By MICHAEL MIDDLEHURST-SCHWARTZ Special to the Daily Press
SAMOHI When the Santa Monica High School football team attends one of its first passing leagues on Saturday, the team will be in unfamiliar territory.
Not only will the Vikings have to venture to Orange County for the Mission Viejo Passing Tournament, but they also will be without Ryan Katz, who started at quarterback for Samohi the past two years. The 7-on-7, no pads passing session will be one of the Vikings’ first tests to replace their departed star.
Katz, who enrolled at Oregon State University in the spring, accounted for more than 4,000 yards of offense and all but one of the team’s passing attempts in his senior year. Under Katz’s leadership, the Vikings finished in a three-team tie for second place in the Ocean League but lost in the first round of the playoffs to Palos Verdes.
“You don’t replace kids like that,” head coach Zach Cuda said.
Junior Garrett Safron is poised to take over for Katz as the head of the Vikings’ offense after Cuda named him the starter early in the summer.
The 5-foot-10 Safron, who took all of the team’s junior varsity snaps last season while making a brief appearance at the varsity level, helped Samohi win the championship during a late June passing league at Redondo High School. The rising junior also won the quarterback skills competition at the camp.
“I think he’s going to be really solid,” Cuda said of his new starter. “People think you lose a kid like Ryan and you take a significant step down, but while Garrett won’t play the same role as Katz, he’s a much better than average high school quarterback.”
Samohi faces stiff competition in the passing league from teams with much more certainty at the quarterback position than the Vikings.
Host school Mission Viejo is led by quarterback Allan Bridgford, who has verbally committed to play at Cal. Los Osos High School and Upland High School also feature prominent signal-callers in Richard Brehaut (committed to UCLA) and Josh Nunes (committed to Tennessee), respectively.
Bridgford, Brehaut and Nunes are all ranked among the top five senior quarterbacks in California by recruiting services.
Crespi Carmelite High School, which finished No. 4 in the Los Angeles Times’ final high school football rankings for Southern California teams, will also be playing on Saturday.
The passing league will include a separate lineman competition.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 11, 2008. Read the original PDF.