New Year, New ‘Wave as Fallon Opens Season at Manogue

Fallon head football coach Calvin Connors knows that returning several key players from a state championship team is nice, but it doesn’t automatically define a new roster.

So after what he considered a slow start in last Saturday’s scrimmage at Carson, he was pleased with the way his team regrouped and finished the rest of the scrimmage. 

“You know, we have standards. Unfortunately, we didn't meet those at the start of the scrimmage, but we talked about it like a game,” Connors said. “You’ve got to figure out how to rebound and make sure that we can find energy. So the kids found some energy, and I thought we had a great scrimmage.”

As it does often for the Greenwave, much of the energy came from big plays on both sides of the ball.

“Putting the ball in the end zone helps, and then making big plays, like getting interceptions out of Angel Quezada and Dylan Lanterman today, that gave us some energy,” Connors said.

Receiver Maxton Richardson caught two touchdown passes, and Calin Anderson caught another, while running back Nathan Bianchi dragged a defender into the end zone at the end of a touchdown run.

“We moved the ball well,” Connors said. “Not a ton of explosives in our first little session there, the first 10 plays. But we're getting four to five yards a pop, and that's what we asked for.”

Defensively, Connors said that in addition to the interceptions, he was most pleased that the defense was able to correct some mistakes from being out of position in the beginning of the session.

“Once again, that's a testament to how we started slow,” he said. “But they were able to figure it out and we were able to get calls in and then find some momentum, play fast, play physical.”

He also said the second unit showed they know what they're doing.

“Without a doubt,” he said. “We took our ones off the field, gave the twos an opportunity against their ones, and I thought they handled that perfectly. They were able to get the calls in and play fast.” 

Now, with the scrimmage behind them and the first game of the season coming up this Friday at Bishop Manogue, Connors said his team is ready to go.

“After two weeks of fall camp and our scrimmage, moving into game week is almost a little bit of a relief,” he said. “The grind of fall camp is always tiring at times whether you're a coach or player, but we've done a good job of managing the heat as players and making sure that they're understanding what we're trying to accomplish offensively, defensively, and special-teams-wise, in all three phases.”

He said they also structured the week leading up to the scrimmage as a mock game week, to get used to the weekly routine.

“We used this as a stepping stone for next week, so the kids have a template on what we expect for game week, and we look forward to taking it day by day, leading into Friday night,” he said.

Even with key players returning at several positions on both offense and defense, Connors said this year’s team has to find its own identity and not live off last year’s accomplishments.

“We have some returning pieces from last year's state team and that's great, and fine and dandy,” he said. “But this is a new group, a new year, and that season in the past is done. Now it's time to focus on ‘26 and really find out who we are as a group, and how we handle the highs and lows and adversity of a game.”