Simply Speaking, Rosselli Grew Up : Turnaround: Alemany’s quarterback, adhering to a fundamental offense, puts his team back on track.

Pat Blackburn, the Alemany High coach, was ready to clobber his quarterback. Time after time Joey Rosselli looked off an open receiver--and Blackburn’s offensive strategy--and gunned the ball downfield toward a target in double coverage.

“He was always going for broke,” Blackburn said.

He was going for broke and he found it. Rosselli was sacked six times in that opening game against Notre Dame and had four passes intercepted in the 28-7 loss. No mystery here: It was J. R. who shot J. R.

The following week Rosselli, a senior who has started since his sophomore year, dropped back even further. He backpedaled to the fundamentals.

Blackburn reasoned that it was best to run the offense from his hip pocket, not from Rosselli’s rapidly collapsing pocket. Instead of allowing his quarterback to call audibles and make snap decisions on the run, Blackburn implemented an offense in which he dictates exactly where the ball is going. The plays are basic. Now, instead of having a nine-pattern repertoire, receivers run two or three routes. There is little room for improvisation.

“In the Notre Dame game, he was trying to do his own thing,” Blackburn said of Rosselli. “He was trying to go for the long bomb all the time instead of hitting the open man. You can’t fault him for that; he just wants to do it in one shot.”

Rosselli’s less-than-rosy debut was understandable, Blackburn said.

“He had a big preseason hype and this was a big game,” he said. “And he wanted to get big passing numbers and I think he realizes that I know my passing game. And if he does what we tell him, he’s going to get big numbers.”

Rosselli has. He leads the Valley with 1,392 passing yards and has thrown for nine touchdowns. Rosselli, a left-hander who pitches on the baseball team, said that the Indians’ offensive turnaround is not only attributable to a revamped strategy and his own growing sense of composure but a vastly improved line.

“I was kind of concerned about the line,” he said. “They were shaky and I was looking at them before I looked at receivers. I had to see where the pressure was coming from.”

Sophomore running backs Terry Barnum and Brian Brison have combined for 759 rushing yards, and the Indians’ reliable ground game serves to further open the passing lanes.

Rosselli will have an opportunity Saturday to help position Alemany for its first Del Rey League title when the Indians play Loyola, the defending league champion, at Glendale High.

Last week, in a game Blackburn called the biggest win of his coaching career, Rosselli spearheaded a 28-21 homecoming turnaround victory over Crespi. In a 49-0 debacle last season, the Celts limited Rosselli to 69 yards passing and sacked him six times, even ripping the jersey from his back. This year, jersey intact, he completed 10 of 18 passes for 189 yards and three touchdowns.

Blackburn is confident that his quarterback will give a command performance against Loyola.

“He’s coming off a great performance in a high-pressure game,” Blackburn said. “I gotta believe he’s going to do it again. I have all the confidence in him.”

One reason that Blackburn’s confidence is so high is the play of Rosselli’s best friend, Billy Markowitz, a senior receiver who has caught 31 passes for 417 yards and three touchdowns. Markowitz says that he worries only about running crisp patterns. Poor throws by his buddy are so infrequent, they are non-issues.

“He’s such a great quarterback, you don’t have to worry that the ball is gonna get there,” Markowitz said. “I don’t have to worry that he’s going to overthrow me or underthrow me. If he gets the protection, you know it’s going to be right there.”

Rosselli and his pals have rituals off the field that are as reliable as a Markowitz pass pattern. Each Thursday night, a small group of players meets at teammate Mark Dannemiller’s house for dinner and a Jacuzzi. Although Rosselli says they used to talk solely about girls, the focus has shifted. Now, the players talk football and watch videos of upcoming opponents.

During games, Rosselli wears a wristband that is inked with the jersey numbers of his favorite quarterbacks. The list, which is ordered numerically, includes John Elway and Boomer Esiason (both No. 7), himself (9), Ken Stabler (12), Dan Marino (13) and Joe Montana (16). Rosselli says that the wristband triggers memories of uplifting performances, sort of an on-call imaginary highlight film.

In the second week of the season, as Alemany trailed Saugus, 12-10, with the ball deep in its own territory and less than two minutes to play, Rosselli took a glance at his wrist and rolled the imaginary film. “I thought, ‘Hey, why not do it like Joe (Montana) does?’ ” he said.

Rosselli did, orchestrating a 75-yard drive reminiscent of a last-minute masterpiece by the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback. The drive and Rosselli’s 247-yard performance were sabotaged, however, when the Indians missed a chip-shot field-goal attempt and dropped to 0-2.

The following week, Alemany won its first game, a convincing 49-0 victory over St. Genevieve. The Indians then upset Palmdale, 35-15, in a game that might have turned the tide for the season. Last year’s match-up against Palmdale was a watershed game, too, although it precipitated Alemany’s demise.

In that game, Alemany held a 28-6 lead before surrendering 40 consecutive points. That tripped the avalanche. The Indians, who had won their first three games, lost six of their last seven.

“We were predicted to lose and we couldn’t believe we were winning at halftime,” Rosselli said, closing his eyes and shaking his head in disbelief more than a year after the episode. “We just didn’t realize we were that caliber of team.”

Blackburn says that his players didn’t jump ship after the fiasco, but success “just didn’t happen.” If it didn’t, no one could fault Rosselli, who finished the season with 1,559 yards passing and a 54% completion rate.

Rosselli (6-foot-2, 175 pounds) lifted weights and added 10 pounds during the summer. He’s not picking fights because of the extra bulk, but a little muscle has helped him rough up a defender on occasion. Now, instead of running out of bounds on a broken play, he might just lower his shoulder and turn upfield.

“Guys would rag on me,” he said, laughing. “I don’t want to be thought of as a wimp.”

The intensity tends to raise eyebrows among the opposition. Ask Rosselli. He’s studied the visage peering through a facemask after he makes a hit.

“I don’t know if it’s a look of respect or a look of, ‘What are you doing? You’re a quarterback.’ ”

Apparently, many are impressed with what he’s doing. Rosselli’s poise and ability have attracted the attention of several colleges, including Washington, Oregon, Stanford and USC. Although he plans to give serious consideration to any school that offers him a scholarship, Rosselli yearns to play for USC. In fact, if he were to strip off his jersey and shoulder pads on game night, his lucky Trojan football T-shirt would be revealed.

And the interest is reciprocated. USC has provided Rosselli and other recruits with tickets to its home games. Recruits are allowed into the locker room after the game for a taste of the excitement of big-time football.

Although Rosselli might be a celebrity to his high school chums on Friday nights, he’s a regular Joe on Saturday. Recently, he waited around at the Coliseum to shake the hand of fellow lefty Todd Marinovich, the Trojans’ quarterback.

“I kinda felt like a little kid,” Rosselli said. “It was kinda neat. I don’t know if he knows who I was, but hopefully he soon will.”