Saugus running back Tyler Watt couldn’t fully overcome injuries last season. Proving that he can stay healthy — and be effective when he does so — is his main goal in 2010.
By Cary Osborne
Signal Sports Editor
When asked which ankle he sprained last season, Saugus junior running back Tyler Watt paused as if he didn’t know the difference between left and right.
“It’s not that,” he said. “I just forgot which one it was.”
That answers the question about his health.
Watt’s first full varsity season was supposed to be something big, if you listened to Saugus head coach Jason Bornn prior to last season.
Instead, it resulted in some of the Foothill League’s biggest questions in 2009.
Will he play this week?
Will we finally get to see how good this kid is?
The answer to that first question in 2010 is — we might not even have to ask it.
The answer to the second question should be — yes.
“He’s healthy,” Bornn said. “He might be a little better. He has the same quickness. He’s just a bull. He runs very hard. And he’s a tremendous blocker. A tremendous receiver.”
Bornn speaks with a similar fervor that he did exactly one year ago.
Coming off the school’s first-ever Foothill League title, he was very optimistic that quarterback Zack Gauthier and Watt, in their first years, would carry the offensive load.
But Watt damaged ligaments and suffered a high ankle sprain in his left leg during the team’s scrimmage with Quartz Hill, one week prior to the Centurions’ first game last season.
He went through six weeks of rehabilitation and wore a protective boot for three weeks.
Watt didn’t play until Week 5 and by that time Saugus was trying different options at running back.
Nothing seemed to work, even when Watt came back on Oct. 9 — a 50-0 loss to Crespi.
He didn’t have an impressive performance until Week 10 in a 17-10 loss to Canyon.
In the Nov. 13 game, he rushed for 94 yards on 18 carries.
In five games, he ran for 238 yards, averaging 3.5 yards per rush.
Watt was never 100 percent during the season.
“His injury wasn’t the most frustrating thing,” Bornn said. “We couldn’t get anything to go right. The offense put more pressure on the defense. That wasn’t on Tyler. We were just forced to put players in different positions.”
Saugus averaged just 16 points per game and finished 3-7.
Its leading rusher was Gauthier with 416 yards.
By comparison, the 2008 team averaged 36.7 points per game and finished 9-4 with two 1,700-yard-plus rushers in Desi Rodriguez and Ryan Zirbel.
Watt said there were times last season when he ran without full confidence, worrying he might hurt himself again.
Yet the 205-pound running back, down nearly 10 pounds from last season, is confident that he’ll be able to prove himself in 2010.
“I’m just ready to have a full season,” he said.
