Bargas wants tradition for Eagles

Call it Bargas football, with a twist of Brinkley.

That’s what fans will likely see when Estancia High opens the season against Aquinas Friday.

There will be a strange sense of deja vu for Mike Bargas, since Estancia is playing the home game at Newport Harbor, the school where Bargas played and was an assistant football coach and teacher for 16 years.

At 7 p.m., when it’s time to shine, Bargas will be in familiar territory, on the home sideline of the Sailors’ stadium, with a clipboard.

There’s just one major discrepancy, because this time, he’ll be in charge.

“Some people ask me, ‘Do you deny that Newport Harbor heritage,?’ ” Bargas said. “On the contrary. I’m proud that I coached so long at Newport and I was a player because what we’re doing here is what I learned at Newport Harbor and what Jeff Brinkley brought as a head coach for all those years.”

We’re not trying to emulate Newport Harbor, but we want to be along the same ranks as Newport Harbor and develop that work ethic they had and the tradition. They hang their hat on that stuff.”

Another new coach means another new playbook for the Eagles — the sixth new playbook in 11 seasons — which translates to keeping things simple in the west coast offense and four-three defense for the early part of the season.

There’s no need, Bargas said, to throw a huge playbook at kids if they won’t remember what’s in it, and it takes time to teach everyone the new terminology.

“We might have to keep the package really simple so they play with some confidence,” Bargas said. “But they’ve made huge, huge strides since they’ve started. We as coaches just need to sit back and be patient and let things happen.”

I’d rather have it be simple and have the kids play aggressively, than have this big ole schematic that they’re not really sure of. We want them to play hard.”

While five starters return on offense, there are only three on defense, and that has made this team different from most. Usually in the preseason, the offense is struggling to match the progress of the defense. It’s even stranger considering that Bargas is largely a defensive coach. This year, he’s coaching the linebackers, and last season, he was a defensive line coach at Newport Harbor.

But for once, the scenario’s been flipped.

“This year, defensively we’re a little bit slow and offensively, we’re kind of meshing,” Bargas said. “We’ve done a lot of seven-on-seven in the summertime so the quarterbacks and receivers and tight ends and the running backs have been able to get a groove and they’ve gotten more repetitions to put it plainly.”

Mike Morley will once again lead the Eagles offense after a season where the Eagles were 7-4 and lost, 40-44, to Corona del Mar in the playoffs. The 6-1, 166-pound senior was 88 of 168 for 1,665 yards and 19 touchdowns last season, and finished with 11 interceptions and 19 touchdowns.

Morley also had 250 yards rushing on 64 attempts.

Bargas said Estancia will probably use many one- and two-back sets, and senior tight end Brian Valencia could see as many as 15-20 throws when prudent.

There may be some variations within the defense, a four-four and possibly some resemblance to the defensive sets run by the Philadelphia Eagles or Chicago Bears, but the four-three will be the basic standard, Bargas said.

Even with all the preparation and enthusiasm from this crop of football players, Bargas is still nervous about his debut as Estancia’s head coach.

He has been losing sleep and gaining gray hairs he said, and when he does sleep, he’s dreaming about football.

“There are some sleepless nights because it’s my first year as a head coach and trying to get the whole staff to jell,” Bargas said. “I wish we didn’t have a zero-week game, but we’re going to get ready for it regardless.”

One of the scary parts is we don’t have any film on these guys so we’re kind of going in blindly. So we don’t know what we’re going to see. We’ve got a little bit of information on them, but not a whole lot.”