By Morris Phillips
BERKELEY, CA–Patrick Laird likes to read books. Now that Laird has earned a football scholarship at Cal, his new, not-so-quiet place to read is the end zone at Memorial Stadium during games.
Laird resuscitated the Bears with two fourth-quarter touchdowns in Cal’s 33-20 come-from-behind win over Weber State, and punctuated each with his unique, reading celebrations. When asked about his routine, which involves quickly tossing the football to the referee, then turning the pages of his imaginary books, Laird didn’t bother to spice things up, he instead kept it cerebral.
“I like to read books,” he said.
And score touchdowns. Laird, who is third on Cal’s depth chart at running back has four of them, three of more than 50 yards… after just two games. Only half-jokingly a couple of Laird’s teammates declared that the junior’s Heisman campaign has opened for business.
One thing’s certain: Cal goes as Laird goes as the back is a major reason the Bears are off to a 2-0 start. In fact, no Cal running back had galloped across the turf at Memorial Stadium to this extent since Jahvid Best in 2008.
“It’s great when one of the leaders can shine like that because he’s just going to get a bigger and bigger following and bring people in,” quarterback Ross Bowers said. “It’s great to see a guy that’s worked as hard as he has, just to get that success transferred over to when everybody is watching.”
Tre Watson, Cal’s starter at running back, didn’t finish the game, and left the stadium limping noticeably. The Bears run defense sagged noticeably in the third quarter as the Wildcats maintained their slim halftime lead into the fourth quarter. And a pair of big Weber State pass plays exposed the Cal secondary in the first half. Both Bowers and new head coach Justin Wilcox acknowledged the mistakes with a thirst to clean things up in advance of Ole Miss visiting Berkeley next Saturday.
“We’re fortunate to get out with a win,” Wilcox said. “I think we’re going to learn a lot from it. We felt like we had a really good week of practice and were focused during the week, but our execution didn’t match the week of practice. We’re going to learn a ton of lessons from this moving forward in all phases; everybody in our program. Again, never minimize winning because it is hard and it’s a battle every week.”
Through two weeks, the Cal program appears transformed under the leadership of Wilcox. While it’s two weeks too early to make such a proclamation, ahead of sterner tests against Mississippi and USC, the numbers back that claim. After allowing 42 points a game in 2016, the Bears have surrendered just 20 points to both of its 2017 opponents. The defense’s physicality was noticeable against Weber State with all three Wildcats’ fumbles attributable heavy hitting and active hands.
The offense won’t regain the explosiveness of the Davis Webb/Chad Hansen group from last season but that explosiveness didn’t consistently carry the Bears, nor is this offense substandard. In the end, it may be almost as good with Webb’s brilliance the only difference compared to Bowers growing confidence and execution.
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