CSUN’s Offense Loses a Main Cog as Wright Fails to Make Grade

The Cal State Northridge football team suffered its first loss Friday, two weeks in advance of its opener. Wide receiver Keith Wright, the team’s most dangerous deep threat, is academically ineligible.

Wright, 6-1, 180 pounds, caught 26 passes for 476 yards last season and led all Western Football Conference receivers with 10 touchdowns.

The impact of Wright’s departure was readily apparent on the face of quarterback Rob Huffman as he prepared for practice Friday, only hours after learning he was losing his top receiver.

“My first thought was, ‘That poor guy, what’s he going to do, and how is the team going to handle it?’ ” Huffman said. “Then I started thinking, ‘What am I going to do without him?’ I’m losing my best player right there. We’ve got Albert, but we need Keith.”

Indeed, Wright’s absence likely will increase the burden of the Northridge running game, led by tailback Albert Fann.

“Just him being out there opened things up, even if we didn’t throw to him,” Huffman said of Wright.

Wright was enrolled in two economics classes in summer school and needed a C in each to be eligible. He did not make the grade in one of the classes. Wright, who has no eligibility remaining, could not be reached for comment.

Huffman and other team members were aware that Wright was “on the borderline” as far as grades. “But I thought, ‘Oh, he’ll make it. There’s no way he’s going to miss this year, the biggest year of his life,’ ” Huffman said.

Wright had not played organized football for almost five years when he tried out for CSUN’s team in 1987. The former junior college All-American at Harbor College came to CSUN after serving half of a four-year prison sentence for the robbery of a fast-food restaurant in his hometown of San Pedro. As a sophomore at Harbor in 1982, Wright had 76 catches for a national record 1,770 yards.

He accepted a scholarship to USC after the season but never played for the Trojans after being academically ineligible his first semester.

Wright saw limited playing time early last season for Northridge but finished with a flourish and earned All-WFC honors.

“His loss wounds us, but it doesn’t kill us,” Coach Bob Burt said. “There is no one person we can’t win without. I feel worse for Keith than I do for us.”