ANALYSIS / JEFF FLETCHER : Northridge Has Yet to Reveal Itself

NORTHRIDGE —  At the first break in Cal State Northridge’s football schedule, this is what we know about the competitiveness of the Matadors:

Nothing.

“I don’t know where we are opponent-wise,” first-year Coach Dave Baldwin said. “And I can’t care. I have to worry about where we are as a team.”

The Matadors have a record of 1-2, but it’s still tough to tell just how they might fare against a team in the American West Conference, because so far Northridge has faced three teams it had no business playing.

There was Menlo, a Division III team from a school with an enrollment of 600. The Matadors buried the Oaks, 45-2.

Then came Idaho State and Northern Arizona. Besides being fully funded Division I-AA teams with three times as many scholarships as Northridge, they are top 25 I-AA teams. Northridge lost those games by a combined score of 120-7.

“Playing teams that are so highly ranked in I-AA is tough,” said Richard Pesti, a senior linebacker, “but I think we are a better team than the scores show.”

True. But the Matadors are also a worse team than the Menlo score shows.

Northridge has seven games remaining, and that stretch should finally provide an accurate gauge of where the Matadors stand.

Baldwin, who was hired in May and didn’t see his team on a football field until practice started in August, told his players last week that the new season starts Saturday, when Northridge plays at Southwest Texas State.

“It’s like we just had five weeks of spring ball,” he said. “Unfortunately, we had to play three games. I’ve seen improvement. It doesn’t look like it, but there is improvement going on.”

The players seem optimistic, despite having been drilled two weeks in a row.

“We know the last two teams were well above us,” said Clayton Millis, Northridge’s senior quarterback. “But we really have been clicking. The last week in practice was our best week. . . . We are looking at this as the start of our season, and we want to go 7-0.”

Go 7-0?

Maybe Millis needs to wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. Then again, consider who Northridge faces in those seven games, and a 7-0 record seems unlikely rather than entirely impossible.

As of Saturday Southwest Texas State was 0-3, having lost 40-12 to Texas A & M--that’s Texas A & M- Kingsville , a Division II team.

Western New Mexico, a Division II team, was 1-3.

UC Davis was 2-0-1, but the Aggies are also from the Division II ranks. St. Mary’s was 3-1, but only one of its victories was against a Division I-AA team.

As for the American West Conference, Southern Utah was 1-3 and had lost to two Division II teams. The Thunderbirds lost, 36-6, to Western (Colo.) State, a Division II team that lost to UC Davis, 48-3.

Cal State Sacramento was 0-2-1, having lost to Northern Arizona by about the same margin as did Northridge.

Even Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the conference favorite, was 1-3, although all three losses had come against Big Sky Conference opponents.

What all this shows is that several teams are eagerly anticipating games against Northridge, just as the Matadors are looking forward to them.

But it also means the Matadors, although they might still lose, aren’t likely to be on the wrong end of another 52-0 or 68-7 score.