Chabot Football Ford Tough In First Win

The young Chabot football team took some forward steps in a 20-15 triumph over Cabrillo on Saturday, Sept. 6, at Mt. Eden High, in the Glads’ home opener.

Tariq Ford, a freshman out of Stellar Prep in Hayward, looked impressive running for 183 yards and two touchdowns, also with five receptions for 55 yards. He averaged 8.7 yards a carry, with a long of 38.

The triumph marked the first win for new head coach Brett McMurray, who started building a freshman-heavy team essentially from scratch in April.

Chabot (1-1) built a 20-0 lead on three rushing touchdowns — two by Ford and one by jackhammer back Isaiah Limcoliac — and weathered a couple of breakdowns on pass defense in the fourth quarter to prevail.

“The future is bright,” McMurray said on Monday. “I think a lot of these guys will get a lot of quality reps this year … That’s the biggest thing right now as the head coach, is just remembering how young we are and where we started with eight guys in April, and just being able to go out there and play a game is a blessing, let alone getting wins, so things are starting to shape up.”

He added that he has good assistant coaches who will do a good job of recruiting in the offseason. Winning will only help with recruiting.

Chabot will next host Merced (0-2) at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13 at Mt. Eden — the team’s temporary home this season.

Ford also ran for 75 yards and a TD in Chabot’s season opener at Hartnell in Salinas — a 20-14 loss. He’s off to a blazing start with 258 yards rushing and three TDs overall.

“Tariq’s done a really good job,” McMurray said. “He’s one of those guys who is in really good shape physically. He takes care of his body the right way. He’s kind of built up his armor. He’s a very muscular guy, so he can take the workload that we’re expecting of him early in the season to get our offense in rhythm.”

McMurray’s philosophy is to play good defense, be efficient on special teams and take care of the football. Two other ballcarriers have stepped up, Limcoliac, as the No. 2 back, and selfless Logan Smith of Dublin, an H-back in the fullback-wing position.

A young offensive line showed progress in Week 2, led by sophomore center Johnathan Villagran. The numbers speak to that — Chabot amassed 287 net yards rushing. Conversely, Cabrillo had just 49 net yards rushing.

“The biggest challenge for them was go to the echo of the whistle, finish every play,” McMurray said of the O-line’s progress over Week 1. “Push the pile. No spectating. If you want to spectate buy a ticket. They really responded to that. I challenged them to pick the mold of an offensive lineman, be the tough guys, be gritty, be the ones that grind it it out, be the ones that kind of protect our team.”

The defense held up well as players adjust to a sophisticated defensive scheme that McMurray picked up from a friend who coached 15 years at the Division I level.

“It’s starting to come. They played really, really fast,” the coach said. “I think we did a good job of ball disruption and taking away the football early in the game.”

Three Glads had interceptions — Kali Moa, Leki Vaka, and Shukoku Seida, who tacked on six total tackles and 1.5 TFL.