Time to Take Bull by the Horns

Coach Dave Baldwin and his staff at Cal State Northridge have taken a football team that was a laughingstock a year ago and turned it into a contender in the Big Sky Conference.

By going 7-4 and finishing in third place with a team picked for last, the Matadors have engineered one of the more remarkable turnarounds in college football.

Now forget all that.

Here comes the hard part.

From now on, people are going to expect it. They are not going to be so happy with playing Montana even for 51 minutes. A 7-4 record next year is going to seem like a step backward.

Northridge will now face--get this--pressure to win. Instead of winning to prove that they aren’t a joke, the Matadors will need to win to prove they weren’t a fluke.

The Matadors have earned these expectations by having their breakthrough season with a team of underclassmen.

Quarterback Aaron Flowers, the top five offensive linemen, two of the top three running backs and four of the top six receivers will be back next year. Also returning are five of the top nine defensive linemen, four of the top five linebackers and six of the top eight defensive backs. That includes the return of three key players who were injured this year.

“A lot of guys are back all over the place,” said Flowers, who is perhaps the best of them. “We’ve got some seniors we are going to miss, but things are looking pretty good for next year.”

With Montana losing 10 starters on defense and its best receiver, and with Northern Arizona losing one of the best running backs in the nation--though most of the rest of the team is back--Northridge might even get some consideration as the preseason favorite in the Big Sky.

Northridge had a chance to beat each of those teams this year.

The Matadors almost certainly will start the season in the top 25 in Division I-AA.

But Baldwin is hesitant to get too carried away with the crystal ball.

This offseason will be vastly different from last year, when a 20-scholarship hike gave coaches the green light to sign just about anybody. Practice began in August with about 50 players who weren’t on the team the previous season.

This time, the Matadors are getting five extra scholarships, jumping from 40 to 45. In a few days, Baldwin will determine the bankroll he has for this recruiting season by calculating how much money will be freed up by seniors.

He estimates he will have the equivalent of 13 or 14 full scholarships for new recruits.

“We’re going to have to be a lot more picky,” Baldwin said. “We’ve had great calls and conversations and people really think highly of Northridge, but we have to be real picky in who we choose.”

At the top of Baldwin’s shopping list are a few junior college players who can fill holes immediately. Northridge needs a quick defensive lineman who can rush the quarterback, two safeties, a linebacker and a punter.

It shouldn’t be difficult for Northridge to sign those few key players.

The difficult part will be to fill out the lower levels of the depth chart with high school recruits.

Few high school players signed during last year’s recruiting bonanza, which has left the Matadors shallow in talent beyond 1997.

And thanks to Northridge’s shocking success, a slip back to mediocrity isn’t going to fly very well, especially with the school trying to build a new stadium.

Baldwin and his staff are charged with keeping the team near the top of the Big Sky even though Northridge is still not funded with the same 63 scholarships as most of the rest of the conference.

It may be unfair, but it’s a problem they created for themselves.

Sorry, guys, you won too much.