MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan – From smashmouth to spread, Matthew C. Perry football is getting a complete makeover entering the 2015 season.
Coach Frank Macias and the Samurai are making the change very much out of necessity – the size they possessed a year ago, both in the interior and in the backfield, is gone, thanks to losing seven players each to transfer and graduation.
“We definitely won’t be smashmouth like we were last year,” Macias said, now that interior guys like Andrew Balolong and skills guys such as Jarell Davis, Mick Carreiro and Cullen Waugh are memories.
Macias knows that’s the nature of the transient environment of being overseas. “That’s DODDS,” he said. “Everybody deals with that. We lost a lot to PCS. We’re just not getting the bodies back. The numbers are killing us.”
So the Samurai are making complete, fundamental change in approach in their second year as a varsity program since 2003. Perry played as a “non-varsity” entity in 2012 and 2013 and didn’t field in the stretch before that.
With a roll of the figurative football dice, Macias says he’s hoping a more wide-open spread attack can be just as effective as the ground-pounding attack that led Perry to the Far East Division II title game Nov. 8. The Samurai lost 60-50 against Daegu.
Three linemen return, including seniors Austin Macias and R.J. Bolduc - both have been with the Samurai for the four years since the program’s reboot.
Returning at skills positions are junior Caeleb Ricafrente and sophomore Zach Brown in the backfield, along with potential featured receivers Desmond Moore, a senior, and his junior brother Tyson Moore. “We’re hoping to use (their) athleticism this season,” Macias said.
Another Macias back on the team is Garrett, a sophomore who took the keys to the offense last year at quarterback. “We threw him in as a freshman and we’re hoping he can make strides this year,” the elder Macias said.
A diamond in the rough, Macias said, is Michael Perez, a senior quarterback who transferred from New York.
That gives the Samurai a two-headed monster under center or in the gun: Garrett Macias, a more controlled passer, and Perez, who can take off and run. “We’re hoping to platoon,” Frank Macias said.
He had been hoping for an expected influx of students, due to units moving to Iwakuni from up north that would have bumped Perry’s enrollment to about 500; instead, the school is still stuck at about 130.
“I’m hoping in two years, we can have a different conversation,” Macias said. “But I like our group. They’ve been working hard. Our kids will come out and play hard and we’ll see where the chips fall.”
