INLAND FIELDHOUSE

I covered the Eastvale Roosevelt-Riverside Poly varsity football game for The Press-Enterprise on Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, and came away with a bad case of Right School, Wrong Guy.

Coming into this season Aaron Crone was THE quarterback at Eastvale Roosevelt. A three-year starter, he’d already amassed 35 TDs and more 3,500 yards through the air.

I have covered Crone and the Mustangs each of the last two seasons, and let me tell you, he’s one talented kid. He’s not the tallest at 6-foot-1, but his mobility and arm strength more than make up for any height deficiencies. Anyway, I half-expected to cover an Roosevelt game at some point this season, one in which Crone was going to put up gaudy numbers in a huge victory, just as he had the last two seasons.

Well, my turn to cover Roosevelt came on Friday, and there was a quarterback who put up gaudy stats in a huge victory. It just wasn’t Aaron Crone.

Brandon Rogers (6-foot-1, 190 pounds) was under center for the Mustangs, just as he has been most of this season as Crone continues to suffer from a strained right shoulder. And on Friday night, he put up stats that rivaled Crone’s best.

More importantly, his 344 yards and three TDs on 16 of 21 passing was critical to the Mustangs’ ability to rebound from a blowout loss to Norco a week ago.

It was the type of performance to which Roosevelt supporters had become accustom. It was vertical passing, and it was Aaron Crone-esque, it just wasn’t Aaron Crone. It was Brandon Rogers.

Right school, wrong guy.

Roosevelt Coach Bill Stacy:
“It’s not just scoring 50, but we played good. We showed some composure. We have a lot of young guys playing that aren’t used to playing under the lights. And each week it seems like we’re getting a little bit better. We felt last week we were in the games until, sheesh, the fourth quarter. It was 14-7 and we had the ball on the 4? We let that thing get away from us. We wanted to move on a play well so it was a really hard week. (Brandon Rogers) is getting better every week. We just want to protect him a little bit better and maybe not do some of our triple-read plays, maybe just slow, make his reads a little easier. We were throwing him in games, back-and-forth, and having him do what our three-year starter did, and ya know, we slowed it down a little bit. We’ve always known he can throw the ball but he’s been playing receiver all summer. He did what we asked him to. Told him to protect the football and not give up any extra opportunities and I think he did a fine job of doing that tonight. When you’re 1-3 it just feels good to win. I quoted George Allen, ‘You die a little but when you lose, and you live a little bit when you win,’ and you could just see it in their faces. It was nice to win. I needed it as bad as they did. We’re going to have to get better every week. This league has great coaches and we’re going to have to get a lot better every week to be competitive.”

Roosevelt senior Brandon Rogers:
“(Aaron Crone) tells me to keep positive, ya know. Don’t get down on yourself when you make mistakes. I was starting (the season) at receiver, and yeah, I was No. 2 behind him but then the big incident happened so… it’s different. Take the win. Take it one game at a time. We’re gonna get better and come out against Corona next week.”