SPELLING TROUBLE : Daved Benefield Makes a Name on Northridge Defense

Herewith, a guide for the novice football fan who plans on being in attendance tonight at 7 when Cal State Northridge plays host to Central (Okla.) State at North Campus Stadium:

It will be very easy to keep track of the ball.

When Northridge has possession, watch No. 22. He’s Albert Fann, the tailback, and the ball is usually being handed to him, or thrown to him.

And when Central State has possession, focus on another Northridge player--Daved (please don’t spell it David) Benefield, an outside linebacker.

Wherever the ball goes, there is a good chance that Benefield will be somewhere in proximity.

He’s just not sure how he gets there.

“I’m normally lost out on the field,” says the player who leads the Matadors with 20 tackles. “Everyone says, ‘Daved, Why are you lost?’ Sometimes it’s like I’m losing my mind. During practice I’m lost, and out during games I don’t know where I’m going sometimes. I just run to the ball. I do a lot of things I shouldn’t. I read different people and I look in the backfield too fast. But it works.”

And how. The Northridge defense has four interceptions this season, all by Benefield. The first, two weeks ago against Cal State Long Beach, came in a fashion the 6-4, 220-pound senior says is typical.

“I dropped into coverage, turned around, and there was the ball,” Benefield says. “I almost dropped it I was so nervous.”

How he ended up with four interceptions in three games after not making one all of last season is a phenomenon he also explains in simple terms. “A lot of it’s luck,” he says. “They’ve been throwing to the curl (area) and that’s where I’ve been hanging out.”

This season Benefield is playing a new position, his fourth in four years of college football. As a freshman at Glendale College, Benefield played free safety. As a sophomore, he moved to strong safety. Last season at CSUN, he was moved to weak-side linebacker, basically a pass rusher in the Matador defensive scheme.

This season, he is the strong-side linebacker, which means he lines up on the side of the tight end.

The biggest adjustment in his new position this season, Benefield says, is “staying low against those short, squatty 220-pound fullbacks.”

Bob Burt, CSUN’s coach, is quick to note that Benefield has played out of position ever since coming to Northridge.

“He’s a big, strong safety is what he is,” Burt says of Benefield. “If you have a situation were you have 90 full (scholarships) you go out and get a big, strong guy who can run. We don’t have that luxury, so you go out and find somebody to play the strong side. Daved’s equalizer is that he has great athletic ability. He can run. He’s tall. He has arms as long as telephone poles, plus he can leap.”

Benefield describes his position-go-round as a “wild ride,” and confesses that he sometimes wonders why he plays defense “because I don’t like to get hit.”

Quiet and introspective away from the football field, Benefield only recently let it be known that his first name was being misspelled. Benefield’s given name is spelled D-a-v-i-d, but he decided to change it as a seventh-grader “just to be different.”

“It’s been messed up ever since,” he says. “Everyone just assumes it’s the normal spelling, so they never think about it. Usually I just let it slide.”

In CSUN’s football media guide, Benefield’s first name is misspelled, which prompted him to request that it be changed for the game program.

“Everyone probably thinks it’s a typo when they see it,” Benefield says. “But at least they get my last name right.”

Lately, it’s one that has been mentioned often when the Matadors are on defense.