COMMENTARY : CSUN Doesn’t Lean on Kane

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.

Charles Dickens probably didn’t have Cal State Northridge tailback Mike Kane in mind when he wrote those words.

But they sure do fit.

This has been a tale of two seasons for Kane. On one hand, he is part of a Matador squad that is off to an excellent start. Northridge’s 41-17 win over San Francisco State Saturday night was the NCAA Division II school’s second straight after a season-opening loss to 1-AA Nevada-Reno.

Kane himself, after gaining 99 yards Saturday, is just 20 away from breaking Mike Maglione’s school career rushing mark.

And Kane, only a junior, still has more than a season and a half to chisel the record into stone.

So how could this possibly be the worst of times?

Well, the problem is that Kane, for all his accomplishments, feels like a stranger in his own backfield these days.

“I just don’t seem to be getting the ball much,” he said prior to Saturday’s game.

Has he discussed his dissatisfaction with Tom Keele, his head coach?

“I think he knows I’m kind of disappointed,” Kane said.

It is hard to fault Keele for his choice of weapons. He took a real gamble in the offseason, trashing a standard I-formation attack for the run-and-shoot, an offense that depends on one quarterback and four receivers ad-libbing together against whatever the defense is showing on any particular play.

The results have been more than Keele could have dreamed of. After working out the bugs against Nevada-Reno, Matador quarterback Chris Parker looks as if he has been running the run-and-shoot all his life with seven touchdown passes in his last two games.

“He (Kane) will still run the ball 15 to 30 times a game,” Keele said, “if they play the pass. That will open the running game. It all depends what the defenses give us.”

Logical? Sure, but still hard to take.

On most plays, Kane watches the snap from center and then puts up his arms to block for Parker. It’s a weird feeling for Kane, who has already carried the ball a school record 380 times.

But then, it seems like Kane has always found it necessary to prove himself to somebody.

At St. Francis High School in La Canada, he was All-Southern Section, a Catholic All-American and, in his senior year, Most Valuable Player in the Del Rey League. That was the year he had 1,115 yards rushing, averaged five yards a carry and scored 12 touchdowns.

In the playoffs, in his last game as a high school player, Kane gained 225 yards rushing.

He also found time to be an all-league soccer player and was a runner and pole vaulter on the track team.

Not much to do after that but sit home and wait for the recruiters to come calling.

None did. Except Northridge.

And Kane had to wonder about them.

“A recruiter from Northridge called my house,” Kane said in an earlier interview. “I was playing baseball. He said he’d call back but a month went by and still no calls. I literally freaked out.”

He wasn’t feeling too good after taking his first look at the Northridge depth chart either. Kane was listed as a running back all right. Sixth string.

His problem was been his size. He was just 5-10, 165 pounds in high school. He bulked up an additional 15 pounds in college. He also doesn’t have breakaway speed.

He’s not very impressive at all, as a matter of fact. Until you hand him the ball.

What Kane does possess is a tremendous ability to find holes at the line of scrimmage, avoid tacklers and slip those tacklers that manage to get a piece of him.

They rarely seem to get more than a piece. A touchdown last week against St. Mary’s was typical. The Matador tailback took a pass from Parker and broke four tackles on his stroll down the sidelines.

“Nother bothers him,” Keele said. “He is just always moving straight ahead. He has great, great balance. A lot of times, it looks like he’s falling down, but he just keeps going forward.”

Not always. Kane can still remember, with much chagrin, the first time they called his number to run the ball for Northridge.

He was a freshman. A green freshman.

“The first play, I ran left,” Kane recalled, “and everybody else went right. The quarterback turned around to hand me the ball and I wasn’t there.”

But for most of the last three years, he certainly has been after an injury to the then-starting tailback, Eric Davis, put Kane into the lineup on a regular basis his first year.

Davis is still waiting to get his job back.

As a freshman, Kane rushed for 851 yards to break the school single-season record, a mark that had stood for more than a decade. The old record was 744 by Don Gray in 1972.

Kane averaged 4.6 yards a carry and had four 100-yard-plus games.

Last year, he gained 675 yards before missing Northridge’s final two games of the year due to an ankle injury.

He has been All-Western Football Conference both years and entered this season with three of the top four rushing performances in conference history.

What’s left? A pro career?

Kane smiled at the question. Whether it’s making a yard or a point, he doesn’t miss an opportunity.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If I’m only carrying the ball 15 times a game, it’s sure lessening my chances.”