SF Chronicle: Running backs put Cal in good position

Ray Ratto

Sunday, September 18, 2005

If Jeff Tedford thinks he suddenly has more running backs than he can possibly use, he isn't dropping any hints that way.  The Cal coach also isn't suggesting that he is going to change either the style or frequency of his team's running plays just because he now has proof that Justin Forsett and Marcus O'Keith can do what Marshawn Lynch can do, given sufficient practice, repetition and touches.  "No, all that settles itself," he said after Saturday's workmanlike 35-20 victory over Illinois. "Marshawn's our guy, and when he's ready, he'll be back there. But this, this is a pretty good situation to be in."  The situation is that Forsett has now shown himself capable of breaking a game, and O'Keith can make the most of his featured plays. In other words, while Lynch is recuperating from his fractured finger, one which may keep him out of Friday's game at New Mexico State, the Golden Bears will still run at least half the time if not more while quarterback Joe Ayoob figures out what's what, who's who, and why.  And they will do it with some confidence.

Forsett, a watch-pocket sophomore, gained 187 yards on 16 carries and scored twice in his first start as a Bear, and O'Keith went 12-for-66 for one score and caught a 26-yard pass for another, all behind a jury-rigged offensive line and with a backup quarterback still feeling his way, against a team that, in fairness, most people see as the 11th best team in the Big Ten.  You can qualify this as much as you like. Forsett and O'Keith, on the other hand, will regard their days as the untrammeled victories they seemed to be.  "This was great," Forsett said with a wide and satisfied smile, "not difficult at all."  "I wasn't concerned," O'Keith said. "I knew until we got the ball for awhile, I'd just try to make some plays on special teams and try to give us a spark."  They are both used to waiting, because they watched J.J. Arrington and Lynch do the heavy lifting last year, and they know that Lynch is the focal point of the offense when he isn't watching his finger turn all purple and ouchy.  O'Keith, though, has the special teams outlet, and can work out his anxieties knocking an opponent from one place to another, one several feet away. Forsett, a subcompact at 5-foot-8, 184 pounds, is a running back and a running back only.

And he, too, is used to waiting. Just not very long.  Consider his recruitment. He was locked into a scholarship at Notre Dame after gaining nearly 5K and scoring 63 touchdowns in his final two years at Grace Prep High School in Arlington, Texas, when suddenly, both interest and the scholarship disappeared for reasons he claims are beyond his knowledge.  "They liked one running back over me," Forsett said, "so they wanted to use me as a wide receiver. But I don't know why I had to call them to find out."  That was message enough. He and his high school coach, former NFL wide receiver Mike Barber, started putting out some feelers, among them to Chuck Muncie, who is merely the best running back Cal has ever had. Muncie called Tedford, Tedford called Forsett, Forsett flew out, was hosted around campus by Arrington, and before either West Virginia or Boise State could get a look at him, he committed.

And he swears bigger things are on their way, and he's not kidding.  "The doctor said I'm supposed to be big," he said. "That's what I keep telling people, that I'll be 6-2 my senior year."  Tedford will, of course, swear he knew it all along. That's what coaches do, whether they knew it all along or not.  "What you saw today," he said, "is absolutely no surprise. If you've seen him practice, you know what he can do. I think the only difference between today and last week (at Washington, playing against his almost college coach, Tyrone Willingham, and gaining 77 yards on 11 carries, including a 35-yard score) is that he got more comfortable. His height really works for him, I think because he hits the line, the (defensive linemen) kind of lose him, and he comes out somewhere else."  Usually behind them, if Saturday was any guide.

O'Keith is not the slash-and-flash type, but he made it hard for anyone to claim he was a surprise with his work on the 26-yard touchdown pass he created from a simple screen to pull Cal to within three at 17-14, or the 12-yard pitchout he turned into the game's final score, or the block that helped insure Tim Mixon's 79-yard punt return in the fourth quarter.

He isn't as small as Forsett, and doesn't have the charming recruiting story to spin, but he does have a depth and breadth to his game that allows him to be included in the offensive plan each week. Lynch, after all, is all well and good, but he won't be at Cal forever, and besides that, he isn't going to get 40 carries a game. Not while Tedford is drawing a salary, anyway.

Especially now that Cal has more running backs than it can sensibly use at one time. That is, unless Tedford decides to say, "Oh, the hell with it" and run the wishbone.  Somehow, it seems clear that he didn't have that in mind when he said, "I like the situation we're in."