On First Day, Baldwin Shows CSUN Won’t Be Like Last Year

Cal State Northridge’s new football coach, Dave Baldwin, was wondering why the periods--the units of time by which coaches divide workouts--stopped at No. 12 during the team’s first practice of the season Thursday morning.

When Baldwin turned to the manager who was supposed to be sounding the horn at the end of each period and inquired, he was told: “The old coaching staff never went past 12.”

Baldwin retorted: “Well, we’re not the old staff. We go to 25.”

And so it went on the first day of the new regime. Changes were everywhere.

The locker room was newly decorated, and painted, with a big, bold Northridge logo on the floor.

“When I came into the locker room I was tripping out how bright it was,” junior safety James Woods said. “Last year and the year before it was gloomy. When you came in the attitude just dropped. Then you weren’t ready to play football anymore. These coaches are bringing love back to the game.”

Another change was evident at North Campus Stadium, where a 40-foot-tall, state-of-the-art electronic scoreboard was being installed while the players practiced.

The board should be ready for the Matadors’ first game, Sept. 9 against Menlo College, a Division III school.

The team might be another matter.

Whatever shortcomings the Matadors may have--and they had plenty in last year’s 3-7 season--they won’t be because of a lack of personnel. The practice field was filled with about 90 players, so many that there weren’t enough helmets for all of them.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had this big a turnout,” senior wide receiver David Romines said. “We might actually have to cut people this year.”

Baldwin, who took over the program in May after Bob Burt resigned to become coach at Temescal Valley High in Lake Elsinore, began installing his new offense as soon as the team hit the field.

“We’re so far behind we’ve just got to throw all this at them on the run,” said Baldwin, who did not have a losing season in five years as a junior college head coach.

“I told these kids we are going to put the whole package in, then we will come back and refine it.”

Baldwin described his new offense this way:

“We are going to throw everything at you, from three backs to no backs. As many formations and motions and movements as we can get. . . . We are not good enough to line up and say ‘Here we come.’ ”

Said senior quarterback Clayton Millis: “It’s going to be fun to play. There are a lot of fun passing routes.”

But the new system has left some players with their heads spinning, particularly those on defense.

“It kind of feels like you are in a whirlwind,” senior linebacker Joe Pierro said. “You have to learn everything. It’s like we are an expansion team. Like the Carolina Panthers. New coaches. New players.

“I’m a senior and I feel like a rookie.”

If Pierro were actually a rookie he would have had a little extra incentive on the practice field because of developments in the past week involving the Big Sky Conference.

Northridge, which had its football program saved by a fee referendum last spring, told Big Sky officials on Tuesday it will upgrade its football program in hopes of joining the conference.

Among the changes if Northridge joins the Big Sky will be an increase in scholarships from 20 to a minimum of 63.

“We’re all really jazzed about the Big Sky, especially the younger guys,” said Dan Lazarovits, a sophomore defensive lineman. “We are ready to make the transition. Even the older guys that are on the way out, they are excited about helping us to get there.”