Cerritos College looks to capture its first State title as they embark on their road to state.

Overview

Coming off back-to-back bowl championships the Cerritos Falcons’ Football team have their eyes focused on winning state.

Posted in the Falcons’ locker room are multiple posters stating “Do It Right!” The outset for the upcoming season is win the opening game, win conference and ultimately win the bowl game. The sights this season have turned into state championship aspirations.

Last season, the Falcons ended the year with a Golden State Bowl win over Santa Barbara.

The win brought Cerritos’ overall season record to 8-3.

With an overall season record like that not too many games seemed to be close. The Falcons outscored all opponents 332-268. With that dispersed among all 11 games that is a little over 30 point per game averaged and a little under 25 points per game against.

One stat to notice from last season to this season is the overwhelming stat of freshmen to sophomores. On the training camp roster there are 76 freshmen and only 35 sophomores.

One bright spot is the return of starting quarterback Jimmy Walker (#7). He put up some pretty staggering numbers. He went 158/300 for 2, 323 yards with 25 touchdowns and 20 interceptions. That’s about an average of 211 yards with a little over two touchdowns per game.

On the other hand not all players can return. The top three rushers from last season have all moved on from Cerritos College. Those top running backs were Travis Newberry (#20), Joseph Donnell (#6), and DeVonte Carter (#9). They accounted for well over 1,000 yards rushing. This season it will become a joint collaboration for the making up of those lost yards.

The defense was pretty consistent all of last season, by only allowing over 30 points in three games all of last season. David Fangupo (#45) is looked to lead the Falcon’s defense coming into this season.

Last year he posted 33 tackles with two sacks. The defense should only improve this season with multiple returners returning to the team with most coming in the secondary.

Offense

The Cerritos Falcons offense is going to be led for the second straight year by Jimmy Walker (#7). Walker showed glimpses of a promising sophomore season last year.

Walker was given the reigns as the leader of the offense in his first year and he showed why keeping the team in his possession would be a smart move for Head Coach Frank Mazzotta.

Despite having numbers that clearly speak for themselves Walker still felt the need to improve something during the offseason.

“This season I’m just letting it all come to me,” Walker admitted. “I’m a year smarter and I’ve matured so it should all come easier to me,” Walker added.

His teammates also aren’t shy about expressing their love and gratitude toward their quarterback.

“He’s become more patient. He looks more calm back there, he knows the offense more. Needless to say I trust him to lead us,” sophomore running back Robert Gordon (#33) said.

Not only has the offense weighed in on the praise of Walker and his progression. Defensive tackle David Fangupo (#45) had high admiration for his offensive leader.

“He has a sense of confidence now. Not that he didn’t have confidence last year, he’s just more confident this year. One reason he’s confident is the offensive lines improving coming from last season. He knows he has more time to get rid of the football,” Fangupo explained.

The offensive line wasn’t too bad last year however; they paved the way for three running backs last season to reach over 400 plus yards rushing.

Although, since those top rushers are no longer with the team someone has to fill the void. Gordon feels as though it has to be a joint team effort in order to replace those three rushers.

“We have to come out strong in the first quarter and get every yard we can,” Gordon said.

“The running back group that we have is solid from top to bottom there are no fall offs. We all have big play capability. We can be dangerous,” Gordon proclaimed.

Despite knowing the severity of the importance of sustaining a running game the team is well aware not to become one-dimensional.

“We, as running backs, just need to make the most every time we touch the ball. Again if we do that we can be dangerous,” Gordon said with a smile.

Quarterback Walker also weighed in on the idea of becoming a one-dimensional team.

“We’re not one-dimensional. As good as our running game is [we] were still able to put up record passing numbers,” Walker explained.

However, Walker admitted that “running game is the staple for the offense” and the offense “thrives” off of the running game.

Defense

While most fans would point to the offense as the key to the Falcons’ success in the previous season, in the Golden State Bowl the defense allowed its third lowest scoring output of the season in 19 points.

Needless to say despite that staggering end to the year the aforementioned Fangupo still feels the team can improve.

“We have to play every game like it’s our last. We have to be stingy up front and not allow any [momentum],” Fangupo expressed.

“Our defensive line is still young but we trust our [defensive backs] to take care of business,” admitted Fangupo.

Fangupo would go onto give credit to defensive backs Thadd Daniels (#5) and Deon Smalls (#3).

While Fangupo pointed out the elephant in the room it is hard to negate the fact that the Cerritos football team has twice as many freshmen on the roster than they do sophomores. However, nobody seems to worry too much about that.

“Experience always plays a factor but we have a good group of young guys and a good group of older guys to teach the young guys. They’ll be ready to make quick adjustments,” Walker stated.

Fangupo looks to himself to be one of the many people looked at to lead the younger group of guys.

“Its like Coach [Mazzotta] always tells us, ‘we have to buy in.’ And the younger guys have bought in. They came in raw and they are getting there if they are not there already,” Fangupo explained.

With an offense as explosive as the Falcons have one could assume the defense could get lackadaisical and not give it their all on every play. Fangupo sees no sight of that.

“We have to lean on each other. We have to be there to pick each other up. We have skills on both sides of the ball we just have to bring intensity on both sides as well,” Fangupo stated.

It seems as though the Falcons have learned from all mistakes last season and are mentally prepared for the upcoming season as well as physically prepared. We will see how prepared the players and the staff really are on Saturday Sept. 5 as they head out on the road to take on Saddleback College as they embark on the road to state.