Through a disappointing 0-3 start to the season, Santa Fe High sophomore quarterback Jason Fitzpatrick has shown he has a cannon of an arm.

But to jump-start the otherwise anemic Demons offense, especially the run game, head coach Ray Holladay is turning to the Pistol.

Drawing from lessons learned at his previous coaching stint in Nevada, Holladay is inserting into the Demons offensive game plan more use of the Pistol offense created by University of Nevada head coach Chris Ault.

"The biggest benefit is the illusion of misdirection it creates," Holladay said of the hybrid shotgun formation that features a quarterback lining up before the snap three yards behind center and the lone running back lined up two yards behind the quarterback. "Linebackers can't see (the running back). That's the biggest thing. And the play (action) pass off of it can be deadly."

The offense allows a QB to start a play already three steps back and ready to pass while not taking away the ability of an offense to use a downhill, straight-forward running attack, which is usually sacrificed in a standard shotgun formation.

The Pistol works best with dual-threat quarterbacks, which the athletic Fitzpatrick has shown he can be.

It has flourished in the Western Athletic Conference for several years and helped catapult quarterback Colin Kaepernick into the 2008 WAC Offensive Player of the Year while also popping up in colleges across the country, including at Ohio State, Florida State, Missouri, Virginia Tech and Oregon, among numerous others.

The Demons debuted the formation for a handful of plays in last week's 12-6 loss at Los Alamos, but Holladay says the team should increase that amount to 12-15 plays tonight when Santa Fe High plays its home opener against Gallup.

By the end of the season, the formation should be a major part of the team's offensive playbook.

Handling prosperity

For a team that has never had a winning season, the Pojoaque Valley Elks are sure feeling good about the 2009 season.

Off to a 3-0 start heading into Saturday's home game with the Taos Tigers, Pojoaque head coach Quevin Redding faces the unusual predicament of having to convince his team not to get too overconfident.

Pojoaque has had its way with its first three opponents and, with homecoming this week for the school, Redding has spent plenty of time this week battling distractions.

"Everyone wants to tell the kids how good a job they're doing, and while I want them to enjoy what they're doing, we don't want them to get complacent," Redding said. "We need to keep them working hard and keep them focused."

3-0 and falling

Despite back-to-back lopsided wins over Class AAAA opponents (27-0 at Los Alamos and 36-15 over Capital), the St. Michael's Horsemen dropped in this week's New Mexico High School Coaches Association Class AAA football rankings.

After sitting pretty in the No. 2 spot for the first two weeks of the season, St. Michael's dropped to No. 3 this week, getting leapfrogged by fellow District 2AAA school Raton, which is also 3-0 and coming off a 27-19 win over Socorro.

Both St. Michael's and Raton have one first-place vote in the poll, while Lovington remains atop the AAA rankings with nine first-place votes.

At the bottom of the AAA Top 10, Las Vegas Robertson broke in the poll at No. 10 after beating Moriarty 25-12 last week. Pojoaque Valley received the most votes for a team not cracking the AAA Top 10.

All about the 'O'

Two Northern New Mexico football teams — Pojoaque Valley and McCurdy School — are among the top three scoring teams in the state through three weeks of the season, and each lead their classification.

Here are the state's highest scoring teams per classification through the first three weeks of the season:

Class AAAAA: Albuquerque Manzano, 143 points

Class AAAA: Belen, 155 points

Class AAA: Pojoaque Valley, 177 points

Class AA: Tucumcari, 100 points

Class A: McCurdy School, 173 points

8-man: (tie) Clovis Christian and Melrose, 162 points

6-man: Lake Arthur, 187 points

Despite being the highest scoring team in the state, Lake Arthur is the only team listed that doesn't have a
3-0 record.

Lake Arthur is 2-1 after losing last week 96-51 to El Paso (Texas) Bethel Christian.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3060 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com.