Flex-ing Estancia’s muscle

Barry Faulkner

When it came time to reassemble his staff last off-season, Estancia

High football coach Dave Perkins looked first to another area code. But

by luring former colleague and Corona resident Bob Brockie to the Eagles’

campus last spring, Perkins also reached into another era.

“He’s a throwback,” Perkins said of his 59-year-old defensive

coordinator, who deserves a large portion of the credit for the Eagles’

abrupt turnaround from a 1-9 season last fall to a 2-0 start.

Estancia, which just missed a second straight shutout Friday when

Westminster scored with 2:04 left, just may have its most effective

defense since 1989. That Eagle unit blanked six foes en route to a 10-0

regular season and the Sea View League crown.

Only four Estancia teams have posted multiple goose eggs in the same

season (1969, ‘70, ’79 and ‘82) and none of those managed more than two.

Perkins was responsible for implementing the flex defense, popularized by

the University of Arizona and used with eye-catching success the last

four seasons by Woodbridge High. Woodbridge went 21-2-3 the last two

years, including an unbeaten 1998 CIF Southern Section Division VI title

run which included a pair of victories over now-Division I contender

Santa Margarita. Perkins attended all four Warrior playoff games last

fall and the impression stuck.

But it is Brockie, whose old-school double-knit coaching shorts symbolize

a venerable football background dating back to his prep playing days at

Downey High in the late 1950s, who has helped make it work.

“He’s a stickler for detail,” Perkins said of his former colleague at

Corona and San Bernardino high schools, who began coaching in the Downey

Pop Warner program in 1967. “And a really good teacher. We kid him about

being around when they used leather helmets.”

Brockie, who commutes 40 minutes each way to Estancia, has sold the

scheme, which, in its adapted form, amounts to a 3-5-3 alignment. Two

outside linebackers, one middle ‘backer and two “flex” positions, which

the Eagles term inside linebackers and line up about four feet off each

offensive guard, often in a four-point stance, are complemented by three

down linemen, two cornerbacks and a free safety.

It wasn’t a particularly tough sell, considering the Eagles’ surrendered

an average of nearly 32 points per game last fall. But it’s clear Brockie

has quickly earned his players’ respect.

“We’re working hard in practice,” said junior outside linebacker Andy

Romo, who had one of the Eagles’ four interceptions against Westminster.

“(The early success) is feeding us and pumping us up.”

Brockie was not new to the scheme, having run “a little of the old

Arizona flex back in the early 1990s.” So, when Perkins expressed his

interest in the defense, Brockie knew he could make it come alive on the

field.

“When Dave started talking to me about coming down here, he said he was

kind of intrigued by (the flex). We talked about it and he thought it

would be a good fit for the kids we have here.”

Woodbridge Coach Rick Gibson, who along with Warrior defensive

coordinator Kirk Harris, shared off-season notes on the flex with Perkins

and Brockie, said Harris came up with the “double flex,” which the

Eagles have adopted.

The variation backs an additional down lineman into the flex alignment,

which, Brockie said, allows a team to drop eight players into pass

coverage.

The result has been six interceptions in two games, four shy of

Estancia’s 1998 total and three times as many as the Eagles managed in

their final six games last fall.

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Perkins and Gibson said the defense fits well with quick, undersized,

personnel, which, Perkins believes, the Eagles’ will need to rely upon in

the coming years.

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Brockie first met Perkins when the latter coached Brockie’s son, Keith, a

captain on the 1989 CIF Division V championship team at Corona High.

Brockie’s other son, John, is also on the Estancia staff. He coaches

quarterbacks.

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The elder Brockie is committed to continuing at Estancia “Until the

program gets turned around,” even though his daily freeway ritual does

not allow him to arrive at practice until nearly 4:30.

“I told Dave, ‘Next year, I want to get paid by the mile,’ ” Brockie

said.