For the second time this season, Stanford football wide receiver Chris Owusu was named Pac-10 player of the week. For the second time he was named for his special teams work.
The nation’s leading kickoff return man has tied a Pac-10 record with three returns for touchdowns in a season. His last two, opened up the last two games. It has been pretty easy for the speedster given the huge holes he has had to run through.
“I don’t think so,” Owusu said when asked if he was even touched on any of his returns. “It was all because 
of my blockers. That gives testimony to how great they block and the scheme that Coach Durkin draws up. If you put that all together you get me untouched down the seam.”
Owusu said there have been no surprises for him out there for him or his teammates. “Other than where the ball was kicked, there was no variation,” Owusu said of what the team expected. “Coach Durkin actually drew it up exactly how it was supposed to be and our blockers found a way to get it done and I was just able to hit the hole.”
Owusu is somewhat new to the whole kickoff return team. In high school he said that he returned a few kickoffs but less than a dozen in his career. He never returned a punt. Yet despite the inexperience, head coach Jim Harbaugh knew that he had a great player for his kickoff returns.
“We felt like he was our best guy,” Harbaugh said. “He has improved quite a bit from last year. He is really taking coaching from DJ (Durkin). He understands the returns better. He understands when he breaks through the first wave, where he needs to take the ball to take it the distance.”
Now that he has set the tone for the kickoff return team, the big question becomes will anyone ever kick the ball to him again? After taking the opening kick 91-yards for a touchdown, Washington never sent another kick his way.
But as Harbaugh says, UCLA is a new team with a new attitude and you don’t know what they would do. Harbaugh said if it were him, he would be willing to consider kicking the ball deep. “If it were our guys we would take the same mentality that a lot of coaches have. “They are good and we respect them but we think they are better and we are going to go cover” and you motivate your team to go do that.”
Harbaugh did acknowledge that there would be an easy way to change his mind. “I am sure if we kicked one to him and he brought it all the way back on us I would have a different mentality. We tried.”
The coaches are setting up schemes for UCLA for whether they kick the ball deep to Owusu or short to the up-men. Either way, Owusu and his team will be ready. “If they kick to me they do. If they do not I am not going to become a spectator. I am going to go give my blockers the same effort that they gave me. So whatever they decide to do, we are just going to execute to the best of our ability.”
So far the best of their ability has been nothing short of outstanding.
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