Nov 22, 2017 10 min read

Despite its loss in the WPIAL Class A semifinals to Imani Christian, the California High School football team had one of the best seasons any team has had out of the Tri-County South Conference since the mid-1970s.

A senior-laden team posted a 12-1 record, averaged 50 points per game and allowed only 10 points per game. The Trojans put up video-game numbers, scoring 86 points against Avella, Jelani Stafford’s WPIAL-leading 28 rushing touchdowns and the offense rushing for 4,540 yards in 13 games, or 350 yards a game.

But, that well-oiled machine that was California was anything but that just a couple years prior.

How to ride the bus

In head coach Darrin Dillow’s first game as head coach at California, his team was losing 50-0 to Clairton at halftime.

Sure, Clairton was the perennial Class A powerhouse. Sure, they had star running back Lamont Wade. Sure, they were more experienced.

But 50-0 at halftime?

“I’m thinking, ‘Wow, we’re in trouble,” Dillow said.

The coaching staff started to re-evaluate the season after that first game. The coaches decided it was more about how the Trojans did things as a program rather than what they did – or weren’t able to do – on the field.

So, Dillow started with what frustrated him most after that loss to Clairton – how his team rode the bus.

Part one: How to get on the bus.

“You put your bag on the bus,” Dillow said. “You don’t expect other people to do it for you or make the freshmen do it. You do it.”

Part two: How to act on the bus.

“You can talk to a certain degree, but you’ve got playbooks to read, and you’re not gonna act like a clown, sing, open the windows and yell out the windows at girls walking by,” Dillow said. “And if you lose, you should probably be pretty quiet on the way home.”

Dillow realizes now – and realized then – that this probably won’t help his team win football games that season or in any future season.

“But you’ve gotta start somewhere,” he said.

Survival mode

Dillow admits his tenure as head coach probably couldn’t have started any worse.

He was an assistant coach at California for almost 10 years before taking a three-year hiatus from 2012-14. Then, in 2015, he took over the program that won only one game a year prior.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” he said.

During his first practice as head coach, three kids were taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion. The “watergate scandal,” he called it.

“People were calling for my head right away. Some parents were upset,” Dillow said. “We had the water breaks; we followed the guidelines. The kids were just sweating so much.”

The players ended up being OK, but Dillow said it was smarter and safer for the program – to avoid anymore controversy – to practice inside in the air conditioning rather than on the school’s hot synthetic turf for the remainder of camp.

The quality of practice was obviously bad indoors, and losing 72-0 to Clairton in the first game of the season didn’t help.

“I re-evaluated everything,” Dillow said. “It came to me thinking, ‘What do we need to do to make it through the season?’ We were in survival mode.”

The Trojans only had three seniors and went 2-7 that season.

“I learned a lot that first year,” Dillow said.

Building a culture

Since California is never going to produce the biggest, fastest or strongest football players in the WPIAL, Dillow said “building a culture” has been a priority.

The Trojans didn’t have a great strength and conditioning program before his first season, and before his second, only about half of his players participated in the volunteer weightlifting program.

This past offseason, more than 75 percent of the players participated.

In his first two seasons, Dillow and the other coaches would watch film and see blatant assignment mistakes on offense and defense. Almost no one missed assignments this season.

When Dillow first started as a head coach, he would constantly get emails from teachers about the behavior of his players in class. He said he only got two complaints this season.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s nice to win football games. It solves a ton of problems. But when you’re doing the right things, I think these kids can understand and see the affect of that kind of stuff,” Dillow said.

“I think all of the kids understand what the expectations are here now.”

The Navy offense

California ran a spread offense with an array of formations in Dillow’s first two seasons.

After the disastrous 2015, the Trojans went 6-5 in 2016 and made the playoffs, losing 56-21 to Bishop Canevin in the first round.

At the end of the season, Dillow was unhappy with the futility of the Trojans’ offense. In the TCS, he knew if his offense could hold onto the football, maintain drives and keep the defense off the field as much as possible, the offense would be successful.

To do that, Dillow switched to an offense from football’s most popular time-sucking, drive-sustaining offense in football: Navy’s triple option.

“I’ve been going to the Navy coaching clinic for four or five years. I’ve always been amazed with what they can do with the kids they have and playing that schedule,” he said. “Navy should never have a shot beating these other schools, but they always put up a fight.”

Since California had a small, veteran quarterback in Colin Phillips and three returning running backs in Jelani Stafford, Cochise Ryan and Jonathan Wood – along with transfer Zion Aldrich – Dillow switched to the triple-option scheme. Or, as they call it, “the Navy offense.”

Phillips, the Trojans’ decision-maker in the triple-option offense, said learning it wasn’t easy.

He said he took thousands of snaps, practiced riding the handoff with Stafford, the fullback, to ad nauseum and drilled the muscle memory until it was like second nature. Phillips was tasked with learning the complexities of the triple option, having to make multiple split-second decisions every play.

“When we ran it against Brownsville (in the season opener), it was complicated for me and I wasn’t looking at the right things,” Phillips said. “By midseason, it started clicking.”

When Dillow implemented the system, he didn’t expect for it to turn his offense into a nearly unstoppable force.

“Coming off a 6-5 season, we figured we could win at least two more games if we controlled the ball,” Dillow said. “If we get four yards a carry, control the clock, hold onto the ball, at least we’ll be competitive. That was the goal.”

The rushing attacked proved to be far more effective than Dillow expected. The Trojans averaged 9.62 yards per carry.

Stafford said the credit for the offensive success should mostly go to Dillow and the other coaches.

“Our coaching staff is phenomenal. They work so hard. They stay up late watching film,” Stafford said. “They teach us, and they take care of us on a physical and mental note.

Just wanted to win the conference

Those who projected the standings for each WPIAL conference must not have talked to Dillow before the season – or they didn’t believe him when he said his team would win the Tri-County South. California was projected to finish as low as fifth.

“People thought we were going to be horrible,” Stafford said. “We felt disrespected.”

But even Stafford and the rest of the Trojans didn’t foresee the undefeated regular season, being the No. 1 seed in the WPIAL playoffs or dominating almost every opponent they faced.

“Everyone was OK with getting the conference,” he said. “We just wanted to win the conference.”

The Trojans scored 202 points in their first three games, with a shocking 49-0 rout of Fort Cherry, to put California in the driver’s seat in the conference.

“Before we played Fort Cherry, I thought that was going to be the biggest game of my career,” Phillips said.

Then the team traveled to Graham Field in Wilkinsburg to play Imani Christian, which was one of the top teams in the WPIAL. After trailing by 13 points in the second quarter, California rallied to win a statement game, 41-26.

“The kids kept their heads,” Dillow said. “That’s when I really realized, ‘Wow, these kids are good. We’ve got something going here.'”

The real deal

Three weeks after the Imani win, the Trojans beat Carmichaels to virtually clinch a conference championship. Then they blew out Rochester, a perennial Class A power.

“Before the season, we thought we’d lose to Rochester and lose to Imani,” Stafford said. “We were fine with that. As time went on, we realized we were the real deal.”

The Trojans entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed, beating Bishop Canevin – the team who ended their season last year – by 44 points and then Union by 24 points.

Up next was Imani Christian.

“We beat Imani, we beat Rochester, so we thought all we had left was Clairton and Jeannette,” Phillips said. “Those were the only two teams who we thought could stop us.”

But, Imani’s defensive scheme stalled California’s offense, taking away the dive play to Stafford and ending California’s season one game short of a WPIAL final, which was won by Jeannette.

“I didn’t expect them to stack the box like that. The way they read our plays, they read them so well,” Stafford said. “Honestly, I don’t see a negative other than we lost the game. I’m glad I lost with these guys. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here with my boys.”

For Phillips, one of the 11 seniors, he was proud of the grit his class showed through the four years.

“We just stuck with it all four years,” he said. “Freshman year, we won one game. Sophomore year, two wins. Everybody just stuck with it. All the seniors, we gave it all every game.”

The Trojans are already thinking about next season.

Dillow said Austin Grillo is likely to replace Phillips at quarterback, as he’s been the backup for two seasons. The offense will still have Stafford and its main change-of-pace back in Cochise Ryan.

Dillow is confident of his team sustaining success for years to come.

“What happened this year is what’s going to happen next year,” he said. “It’s going to be the same outcome.”

And, if nothing else, at least they’ll know how to ride the bus.