Charging forward: a look ahead at City College football’s 2011 season

By Ryan Kuhn
The Guardsman

Last December, City College’s football team walked off the field after falling in their last game of the season. The season ended with only one loss but that loss came in the biggest game of them all: the state championship.

“It doesn’t bother me losing sometimes if you play your best but we went down to the state championship game and for a half played as poorly as we played for the entire season,” said head coach George Rush.

That was last season. One year later, the Rams return to the field with fresh faces.

Only two key players are returning on offense. Running back Bobby Brown ended the season for City College with only 103 yards rushing but wide receiver Daniel McKinney finished last year second on the team in both receptions and yards.

On the defensive side of the ball, defensive backs Blair Wishom and Iosia Iosia along with defensive tackle Steve Hill will all be returning for the Rams. Last year, City College finished No. 1 in Northern California in scoring defense.

Along with the returning sophomores, new players step onto the field and their head coach is very excited about his 2011 recruiting class.

“We have a great recruiting class and some really good young players,” Rush said. “We are grey shirting some for the future as well. I’m really excited about it.”

With Steele Jantz departing this season to play for Iowa State University, the quarterback job is in the hands of Jantz’s younger brother Broughan, who was a grey shirt last year.

“Broughan will start opening day,” Rush said.

Three other freshmen quarterbacks will back up Jantz and Rush made it clear that there is depth at the quarterback position.

If its not going well the team can have some faster answers to fix the problem,” he said

Broughan Jantz attended Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley, Calif where he threw for over 2,000 yards and 23 touchdowns while only getting intercepted three times in his senior season.

During his grey shirt season at City College, Jantz stood on the sidelines taking in as much as he could and kept his eyes on his brother, Steele.

“Just from watching him I picked up a lot,” Broughan Jantz said. “I felt like he did a great job because he was calm and that’s something I want to be like. He didn’t play with emotion. If something bad happens he doesn’t put himself in a bad position because of it.”

The Rams schedule will feature the same opponents as last year where the team will have to play San Joaquin Delta College, Butte College and College of San Mateo, away from San Francisco.

Rush said it doesn’t matter who they play, they just need to be focused. Everyone is good in August.

“I don’t really care. You have to play them [regardless where it is],” he said. “The biggest issue is when you get there. You have to focus on what your challenges are and stay on point. If you do that then we’ll be great.”

The Rams will play their first game at College of the Sequois, where they dismantled the Giants in last year’s opening game, 51-7.