Looming challenge in return game for Bears, Davis: Ducks
Cal is verging toward something pretty special on kick returns.
After steadily bumping his career high for longest return in each of the season’s first three weeks, sophomore Ashtyn Davis had for a 40-yarder Saturday against USC.
“We’re one block or one read away from breaking one,” said junior Malik McMorris, one of the kick-return team’s key blockers. “I’m excited, because we’ve got a dude back there with all that speed.
“We’re all like, ‘Let’s bust one.’ ”
The Bears are eighth in the Pac-12 in kick returns (20.9 yards per attempt), and Saturday’s opponent, Oregon, is No. 2 in the conference in kick coverage.
Cal believes Davis is the right man to help transpose those rankings.
“He’s fearless,” defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander said. “… It’s only a matter of time before he breaks one open and uses his speed to go the distance.”
Davis’ unique athleticism gives the Bears plenty of reason for the confidence.
Saturday night’s game will mark his first trip to Eugene since winning the Pac-12 110meter hurdles championship in May. A month earlier, he got clocked at 10.72 in the 100meter sprint at one meet and leaped 22 feet, 9 inches in the long jump at another.
“He’s a crazy-athletic dude,” McMorris said. “He’ll do a backflip as he catches the ball at practice. Just for fun. Just because he can.”
Davis joined the team after a walk-on tryout in the spring of 2015. By the last three games of the 2016 season, he was starting at cornerback. He had 25 tackles, three pass breakups and a forced fumble and earned the squad’s Most Valuable Special Teams Player award after playing a teamhigh 212 snaps.
This year, he waited for a private moment with specialteams coach Charlie Ragle and asked if he could try to field kicks in practice.
The 6-foot-1, 195-pounder has 6 a.m. individual video sessions during the week with Alexander to speed up his transition to safety and is the first one to watch kick-return video with Ragle when the team comes to the facility on Sundays.
“With a guy like Ashtyn, first and foremost, the guy is just a warrior,” Ragle said. “He has the physical attributes to play the position, but he also has the mental makeup. …
“You can’t dance back there. … You have to be able to trust that the guys up front are going to be able to get their blocks and have enough faith to hit the hole.”
Cal has adjusted its kickreturn blocking each week, matching the leverage of certain players with the right alignment and trying to perfect the timing of when Davis makes his cut and darts boldly into the hole that is supposed to develop.
Though special teams sometimes can be overlooked, a number of analytical studies show that college teams have about a 10 percent better chance of scoring a touchdown with each additional 10 yards of field position gained on kick returns.
Of course, the Bears won’t have to play the percentages with the offense scoring if Davis does it himself.
“Every time I go back there, I tell Coach Ragle: ‘We’re taking this one,’ ” Davis said. “That’s my goal every single time.”