Running back Scarlett proves worthy understudy to Love
Running backs dream of breaking long touchdown runs. They also dream of getting the ball time after time after time. Cameron Scarlett, the backup tailback to Bryce Love at Stanford, has lived both this year.
He ripped off a 62-yard touchdown against UCLA, and in the Big Game he had 11 straight carries to help keep the ball away from Cal in the last 7½ minutes.
He’s second fiddle to Love, but that gives the redshirt sophomore a chance to learn by watching a riveting player.
“I’ve known he’s been great since the first day I came here,” Scarlett said. “To me, he’s the best running back in college football, hands down.”
He’s also Love’s roommate, so he knows how much Love’s sprained ankle has bothered him over the past six weeks and how much it hurts him to stand on the sideline.
“Doing what he’s doing at about 75 percent is crazy,” Scarlett said. “With 100 percent, his rushing numbers would be through the roof.”
The main thing Scarlett has learned from watching Christian McCaffrey and Love the past two years is the importance of patience and vision, which for a running back are intertwined.
“Everybody at this level has a good amount of speed, a good amount of power, a good amount of elusiveness,” he said. “I think what separates most people is vision. I try to study where holes will be and how slow and patient I need to be to let those holes open.”
According to head coach David Shaw, Scarlett has been getting better at it since the Oregon State game, in which he rushed for 72 yards and a 4.2-yard average during the one game Love missed.
“He was really excited but probably not as patient against Oregon State, his first start,” Shaw said. “Since then, he’s run really well.”
Scarlett has rushed for 362 yards (4.8 per carry) and scored six touchdowns. His presence, however, has been felt most strongly on kickoff returns. He is second in the Pac-12 with a 25.5yard average, but has yet to break one.
For that matter, the only conference kickoff returner who has gone the distance this year is Oregon’s Tony BrooksJames in the opener against Southern Utah.
“I’ve been so close, it’s been eating at me this season,” Scarlett said. His closest call, he said, was a 47-yard return in the snow flurries at Washington State. Kicker Erik Powell made a saving tackle.
According to Shaw, Scarlett was one of the few tailback recruits whose high school highlight video began with three or four kickoff returns. He was the topranked recruit in Oregon at any position after amassing 4,831 career all-purpose yards at Central Catholic in Portland.
“A year ago, he probably wasn’t back to full speed from a high school injury,” Shaw said. “From last spring, you really started to see him accelerate. He’s a load to bring down.”
Scarlett’s brother, Brennan, played defensive end on the Farm during Cameron’s redshirt season in 2015 and is a starting outside linebacker for the Houston Texans. They talk on the phone a few times each week, but when Brennan starts giving him running back pointers, he admitted with a smile, he doesn’t pay much attention.
Saturday’s Notre Dame game, though irrelevant in the Cardinal’s Pac-12 title chase, remains an important regular-season finale, Scarlett said.
“Our families will be here” for the Thanksgiving weekend, he said. “Every year I’ve been here, it’s been an intense game. It’s definitely one we circle on the schedule.”