Tuesday, Sep. 02, 2008

Matt James: Welcome, Rutgers, to School of Hard Knox

Kyle Knox's teammates say he is a natural athlete, and have no idea what they're talking about.

It doesn't do him justice.

For instance, Knox has been playing golf for just a few years, and can slap a 4-iron 240 yards when he feels like it.

Golf is, however, not the sport Knox chose.

He probably could have been a great basketball player, too. His dad played at San Jose State. One of his brothers played at Saint Mary's, the other at Oregon State.

But he didn't pick that sport either.

No, Knox chose football, and on Monday, there were 42,508 folks who saw why in person.

In his first college game, a redshirt freshman arrived from nowhere on a comet. A teenager who watches cartoons led a college defense on national television, and then shook through his post-game news conference.

Fresno State flew across the country and beat the Rutgers Scarlet Knights 24-7 on Monday on their home field and you'd never have suspected how. They Bulldogs didn't outfire them, outgun them, outshoot them, or even outscore them, though they technically did.

They stifled them. A team that was supposed to fight with haymakers, won with a choke-hold. They simply wouldn't let Rutgers get in the end zone. They didn't let Rutgers' talented quarterback, Mike Teel, throw a single touchdown.

And around most of the big stops, was a guy no one knew anything about.

"He's kind of quiet," says Knox's mother.

Knox didn't start but he made seven tackles. He had a sack. He smothered a running back before he could even get near the line of scrimmage.

Knox is a linebacker with so much potential it just burst out into the present. They should have seen it coming. The only Scarlet who can contain him isn't a knight, it's his mother, Scarlett Shorter.

The Fresno State offense that was supposed to be so experienced, so talented, could barely hold itself vertical. Receivers dropped passes. Blitzers gashed through the line. The Bulldogs couldn't even muster enough first downs to let their defense rest.

The Bulldogs defense, though, held strong. On third-and-goal in the first quarter, Rutgers pounded the ball with running back Mason Robinson. Safety Lorne Bell met him at the line. Rutgers coach Greg Schiano tried to catch Fresno State celebrating and hurried to a fourth-down play, but this time it was Knox who stopped Robinson.

"Honestly," Knox said when asked about that play, "I don't even remember, so I can't comment on that."

Across the room, safety Moses Harris was saying, "Kyle Knox is just raw talent."

It doesn't seem plausible, but Knox didn't play organized football growing up. He didn't play his freshman year. He didn't play his sophomore year.

Most parents talk about grades being important, but Knox's were serious. Their son's grades weren't good coming into high school so they sent him to a Los Angeles boarding school that didn't have sports teams. His grades didn't improve enough his sophomore year, so they sent him back.

By his junior year, he was doing well enough that they let him enroll at St. Bernard High School in Playa Del Ray, where his brothers had gone.

Knox asked his parents if he could get a personal trainer and they told him he could as long as he kept his GPA above 3.0. By his senior year, other schools were triple-teaming him at defensive end.

Even though Knox is now in college, a freshman last season, the GPA rule hasn't changed.

"I wasn't totally happy with his first semester," says his father, Joe Knox, who owns a mortgage company in southern California. "In fact, I was a little upset."

By the end of this summer, Knox's GPA was back over 3.0.

But aren't sports supposed to be so fascinating to us that nothing else matters?

"Not in this household," his dad says. "What fascinates me are academics."

If Joe Knox had more sons, Hill would be recruiting them in kindergarten.

He got the last one, though, and in the third quarter Monday, Rutgers was clinging to life. It had the ball first-and-10 at the Fresno State 39. On the next play, Knox nailed Kordell Young in the backfield for a 4-yard loss. Three plays later, he smashed Teel for a sack on fourth down.

When reporters asked Knox how the Fresno State defense had held up so well, he said, "Honestly, I wouldn't know anything about that. You'd have to ask the coaches," and he was serious.

It was useless.

He's just too humble.

The only question that really needs to be asked is this: Does anyone have a cloning machine?

Matt James is a sports columnist for The Fresno Bee.