Poly defensive coordinator Jeff Turley may know Servite quarterback Cody Fajardo as well as he knows members of his own family by the time the two teams take the field at Vet’s tonight, at 7pm for their CIF quarterfinal matchup.  After all, it’s Turley’s job to shut down the Servite offense, and that means one thing, and one thing only: shutting down Cody Fajardo.  Don’t believe me?  Servite has gained 4,179 yards this year, and 2,540 of those yards (61%) has come from Fajardo’s arm, or his legs.  When asked which he was more worried about, Turley shook his head and said, “Pfff, both.”

Through the air, Fajardo is completing 74% of his passes, and averaging 9.8 yards per-attempt.  He isn’t the Matt Barkley or Brett Favre-esque model that’s going to make big plays, but cripple himself with big mistakes either; think Drew Brees or Peyton Manning instead.  Fajardo has thrown 16 TDs to only 2 interceptions so far this season.  One of his favorite targets, TE Troy Niklas, is out with a concussion this week, which leaves Fajardo with Chris Nicholls (who also takes snaps at running back) and Rudy Guerrero, two tiny playmakers who’ve each snagged six TD catches. 

Poly’s pass rush on Fajardo was nonexistent the first time these teams played, and Fajardo started 11-11 for 114 yards and a touchdown—getting pressure will obviously be step number one in disrupting the pass game, but Poly can’t let Fajardo get outside of them either.  His feet are nearly as dangerous as his arm, as he’s rushed for over 750 yards this year (and is averaging 70 yards per-game).  The thing that’s so devastating about Fajardo’s scrambling ability—and Lakewood saw this last year in the playoffs in a game they barely won—is that he knows when it will hurt your defense the most to scramble.  Every time he leaves the pocket, he picks up a first down, and puts a body blow on opponents’ morale.  Other than Fajardo, there’s nobody I’d say that’s better than Los Al’s Nick Richardson, who Poly contained pretty easily last week.  It’s more an issue of dealing with Servite’s fairly meaty offensive line.

Poly does have the defensive unit to stop Servite—I think this defense is approaching the level of an Edison team that held Servite’s offense without a touchdown when they played earlier this year.  Poly’s offense scoring on Servite’s D will be a different story, but check out these numbers I put together on the Poly defense.

Since a defeat against Millikan, the Jackrabbits defense has really come together—the offense has continued to struggle, but the defense has been consistent against Wilson, Cabrillo, Compton, and Los Al (none of whom are as high-powered as Servite, granted).  They’ve allowed a total of 40 points in those four games—doesn’t sound that great, right?  However—Los Al scored their touchdown on a drive that started at the one after a long interception return; Compton scored a touchdown off a muffed punt return; and Cabrillo and Wilson scored all 21 of their combined points in the fourth quarter of games Poly had in hand.  So, in the last four weeks, a grand total of one touchdown has been scored against Poly on a drive that had to go further than thirty yards against Poly’s starters, in a competitive game.

In those four games, they’ve also notched 10 sacks, 7 interceptions, 7 fumble recoveries, two safeties, and a touchdown.  In other words?  This unit has been playing out of its mind for the last month—but nobody seems to have noticed.  You can bet that if they become the second team this season to shut down the Servite Friars, that will change in a hurry.