Hicks’ Improvisation Is What Brought About Cal’s Astonishing Win

Necessity being the mother of invention, Joe Kapp came up with a way to get Marc Hicks, his prize freshman running back, more playing time here Saturday in Cal’s football game with USC.

Then he watched, only slightly less amazed than the rest of the assembly at Memorial Stadium, as Hicks came up with any number of ways to beat the Trojans, something Cal teams had not been able to do in seven games dating back to 1977.

Kapp’s plan--a full-house backfield with Hicks playing fullback--worked just fine. Hicks, though, demonstrated dramatically that he does some of his best work while operating outside the restrictions of what Kapp laughingly called the Big C, or any other formation.

Hicks can improvise. Oh my, yes, he can improvise. If football were music, he would be playing tail-gate trombone in a New Orleans jazz band.

Hicks can play the written notes, too. He did, after all, gain 113 yards in 22 carries, some of which were plain old mule work. But when opportunity came knocking, he wasn’t out looking for soft tacos. He scored two touchdowns, each on a memorable play. Not at all coincidentally, those were the same two touchdowns Cal used to beat the Trojans, 14-6.

Even before he was well into his heroics, though, Hicks gave a small sample of what was to come. When the Bears’ first possession came to naught, he dropped back to punt--yes, he’s Cal’s punter, too. The snap was high, and Hicks had to jump for it, but he hauled it down and got the kick away. It rolled dead on USC’s 17.

That was nothing, though, to some of his real tricks, one of which he performed later in the first quarter. He caught only one pass all day but made the most of it, natch. On second-and-10 from the USC 26, he caught an undistinguished offering in the flat from quarterback Kevin Brown, turned downfield, ran through two Trojan defenders and scored.

“It was just a regular little swing pass,” Brown marveled. “We didn’t have ‘em out of coverage. It’s a great feeling for a quarterback to have that kind of player behind him.”

No big deal, Hicks said. “I saw the safety coming from the left-hand side and I was kinda debating if I should keep on going across the field or cut up. If I’d cut across the field, my coach was going to kill me. He’d get real mad. So, I just went straight ahead. I got hit by someone and someone else hit me at the same time, and they both just kind of bounced off, and I kept my balance and kept on.”

Simple as that.

Even that, though, was a fairly straightforward play. Hicks didn’t show his real talent for improvisation until late in the first quarter, again when he was back to punt.

This time, the snap was low, and Hicks had to pick it off the ground. There wasn’t time for him to kick it, so he did the next-best thing. He ran, which turned out better than a punt, anyway. He picked up 26 yards and the first down, and it wasn’t his fault that the Bears couldn’t turn that into a bigger break.

“It’s like a game plan automatically goes in your head,” he said. “In a situation like that, you have to start looking for different options. You could throw it if you had to, if you had the right guys to throw it to. Or run it, or you can try to kick it. I didn’t even look for the throw. I knew I didn’t have the kick anymore, so I just looked for blocks. I was looking for the first-down markers, trying to see the best way to get the first down.”

Hicks turned in his biggest play, though, with the Bears driving in the last quarter.

On first down at the USC 16, Brown wanted to hand off to Hicks going into the line. Marcus Cotton blitzed on the play, though, and was on Brown before the exchange could be made. There was a fumble, which appeared to be the end of the drive.

That could have been the end of Cal, too, since there was plenty of time for USC to come back, and a Trojan recovery would have offered plenty of incentive.

Suddenly, though, Hicks was picking up the ball, and just as suddenly, he was running into the end zone with it, scoring Cal’s putaway touchdown. “Coach always says, ‘If you don’t get the ball, turn around and look for it.’ So I didn’t get the ball, so I turned back around and saw it on the ground and picked it up.

“Everybody was going to my right, and nobody really noticed that the ball was on the ground. I picked it up and went left.”

Again, simple as that. Well, not so simple, Kapp said. “You’ve got to make sure it’s Hicks picking up that fumble,” he said. “It’s very hard to coach that play.”