Coach Gifford Has Bruins Clawing Back to Gridiron Relevancy

Andrew Bensch

2 hours ago

High school football fans in the Silicon Valley would be wise not to sleep on the Santa Clara Bruins. While the Bruins’ varsity team has not finished with a winning season since 2018, the team enters its upcoming bye week with a 3-1 record, averaging 39.7 points per game. The only time it’s scored less than 30 points was in week three’s victory, 28-25 over Santa Cruz.

Even though Santa Clara did see its undefeated record ended last week with a 54-32 loss to Carlmont, the overall picture of development remains strong. For a program that had previously seen short stints of head coaches, Athletic Director Nelson Gifford is now in his fourth season leading the program. The continuity with the coaching staff has gone a long way, especially for a program that often gets overlooked.

“I think it’s everything,” responded Gifford when asked about the importance of a football team having a coach who is a staple on campus. “I think if you walk around all the public schools up and down California, that’s what you’ll see. Look at Milpitas, Los Gatos, Wilcox, Burlingame, San Mateo, the list goes on and on. You have to have continuity at a school to be able to create the culture that it takes to have sustained success year after year. Being the AD, that’s also a part of our mission to create that continuity.”

Part of that continuity is keeping the same coaches on staff, including at the junior varsity level. Coach Gifford eagerly shouted out the success of his junior varsity teams under his long-time friend and fellow coach D’Andre Wright. The Bruins’ JV squad has a combined 8-1-1 league record over the previous two seasons, and the team is off to an identical 3-1 start to the varsity team. All three wins have come via the shutout variety.

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“D’Andre has been here with me the whole time. He was my JV coach when I was at Palo Alto, I coached him in high school at Fremont,” chuckled Gifford on how far he and Wright go back. “My entire coaching staff, for the most part, a lot of them have been with me for years. I trust them implicitly; they do a great job of mentoring young kids and holding them to a standard. I hope the kids feel the progress. JV posted their third shutout in four games; they are doing really well.”

The successful development at the JV level can be seen in the fact that the varsity team has two sophomores in key positions. Quarterback Elijah Palomino-Hendrix and running back Josiah Guittap aren’t just on varsity as sophomores, but they are starters on offense. With a great mix of youth and veteran players, Coach Gifford acknowledged his excitement for potentially breaking that streak of losing seasons.

“Obviously we have to take it one game at a time, but it would mean everything. Nothing is guaranteed. Last year, we felt we had an opportunity, but injuries hurt us. This year, same thing, battling injury right now, but the depth and experience gives us the opportunity to do that. To be able to break that streak would be huge, would be huge for us, huge for the program, and it would just bode well for the future. Our first year, the JV program won two games, but then they won five games, eight games, and already three this year. It starts with the young guys and hopefully this can be the year.”