Yarbrough Answers the Call for Cal State Fullerton : College football: Running back takes Titans up on scholarship offer and finds himself all alone in a one-back offense.

It’s a good thing Cal State Fullerton recruiting coordinator Jim Chaney reached out and touched running back Reggie Yarbrough in July.

Had Chaney not made the long-distance call that attracted Yarbrough to the school, Yarbrough would not have made the long-distance touchdown run that broke a third-quarter tie and helped the Titans defeat Sonoma State, 38-24, Saturday.

And had Yarbrough not come to Fullerton, Titan Coach Gene Murphy would be dialing 911 this week in search of a replacement for starting running back Deon Thomas, who suffered a season-ending knee injury Saturday.

Even with Yarbrough, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound junior, Fullerton is extremely thin at running back, where a redshirt freshman and a senior walk-on will now serve as backups. Lucky the Titans have a one-back offense.

But Fullerton coaches don’t want to think of where they’d be without Yarbrough. That prospect hit them hard late in the fourth quarter Saturday, when Yarbrough got up slowly after being tackled.

Thomas was already on the sideline on crutches, and Yarbrough hobbled off as the jaws of Titan coaches dropped.

“We were holding our breath there for a couple of minutes when Reggie got hurt,” offensive coordinator Bill Wentworth said.

As it turned out, Yarbrough only had the wind knocked out of him, and he’ll be fine for Saturday’s game at third-ranked Auburn. The challenge will be to keep Yarbrough healthy through the weekend.

“We’ll have to be smart and keep Reggie fresh against Auburn,” Wentworth said. “We don’t want the kid carrying the ball six or seven plays in a row. We don’t want him to get tired, so the other guys are going to have to be ready to play.”

Yarbrough, who played high school football in Denver, was ready to play this season at Colorado State, where coaches told him he’d have a good chance of contributing as a walk-on but couldn’t offer a scholarship.

Yarbrough even had an apartment lined up in Fort Collins, Colo., when Chaney called in late July, offering what Colorado State couldn’t--a guaranteed scholarship.

“My family and friends were all psyched to see me play at Colorado State,” Yarbrough said, “but I couldn’t turn down a scholarship.”

Yarbrough said he was recruited as a linebacker by schools such as Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, but when he failed to meet Proposition 48 standards, he enrolled at Bakersfield Community College.

A two-year starter at tailback, Yarbrough rushed for 985 yards and led the state in scoring with 23 touchdowns in 1988. Bakersfield went 11-0, beat Fullerton College in the Potato Bowl and was ranked No. 1 among the nation’s community college teams.

Yarbrough signed with Arizona State but did not earn his Associate of Arts degree in time to enroll at the school in the fall of 1989. So he sat out the ’89 season, got a job in a Mesa, Ariz., medical supply company and completed his degree requirements at Mesa College this past spring.

Yarbrough’s statistics from Saturday’s game--23 carries for 152 yards and two touchdowns--looked good considering he hadn’t played since 1988, but it was obvious Yarbrough was rusty.

Take away his 80-yard touchdown run, which broke a 17-17 tie early in the third quarter, and a 25-yard run in the fourth, and Yarbrough had only 47 yards in 21 carries for a 2.2-yard average.

“My acceleration wasn’t very good and my vision wasn’t as good as it usually is,” Yarbrough said. “I haven’t gotten back to where I was two years ago and I have a lot to improve on. But it felt good getting back in there. It was like going back home--football was something I’ve been missing for quite a while.”

Murphy said Yarbrough might have doubled his yardage had he hit certain holes the right way and run straight ahead more often than floating to the outside.

“But you don’t pick up a system that quickly,” Murphy said. “There were holes he didn’t hit, but that has nothing to do with his athletic ability. It has to do with being comfortable and knowing your offensive line.”

Yarbrough showed his speed and athletic ability on his 80-yard touchdown run, finding a hole off right tackle, bolting up the right sideline and outrunning Sonoma State cornerback Mike Williams to the end zone.

“That was a big boost, because my game had been struggling to that point,” Yarbrough said. “That did something for me and the team. It put us in a position to win and that’s what we need every week in order to win.”

Fullerton will need a lot more than a long touchdown run to beat Auburn Saturday. Auburn is such a heavy favorite that Las Vegas oddsmakers have not posted a line on the game.

But Yarbrough, showing the kind of bravado one likes to see in a running back, is not fazed by the Tigers.

“If you give them undeserved respect, they’re going to blow you out,” Yarbrough said. “If we play our hearts out, we’ll do OK. Just because they’re the No. 3 team in the country doesn’t give them the right to blow us out. We’re not going down there to be another notch in their belts.”