Morgan Fennell is a contradiction. You would expect the quarterback of one of the nation’s biggest and best football programs would be a household name in the area, perhaps a record-shattering, headline-grabbing sensation. But Fennell, QB for Long Beach Poly the last two seasons, has received less press than his running backs…or his team’s linebackers…or their defensive line. There’s a pretty simple explanation, though—the eyes of spectators and sportswriters alike usually follow the football, and Fennell wasn’t typically the guy holding it for the Jackrabbits, as his running backs carried the ball nearly four times as much as he threw it. In fact, Fennell attempted less passes than any starting QB in the Moore League (excepting Compton, who averaged 2.5 pass attempts per game as a team).
“Having backs like we do, Melvin [Richardson] and Daveon [Barner], it’s like a safety blanket,” said Fennell after practice on Tuesday. “We don’t have to throw the ball fifty times to win. When teams see us, they think all we do is run—that brings the defense up and helps me do what I have to do.”
What Fennell has had to do, what his coaches have asked him to do, is to be incredibly efficient, and to stretch opposing defenses out to allow room for the backs to bounce around. But the low number of attempts has led people to overlook him, especially after a slow start to the season. “Morgan is very good at doing what we need him to do,” Poly coach Raul Lara said after multiple ‘Rabbits games. “But with our backs, why would we throw the ball all night?”
The winning formula for Poly on offense has been get a lead running it, and then hold the lead running it, using Fennell to punish teams for stacking the box. Against Esperanza last week, that’s how Poly won—as the Aztecs started to cheat up, Fennell dropped a touch pass over the middle to TE Julian Camper, who ended up trucking 63 yards downfield before being tackled at the two. Melvin Richardson ran the score in, getting credit for the TD in the stat book—Fennell finished 3/6 for 89 yards, a line that’s easy to pass by—but two of those completions were on third down to keep the game-winning drive alive.
Despite clutch performances like the one against Esperanza, and despite the fact that he had a QB rating of 141 over the last five weeks of the regular season (throwing 10 TDs and no picks), articles and opinions claiming that Poly was a one-dimensional offense continued to run rampant. And while Fennell isn’t at all bothered by the number of touches his backs get, it clearly gets to him that people fail to understand his role in the offense. “It’s been frustrating from time to time. Not being voted All-League, that just motivates me to prove everyone wrong, anyone who’s ever doubted me. When there’s a pass play, I want to run it perfectly—even if it’s just five in a game, I want those to be five great passes.”
The ironic thing is that with his physical tools and downfield accuracy, Fennell could likely have added plenty of pages to the stat books were he on a team that asked him to throw the ball fifty times—in fact, that’s what he’d love to be doing a few years from now, as the senior has his heart set on Oklahoma and their spread offense (he’s also being recruited as a receiver by Nebraska, because of his size and speed).
But for now, Fennell is happy to be one piece of a juggernaut, the dangerous second dimension of a not-so-one-dimensional offense. “I don’t really care if my name is all across the newspaper, as long as it says in there that Poly wins. That’s all I care about. A championship ring—I don’t have to get the credit for it.”