All-Star Football preview: Q&A with South coach Jason Negro

Q: What are your  thoughts on the South?
Negro: It is fun to work with kids that are this talented.  Practice is going good and we're real happy with the progression. The kids are  working hard and we've had great attendance.

Q: How important is  it to have all of players on board for practices for an all-star game?
  Negro: I think in an all-star game we need to have everybody  here in order to be successful. All of the kids have been showing up and we've  been able to put some things in and try to implement our game plan.

Q: How are you going  to approach the final days of your practice schedule ahead of Friday's game?
  Negro: We're going to take next week to get ready for what  they do at Canyon. (The Canyon coaching staff is leading the North) and  hopefully prepare our kids the best way we can.

Q: How are you going  to approach the North's offense?
Negro: We know that they're pretty athletic over there. At  the wide receiver spot, they've got some kids that are fairly tall and that  might pose us a problem a little bit. We think we have some speed up front  (defensively) in our front seven and hopefully we can get to quarterbacks.  We're going to have to do a good job of being in the right place and playing  good defense.

Q: Are you concerned  about the size disadvantage that the South has in the wide receiver-defensive  back matchup?
Negro: I think there is a concern when you have the talent  that they have at the receiver position. But I think we're fairly athletic and  we're bigger at the safety position (Carlo Valdes of Mater Dei and Mike Bogard of Edison) are tall kids and hopefully they will be able to make plays on any  balls that are thrown up in the air. With Andrew Abbott (Mater Dei) on the  corner and Harold Williams (Tesoro), those guys do a great job of covering.

Hopefully we can get some pressure on the quarterback and  that will force into throwing bad balls. If we can do that, then it can negate  their size advantage a little bit.

Q: Talk about your  offensive line.
Negro: We pretty good up front, we have some size. But  they're pretty good with the Defensive Player of the Year (Anthony Laurenzi).  They have some good linebackers. We want to neutralize the speed and size and  we can get a good push on them. We have some good running backs Jai Morris (El Toro) and Carlo Audagnotti (Santa Margarita), we just  hope we can get some holes for these guys.

Q: Has there anybody  who has impressed you so far?
Negro: Our quarterbacks. Brad Curtis (San Clemente) and Chad Miller (Foothill) are doing a great job of  commanding the offense. They know it completely. They've really taken command  of the offense that we're trying to implement for this thing and they  understand everybody's role.

Also, I've been real pleased with the tight end position  (Sean Gordon from Laguna Hills and Jason Young from El Toro). They've done a real good job.

• O.C. All-Star Game Insider

Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocvarsity.com