OCC ready to open it up

Orange Coast College quarterbacks ran for their lives and often threw under duress last football season, hoping to connect with someone wearing the same-colored jersey.

The result was 41 sacks, 22 interceptions, a 49% completion rate, an impotent offense and a 2-8 record.

This season, the Pirates' trigger man will run by design, when not sitting in the shotgun, picking over receiving choices as part of the newly installed spread offense.

The new scheme comes with a new coordinator, though Jack Wigmore is familiar to OCC Coach Mike Taylor, who enters his 13th season at the helm, having produced just two winning records in the last 10 seasons.

Wigmore, a star quarterback at Mater Dei in the 1960s who went on to Washington State, is Taylor's brother-in-law. Wigmore, who coached high school football in Oregon and Washington for 30 years, returns to coaching after an eight-season break. He stepped down in 2003 after a seven-season stint as head coach at Winston Churchill High in Eugene, Ore.

"We always talked about our seasons at Christmas, because he coached for 30-plus years, too," Taylor said. "Last Christmas, I asked him if he'd come coach quarterbacks, because I thought we really needed that last year. Then I decided to make some changes [removing Junior Tagaloa as offensive coordinator], and he said he would run the offense for us. He ran the double wing in high school, but he sat down with a lot of the Oregon coaches, including Chip Kelly, and he knows what he's doing. He brings a lot of energy to us and he has been able to connect with the quarterbacks who are here."

Getting quarterbacks to the Costa Mesa campus has been somewhat of a challenge, no more so than last season, when Taylor and his staff went to receiver Keali'i Doll as the Wildcat quarterback in the season finale.

A.J. Josue, who threw for 1,014 yards but had 11 interceptions, is ineligible this season, while Zach Emde (nine interceptions in nearly half as many attempts as Josue) has transferred to Saddleback.

The likely starter this season is Adam Young, a freshman out of Santa Margarita High, where the 6-foot-3, 180-poundee threw for 1,935 yards and 19 touchdowns in 2010 to help the Eagles finish 9-3. He completed 114 of 180 passes (63.3%) with just three interceptions.