Before seeing the guys’ posts about their official visits on X, I’d never heard of Saddleback. But I was curious, and just so happened to have access to Google, so I now know that:
This was their first year under the current head coach, and they went 10-2 overall, 7-0 in their conference, and made it to the regional finals in the California Community College Athletic Association playoffs where they lost to a Golden West team that was undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the last rankings on the CCCAA website. Saddleback was ranked 5th in the CCCAA, which appears to have 66 teams, and was also ranked 6th nationally by JCGridiron (which is now part of On3/Rivals).
California has such a robust community college system that they have their own association separate from the NJCAA - which has 41 football teams in its Division I from around the country (the Mississippi, Kansas, Texas schools you may be more familiar with, etc.) This is the 7th season in the last 10 that Saddleback has finished in the JCGridiron Top 25. For a more local comparison, Mississippi Gulf Coast (where Coach Campbell came from) was ranked 12th this season.
Their most notable football alums are Heisman finalist Colt Brennan (Hawaii) and NFL Pro Bowler Kyle Long (Oregon/Chicago Bears). In the past few years they’ve sent players to every FBS conference except the SEC and all over the FCS.
Dudden was a 2nd team all-league selection and had 1,844 yards passing, 16 TDs to 5 INTs, and completed 61.2% of his passes. It looks like he shared a little time with another QB (who ended the season with 98 pass attempts, completing 56.1% of them with a 3/2 TD/INT ratio). Not sure the context of the rotation – if it was all mop-up duty, or scheduled reps for the backup just to get him some experience/film, if Dudden was banged up, or what. But doesn’t appear it was a true QB battle.
Saddleback was really balanced, running for 223 yards per game and passing for 215, so the passing numbers aren’t going to be eye-popping. But if you just look at the 6 games in which they were a little more reliant on the pass and he threw more than 20, he averaged 204 yards on 27.5 attempts per game in those (for comparison, Myers averaged 228 yards on 31 attempts per game). For the full season he averaged 7.8 yards per pass attempt, 12.7 per completion. Myers was 7.4 & 12.9 for us.
He threw one interception in each of the first four games, then went the next 7+ games – about 170 consecutive attempts – without one.
Also ran for 383 yards (5.6 per carry) with 8 TDs. Only took 6 sacks all season. Fumbled four times, lost two of them.
Saw one article that said he started his career with a redshirt season at Cal Poly out of the Big Sky before going to Saddleback. His junior year of HS was listed among the Top 40 QBs in SoCal alongside guys like Nico Iamaleava and Malachi Nelson (list was alphabetical, not ranked, so no clue if he was 3 or 20 or 40).
Hardin, the DB, appears to have started his career at a D3 before going to Saddleback. Had 27 tackles last season, a sack, and an INT that he returned 80 yards for a TD. There was another Saddleback DB, Jacob Sekiyoba, who visited who was a 2nd team all-league selection, but he hasn’t announced any commitment. Has offers from Idaho, Southern Utah, East Texas A&M (formerly Commerce), Indiana State, Eastern Illinois & UAPB.
