Northridge Conducting a Fann Hunt : College football: Matadors open spring drills with DeVaughn, Harris battling to fill a glaring hole in the backfield.

Albert Fann was on hand, in athletic gear and good cheer but decidely on the wrong side of the white line Tuesday afternoon, the first day of Cal State Northridge’s spring football drills.

The fifth-leading all-purpose rusher in NCAA history (6,976 yards), Fann no longer can help the Matadors on the field. His presence on the sideline served as a reminder that someone else must step up and carry the ball.

Victor DeVaughn and Bill Harris, two starting tailback candidates, know that only too well.

“Hopefully, we can compete and live up to what he left off,” said Harris, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound transfer from Harbor College, where he ran for 1,873 yards in 341 carries the past two seasons.

Northridge Coach Bob Burt, who does not time his players in sprints, believes Harris is as fast as Fann. And he saw DeVaughn’s quick step en route to an 80-yard run last season.

“Speed was only one of Albert’s attributes,” Burt said. “He had to get up and walk on a lot of Sunday mornings when he was beat up.

“It is easy (to run) the first day, but what about the 50th day, in the ninth game, in the fourth quarter? That’s what we don’t know about these guys.”

DeVaughn, who played in Fann’s shadow the past two seasons, wears the smile of a man given a reprieve. Which, in a sense, he is after an off-season eligibility check revealed that he was a junior last season, not a senior.

“It was like starting over, a new life,” DeVaughn said.

DeVaughn is not the only Matador who feels like he has been given a new lease on life. Spring ball offers a new beginning for nearly every member of the 82-man squad, which replaces a team that went 7-4 and made the school’s first appearance in the NCAA Division II playoffs last season.

“The enthusiasm was good today and the effort was good,” Burt said. “Those are the two things I’m most concerned with all the time. Execution will come.”

Since Sherdrick Bonner has exhausted his eligibility, Marty Fisher might be primarily responsible for that execution. Fisher, the backup quarterback the past two seasons, will battle Damon Scott, a 6-1, 210-pound junior transfer from Western Michigan, and Coley Kyman, who will miss spring ball because of volleyball.

Regardless of who plays quarterback or tailback, they will benefit from having the offensive line back intact. In fact, the line could go from a team weakness to a strength if no one is lost to injury or academic ineligibility.

Two players will be held out of contact drills this spring--outside linebacker Mario Hull, who suffered a knee injury Oct. 27, and wide receiver Paul Peters, who broke his collarbone in the first game last season and underwent surgery for dislocations in both shoulders.