Utah's Blechen is Back: Former Moorpark Football Standout Plays USC on Saturday

Former Moorpark football standout Brian Blechen makes his grand return Saturday.

After earning freshman All-American honors as a Utah defensive back last season, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Blechen joins the Utes on against USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Kickoff is 4:30 p.m., and a huge throng of family and friends are expected to cheer on Blechen, who has switched to linebacker for his sophomore season.

It’s an historic game because Utah has joined the expanded Pac-12 Conference, and this is the first conference game with Utah included, as the Utes have switched from the Mountain West Conference.

Blechen had two interceptions – returning one 39 yards to set up a touchdown – and seven tackles in a season-opening 27-10 win over Montana State. As a freshman, he had 67 and four interceptions.

In high school, he played quarterback, safety and linebacker, and he was also a top punter.

Blechen is one of two Valley area players on Utah’s roster. The other is running back Lucky Radley, a redshirt freshman from Taft in Woodland Hills who also played at Agoura and Crespi.

HOME SWEET HOME

Moorpark College’s football game this coming Saturday was supposed to be at Pierce College, because of renovations at Pierce, the matchup has been switched to Moorpark at 6 p.m., and that’s just fine with Moorpark coach Jim Bittner, who now has six home games and one away game instead of an even split.

“We like it. It’s fine,” Bittner said. “We would have liked the gate receipts, too, but Pierce decided they should have the gate receipts, which is proper.”

Technically, it will be Pierce’s home game, but Moorpark will wear its home uniforms and Pierce its away uniforms.

Bittner said he was not sure who would collect the concession proceeds.

“I don’t know how that works,” Bittner said. “It doesn’t amount to much, frankly. I think we usually get about 500 to 800 people, depending on how many the other teams draw.”

After losing its opening game 31-25 to Ventura in the worst way possible – Moorpark allowed two fumble returns for touchdowns plus a kick-return touchdowns – the Raiders have been working on fundamentals this past week.

It has not been an easy week of practice because of 100-degree temperatures.

“The weather hasn’t helped. It’s been really hot,” Bittner said. “The practices haven’t been as upbeat as I’d like them to be, but I’d see we seem to be just about full speed. I think we’ll be OK.”