1. Mater Dei (9-2 in 2007) – You start with USC-bound Matt Barkley, and that’s a good place to start.
He is the No. 1 prospect in the nation, and going into his senior year already owns Mater Dei career passing records at a school that has produced two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks.
The receivers are young and inexperienced, but that was the case last year, too, when Barkley set the Monarchs’ single-season passing yards record of 3,576 as he completed 214 of 340 passes.
Jaron Hytche, who rushed for 460 yards and 10 touchdowns in ‘07, is a fine tailback, and a big offensive line is anchored by tackle Chris Ward.
There is speed and toughness on defense, too. Cornerback Christian Maldonado was all-league first team last year.
“There is speed and toughness on defense, too.” What the heck are you talking about? I sure didn’t see that speed and toughness last year against Orange Lutheran and Crespi. This MD will once again fall short of much lofty expectations by the media, who for some reason can’t seem to get over the fact that the best player doesn’t make you the best team. They lost their top 5 receivers, they lost the majority of the offensive line which was a strength last year, and they lost a huge majority of their defense to graduation, and their defense has been terrible these last few years. Gone are the 1990’s Fryer, MD is not the best team in the county this year, and have no warrant to being number
Mission Viejo deserved number 1 and Mater Dei should be moved down to number 3. I sure hope you can explain another early MD playoff loss after this year, Fryer.
seeing the same teams at the top of this list is getting boring. i’ll root for the underdogs.
Until Mission does anything notable in the Pac5, why would anyone rate them No.1 ?
Why would Mater Dei deserve No. 1 when they haven’t done anything in the division in a decade?
Having a great quarterback is a tremendous asset that Mater Dei can enjoy. Years ago I remember a Servite lead team with one heck of a quartback, Steve Beuerlein. That team was simply unbeatable. It shows exactly what having a dominant quarterback can do to a team. Barkley will do the same thing for Mater Dei. As for the other talent on this team, it may be unrpoven but it is nonetheless talent. Mater Dei definitely deserves to be on the top of the O.C. rankings.
He was the top ranked QB in the county, but unless he’s going to play defense it isn’t going to help his team win. MV deserves to be #1 with what they have coming back which is much, much more compared to MD, who lost nearly every play on a good but not great team last year.
go monarchs! we are #1! woo!