Trice Thrice? : Senior Running Back Will Attempt to Set CSUN Rushing Record for 3rd Game in Row

Bob Burt held out his right hand, palm down, and pointed his index and middle fingers to the floor.

Words suddenly failed Cal State Northridge’s football coach, so he showed what tailback Robert Trice did on one of his many spectacular runs a week ago during the Matadors’ 24-18 victory over Nevada Las Vegas.

“They had him pinned and he did one of these,” Burt said, wiggling both fingers. “ Tssh-tssh . . . Chooo .”

With the wave of a hand, Trice the finger figure is gone, presumably galloping toward the end zone.

“Sweet feet,” Burt said, smiling wide and shaking his head wistfully. “I mean, they had him. Then . . . they didn’t.”

Precisely which of Trice’s runs Burt has described is debatable. Against the Rebels, Trice had five runs of more than 20 yards, caught a pass for 36 yards and even threw a pass for a 23-yard gain.

The final tabulation: Trice 355 yards, UNLV 304. Trice three touchdowns, UNLV two. Northridge 24, UNLV 18.

In consecutive games, Trice has set school rushing records. His 278 yards in 35 carries against Las Vegas surpassed the 261 yards he gained in 23 carries against Sonoma State.

What will he do for an encore? Cal State Sacramento is bracing to find out. The Hornets (2-3) and Northridge (2-3) meet at 7 tonight in an American West Conference opener at North Campus Stadium.

Trice, a senior from Rocky Point, N.C., needs 173 yards to break the NCAA three-game rushing record of 711 yards set last season by Keith Elias of Princeton.

He will, from now on, be a marked man. He couldn’t care less.

“Going back to high school and JC, I’m used to that,” Trice said. “It just makes me play harder.”

Trice (5-foot-11, 205) welcomes defenders who approach him aggressively because “when they come real hard, they’re easier to get around,” he said. “They’re trying to hit you so hard, it’s easier to make them miss.”

Las Vegas players whiffed and groped Trice as if he were a butterfly darting in a breeze.

“There was one play we thought was dead,” guard Eric Thomas said, speaking for members of the Northridge line. “The whistle did not blow, but everyone kind of settled down and it looked like the play was over. Then, all of a sudden, Robert comes out of nowhere on the left side and takes off.

“We were like, ‘Oh, man! We gotta get down there!”

J.J. O’Laughlin, Northridge’s quarterback, recalls Trice’s performance against the Rebels this way: “When he had the holes, he made something of them. And when he didn’t, he made something of it anyway.”

The threat of Trice running helped O’Laughlin pass for 212 yards against the Rebels--his best game since transferring from Illinois at the start of the season.

“Robert is better than any of the guys we had at Illinois,” O’Laughlin said.

Trice might be playing at a larger school such as Clemson or East Carolina had his athletic and academic careers followed a more narrow path. Interest by Athletic Coast Conference schools waned after Trice quit his Pender (N.C.) High team and East Carolina could not accept him academically after two years at Porterville (Calif.) College.

Its program then governed by less-stringent Division II rules, Northridge was somewhat of a last resort. Trice said he had never heard of the school back in North Carolina, but after spending his years in rural Porterville, he was looking for a more urban setting within proximity of the beach.

Trice spent his first season with the Matadors as understudy to Jamal Farmer, a highly touted transfer from Hawaii.

Although he played in nine of Northridge’s 10 games, a pulled hamstring and Farmer’s presence limited Trice to 478 yards--a total he has surpassed in his past two games alone.

Modest and introspective, Trice said: “I don’t get caught up in the hype.”

When he was approached by reporters after the Las Vegas game, Trice’s first move was to credit the play of O’Laughlin and the Matadors’ offensive line.

“I can never tell what I’m doing,” Trice said. “I just care about getting first downs and trying to win. I knew we were driving the ball and scoring touchdowns, so someone had to be doing something right.”

Northridge linemen recall Las Vegas players shaking their heads, pounding their fists and muttering references to the Heisman Trophy.

“It was wonderful,” Thomas said. “When Robert is back there, you put forth an extra effort because you know every play can be a touchdown.”

Trice might have remained a thinly veiled secret had the Matadors not scrapped their run-and-shoot offense after quarterback Coley Kyman was injured in the season opener against San Diego State.

After three games--all losses--Northridge switched to the I-formation, with Mark Harper lining up at fullback in front of Trice.

In the Matadors’ losses, Trice rushed for 241 yards, in their victories, 539. “A lot of plays before were just one block away,” Trice says. “Now I get that block.”

And to think he might have been a defensive back.

At Pender High, located just outside Wilmington, N.C., Trice was a star cornerback and his team’s second-best rusher as fullback. His close friend, Kevin Nicholson, was the star tailback.

“He’d get his 200 (yards), then I’d go in and get my hundred,” Trice recalled.

But Trice’s senior season lasted only four games. A team captain, he quit the team after his coach cut some of his friends for missing a practice.

Several top schools--including Clemson and Virginia--which had been enthusiastically recruiting Trice, reduced their offers to partial scholarships after he quit.

“I guess they backed off because they thought I was a problem,” Trice said. “I couldn’t walk on or go on a partial. It was too expensive.”

Steve Peck, a former professional scout, recruited Nicholson and Trice to tiny Porterville, a farming town 3,000 miles away. Soon after his arrival, he was made a tailback.

As a sophomore, Trice rushed for 1,670 yards and 18 touchdowns. Only this time academics stood in the way of his accepting a major-college scholarship.

Nine units short of earning his Associate in Arts degree, Trice was rejected by East Carolina, his school of choice.

At Northridge, his athletic and academic careers have been revived. A business major, Trice carries a 2.7 grade-point average. He has designs on becoming a teacher and coach.

After his last two games, some people are predicting a professional football career, but Trice isn’t planning on it. “I don’t think about that too much,” he said. “Really, all I’m thinking about is winning some more games.”

He is reminded that, if nothing else, he has taken a place alongside Albert Fann and Mike Kane as the top backs in Northridge history.

“Now that would give me a big smile,” Trice said earnestly. “That’s one thing I’d like, to be remembered.”