High school football: Soffe spearheads Miners' 5A title quest

SOUTH JORDAN — The numbers of Bingham quarterback Jake Soffe — a 71.7-percent completion rate, 26 touchdown passes and just four interceptions — could succinctly explain on their own why Bingham's coaching staff thinks so much of the senior signal-caller and why he's become so valuable to the Miners' offense this fall.

But consider this: Offensive coordinator John Lambourne trusts Soffe to the point of allowing him to frequently audible at the line of scrimmage whenever he sees something he doesn't like.

Soffe will be calling plays at the line of scrimmage — and subsequently making plays after the ball has been snapped — for Bingham on Friday when the Miners face rival Alta in the 5A title game at Rice-Eccles Stadium. And coach Dave Peck wouldn't want anybody else back there for his team.

"A lot of people don't know this, but probably one out of every four plays he's gonna go up and look at the defense and change the play because of what he sees," says Peck. "There's not a quarterback in the state I would rather have running our offense than Jake Soffe, and there's my ultimate compliment to him."

That's very high praise indeed, but the senior signal-caller has certainly lived up to the billing this fall.

Because he sustained a torn medial collateral ligament during the first week of July and didn't start practicing again until a week before the season, Soffe — like his team — got off to a slow start.

But once he started to get healthy and once the other parts of Bingham's offense started to come together, the senior started to flourish.

And he hasn't stopped flourishing since.

"We knew he had it in him, but we knew there was a lot of other struggles — part of it was him, part of it was the line — just within the program that needed to be worked out," says Peck of Bingham's 0-2 start. "It wasn't about placing blame on any one person, it was about figuring out why we're not playing like we should and 'Let's get this figured out before it's too late.'

"And," Peck adds, "I'd say the Fremont game (in Week 3) where he went 12-for-13 or 13-for-14 with four touchdowns and no interceptions was incredible."

Soffe said the Fremont game was the first time he started to feel close to 100-percent, and he felt better and better going forward.

"We got that first win, and I felt almost 100 percent," he says. "When the preseason was over and we went into region, I felt really good and every little complication with the leg seemed to go away pretty much."

Over the second half of the season, Soffe has taken plenty of punishment from opposing defenses, according to left guard Vince Giron, but the veteran QB simply shrugs it off and gets back up.

"Every game, we get him beat up, but still he's like a trooper," says Giron. "He just battles through it, (and) he just keeps playing the best I've ever seen anyone play. And I know he's got a huge load on his back, but he's more than capable of carrying it."

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