A run, ‘past’ option
Prep football: 11-on-11 exercise holds connections to Hart High history
The day featured a dizzying number of connections to the past, but to the Herrington brothers, it just felt like, well, football.
When Hart High and Paraclete of Lancaster got together Wednesday evening at Hart for an 11-on-11 practice, it brought together Santa Clarita’s First Family of Football and posed a trip down memory lane in more ways than one.
Not that Indians head coach Mike Herrington, Hart defensive coordinator Rick Herrington or Paraclete head coach Dean Herrington, who all coached together at Hart from 1989 to 2000, were necessarily going to go there.
“We’re just trying to get our guys to do their best,” said Mike, who has stressed that the key to 11-on-11 in the summer is competing against coaching staffs you trust. “We’re not worried about the rivalry.”
The afternoon of no-pads, one-hand-touch football also featured another connection to Hart’s past.
Paraclete’s quarterback is Brevin White, the younger brother of former Hart standout and current Arizona State QB Brady White.
Brevin said he felt right at home Wednesday on a practice field where he’d seen his fair share of workouts. “Too many,” he deadpanned. Back in 2014, it was Brady connecting with Hart receiver Trent Irwin at a record-setting pace. Both Trent’s father and Brady’s and Brevin’s father were in attendance Wednesday as Brevin took the top off Hart’s secondary with two long scoring strikes to Andre Hunt.
Paraclete, the reigning Division 3AA state champion, moved the ball with more consistency than the host Indians, whose only score came on a seam route, quarterback JT Shrout to receiver Michael Colangelo.
The Indians were missing all-around playmaker Da’Von Jones for the day, but DJ Palmer made a handful of plays in Hart’s last 11-on-11 exercise of the summer.
The Indians will, however,
participate in Edison High of Huntington Beach’s 7-on-7 tournament Saturday.
Their first opponent? Paraclete and White, a four-star recruit who is undecided at this point, though he has offers from Tennessee and five Pac12 schools, according to Rivals.com.
After beginning his high school career at Alemany of Mission Hills under Dean Herrington, White played at Chaminade of West Hills in 2016 before transferring to Paraclete, where Herrington was hired before last season.
“I was able to come over here to Paraclete and pretty much end the journey that we began together,” said White, who also highlighted a reason Paraclete and Hart will never play a regular-season game with the Herringtons around.
At one point, Shrout used a hand signal to audible to a slant. White tipped off a Paraclete cornerback.
The teams, naturally, use the same signals.
“The wide receiver and JT were giving me some talk about it,” White said. “It’s all fun out here, and it’s just good friendly competition.”