Brock Huard: If you want to forfeit, don’t play football

Brock Huard has advice for teams scheduled to play the Archbishop Murphy football team: Go out and play or find a new sport.

The Everett private school’s dominating football team has won its last three games via forfeit. Cedar Park Christian School announced Monday that it would forfeit its game scheduled for Oct. 14, which would be Archbishop Murphy’s homecoming game. Cedar Park is the fourth team in a row to forfeit a game against Archbishop Murphy.

Archbishop Murphy tells its story after 3rd forfeit

Would-be opponents have forfeited out of concerns that  Archbishop players are significantly bigger, faster and stronger, which has led to safety concerns among parents and students. 710 ESPN Seattle’s Brock Huard played with Archbishop’s coach, Jerry Jenson, while attending the University of Washington. He says the forfeits are unfair to the Archbishop players who worked so hard to get to this point and is unconvinced by the argument that the team is unsafe to play because they are too good.

“I have very little empathy, sympathy, or regard for that,” Huard told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “Then don’t play football. Don’t have your kids play. If you don’t want to put them in harm’s way, then go run cross country, go golf, go swim, or play basketball. Go do something else. Don’t play football because this is what the game of football requires. But if you’re going to play football, then go out there.”

Blowouts and injuries are part of the sport, Huard said. And while parents are likely rationalizing the decision to forfeit on “some level” in terms of player safety, that the 2A school is not a machine filled with a group of monstrous future NFL stars.

“What Jerry Jenson has built there is pretty special and he’s got a couple (Division 1) kids,” Huard said. “You don’t have five, 300-pounders up front with all D-1 scholarships. (They are) very good, and, as Jerry said, they have worked for this, and this was a three-win team in 2009 that committed to doing it and got some good players to come in and be difference makers for them.”

Huard said he learned as much in adversity and in blowouts as during any other times in sport.

“Go out and play, go out and play,” Huard said. “… I think I learned as much in my life getting beat down – we played teams that I knew lining up, maybe not in high school but in college or even in the pro’s –woof, it’s gonna be a tough day. I’m gonna take a beating, this is not going to be a lot of fun but I sure learned a whole lot through that adversity.

“This is no fun for Archbishop Murphy; they don’t get any jollies off of beating a team 70-0,” he added. “… Everybody loses. I think the parents on both sides lose, I think the kids on both sides lose, the coaches on both sides lose; there’s no good winner. The state of Washington, the WIAA, having national folks come in and ESPN coming in – it’s not good publicity. I don’t think anybody wins in this deal.”

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