As he prepared for fall training camp in August, head football coach Walt Harris spoke confidently about the improved run game and pass protection of the offensive line, which returns 10 starting players. “We have a good nucleus of mature people.”
He was mostly hopeful about his younger, less experienced defense: “We’re starting over again, with a new system, a new coordinator and new players, and that will have a lot of [impact] on how successful we are.”
In his first year on the Farm, Harris coached the Cardinal to a 5-6 season and a fourth-place finish in the Pac-10. This year, after graduating 16 players, including four who went on to the National Football League, the coach and the team have their work cut out. Yes, they’re excited about getting into the new stadium and playing practically in the laps of vocal Cardinal fans. “But all the rah-rah stuff, all the yelling and screaming, goes out the window when somebody hits you in the mouth,” Harris says. “We’ve just got to play well.”
To that end, Harris has hired five new coaches, and he is taking a new look at his entire lineup. “We’re wide open to playing some of our true freshmen—giving them an opportunity,” he says. “We’re going to adjust our practice so that our freshmen get a little more coaching than they did before.”
The self-described “older guys” on the team are stepping up and taking younger players under their well-padded wings. Redshirt junior Udeme Udofia and a handful of other outside linebackers, for example, have made room for redshirt freshmen in the house they share off campus.
At practices, they constantly look out for the young’uns. “Mike Okwo [’07], Mike Silva [’06], Emmanuel Awofadeju [’07], Landon Johnson [’07], and myself—we work with them on footwork, body position, tackling and pass drops, and practice man-to-man,” Udofia says. “And after a play is over, you can pull a guy aside and tell him what you saw and what he needs to do to improve. Everyone is coaching each other up.” Udofia and real-life younger sibling Ekom, ’09, a nose tackle, could become the first set of brothers to start for the Cardinal since Mike and Dave Wyman in 1983.
As senior starting quarterback Trent Edwards and redshirt junior wide receiver Evan Moore practiced together over the summer, they also were bringing along a true freshman—wide receiver Richard Sherman, who led Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif., to a division championship last year. “We haven’t put pads on him yet, but he’s a good player with a good work ethic,” Moore says.
Moore, who dislocated his hip in the opening game against Navy last September, spent a disappointed year on the sidelines. “It was frustrating at times, but I just kept saying, ‘This time next year.’” He looks at the field today and sees nothing but energy. “In the past, team leaders have been outside linebackers and defensive linemen, but this year it’s encouraging that the guys who can win the game for you—the quarterback, the receivers, the running backs—are the guys who’ve been starters for a long time. And the underclassmen have faith in those guys.”
Edwards offers an aw-shucks gesture, and says that the team is well positioned for the season: “We have a ton of talent, and it’s just a matter of believing.”
So, are they talking bowl games in the preseason? “We don’t have a meeting and sit down and say, ‘Guys, these are our team goals,’ and write them all out,” the quarterback replies. “But that’s all any Division I team wants at the beginning of the season—a bowl game.”
He stops to give a reporter a slow grin. “In fact, I’d love to be talking with you in December or January, at an actual bowl game.
