Placer and its ‘perfect storm of good football players’ downs Rio Linda

After a nearly 25-year hiatus, Joey Montoya brought back the electric razors in 2012 and every season since, his Placer Hillmen have carried on the tradition of shaving each other’s scalps down to boot-camp length in a sign of solidarity and team bonding.

The Hillmen gathered on campus two weeks before the first game of the 2018 season for the buzz cuts and ever since the Hillmen have been a buzzsaw. Friday at Rio Linda, the No. 4 Hillmen remained unbeaten and cut down the No. 17 Knights 48-23 to take control of the newly formed Foothill Valley League.

“Some of these kids have long hair now,” said Montoya, Placer’s coach. “It’s nice to be young. We usually cut their hair down to a two. But we like to mess with our quarterbacks and shave them down to a zero. I don’t know if they’ll cut their hair again this season, and only one team has cut it twice. These guys like their hair.”

The locks might not be flowing, but the Hillmen wing-T offense certainly is. Hans Grassman had 247 yards on 15 carries and touchdowns of 29, 16, 9 and 10 yards. Marshall Chapman added 225 yards and rushing touchdowns of 2 and 4 yards.

“We’ve got a lot of weapons,” Montoya said. “When your tight end (Will Fudge) and your split receiver (Cyrus O’Neal) are the two fastest kids on your team, and you have the three backs (Grassman, Chapman and Brad Bishop) that we have, and your QB (Michael Stuck) is a three-year starter … it’s a perfect storm of a lot of good football players.”

The wing-T produced 678 total yards of offense Friday. Coming into the game, the Hillmen were seventh in the country for rushing yards (2,778) and 10th in scoring, averaging 61.8 points each Friday, according to Max Preps’ database of reported stats.

“I’ve been here 12 years and that’s all we’ve run, but every we’ve refined it and gotten better,” Montoya said of the wing-T. “Some of the best things that we’ve been through over the last decade is playing in the (Pioneer Valley League) all those years against coach (Tony) Martello at Colfax, coach (Terry) Logue at Bear River and coach (Digol) J’Beily at Center. We’ve learned how people attack us with every stunt and everything imaginable, and it’s elevated us as a staff and elevated our football program.”

Placer returns 17 starters from a prolific 13-2 team that ended the 2017 season with a heartbreaking 46-43 loss to Crenshaw in the CIF State Division IV-AA final.

“It stung,” Montoya said. “When you lose by three points with a couple of minutes to go against a phenomenal team like (Crenshaw) … yeah, it’s been in the back of our minds. But the way we handle it, the process is week by week. (The loss) may have added some extra motivation to our offseason, but we focus on the here and now.”

Rio Linda quarterback Tyson Ybarra left the game in the second quarter and Abraham Banks replaced him. Banks threw a 47-yard score to Cameron Skattebo in the third quarter. Ybarra and Skattebo also connected on a 58-yarder in the first quarter.

The Knights started the game with a nice 65-yard drive but stalled at the Hillmen 15 after going for it on fourth-and-3. Placer then went 85 yards on five plays to take the lead and never trailed.

The loss of Ybarra also affected the Knights’ defense, as he’s the starting free safety.

“Rio Linda is a tremendous offensive football team that has a lot of weapons,” Montoya said. “Skattebo is such a physical runner and one of the premier running backs in the area, and they have a quarterback (Ybarra) who can run. And they’re young. They remind me a lot of us last year.”

Montoya said that, while his team is experienced having gone to a state final, some of his best players are just juniors and that bodes well for the program.

“Our juniors are 27-0. They haven’t lost a game in high school,” Montoya said. “We had four of those kids start for us last year. They are linemen Kyle Christensen, Jesus Castillo, Grassman our fullback, and defensive end Micah Yocum.

“Our seniors are 39-3 in their high school careers. Our program has really elevated itself the last few years and I’ve learned more as a head coach the last three years than I have in my first 14 or so.”