in droves in Santa Barbara, where kids are going D-1 in any sport, really. Unfortunately for those kids, by the time they sold it all out on one sport and if it doesn’t happen for them, if they don’t have that high school experience in a lot of sports, it’s something they only get one shot at. We try to encourage our kids to play as many sports as they can.

I think being in more than one sport helps you overall on being a tougher competitor, learning something from other coaches and bringing it back with you to other sports you go to. I hope a lot of kids can get decent scholarships and make it to the pros, but based on the last 30 years in this town I don’t think it’s happening hand over fist, which is a fact. It’s not a knock on anybody.

My big hope is kids try a lot of things in high school. Don’t be swayed that they won’t be a pro in that sport. Maybe for some it will work out.  More power to them. For 95 percent, it’s not going to happen.

PS: Is it tough getting guys to come out for football at San Marcos?

HESSELMEYER: It takes a commitment to football. It’s a little different because it’s a collision sport not just a contact sport. If you’re not working hard in the weight room and getting strong year around, it’s a tough sell.

PS: What does it mean to have St. Bonaventure out of the Channel League?

HESSELMEYER: Realistically, they are year-in and year-out, to their credit, one of top programs in the state. They’ve done a great job building that program. They were better than the rest of Channel League to the point where it wasn’t real competitive to play against them. I don’t know how much fun it could be for them going into every game knowing your starters are only going to play a half.

Now we have five teams in the Channel League and I think only two are guaranteed spots for the playoffs. It’s interesting because it was five teams playing for two places before, because Bonnie was certainly going to get one of them.

PS: Any changes to your coaching staff?

HESSELMEYER: Bob Archer, Dennis Kittle, Joby Nunez, and Moe Claydon all retired — that’s over 100 years of football experience. They were a tremendous plus to our football program. That’s basically four head coaches right there. They’re being replaced by Gary Semenza, John Semenza, who have coached at all levels at San Marcos, and Dale Perizzola. We also have Ed Holdren and Chris Janeway.