Article headlining ESPN.com's College Football Page: Cedric Cobbs
By Pat Forde
Special to ESPN.com
Cedric Cobbs is a drama major, but it's pretty clear that his immediate career goals involve more off tackle than off Broadway. When you run the football the way he does, acting can wait.
Nevertheless, the Arkansas tailback will leave college with some dramatic experience. For five years, he has starred in a three-act career rife with plot twists, playing alternating roles as either the toast or scourge of Fayetteville.
Now, in the final act, the Cedric Cobbs Story could wind up being the feel-good story everyone expected when it began.
Act I: Cedric The Entertainer
Cobbs came out of Fair High School in Little Rock as one of the most decorated and heavily recruited Arkansas athletes in years. When he turned down Florida State, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas A&M to play for the homestate Razorbacks, it was a major victory for coach Houston Nutt.
"I went into college thinking that it would be easy," Cobbs said. "Period."
It was. In retrospect, it might have been too easy, too early.
There was no redshirting this guy, and no stopping him. Cobbs busted a 53-yard touchdown run against SMU in his first college game. Strong enough to level linebackers and fast enough to dust D-backs, Cobbs peeled off nine plays from scrimmage of 24 yards or more as a true freshman, and threw in a 95-yard kickoff return as well. Splitting time with senior Chrys Chukwuma, Cobbs ran for 668 yards and averaged a whopping 5.8 yards per carry during the regular season.
Assistant coach Joe Ferguson, not prone to hyperbole, said Cobbs reminded him of an old Buffalo Bills teammate: O.J. Simpson. Nutt compared him to a couple guys he saw as an assistant coach at Oklahoma State: Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas.
ESPN The Magazine was so impressed it mentioned Cobbs in its December 1999 Next edition, labeling him one of the rising stars of the next millennium. And when he topped off the year with 153 all-purpose yards, two touchdowns and the Cotton Bowl MVP award in a triumph over Texas, Cobbs was, as Nutt said, "on the mountain top."
And there's only one place to go from there.
Act II: Cedric The Endangered
Two games into his sophomore season, Cobbs had 231 rushing yards and three touchdowns. Then, three years ago this week against Alabama, he suffered a severely separated right shoulder. He underwent season-ending surgery and was redshirted, watching Fred Talley take his place.
"I thought I'd be this back who'd open up with back-to-back 1,500-yard seasons," Cobbs said. "I was in for a rude awakening."
Next year, Cobbs got off to a slow start in a struggling Arkansas offense. Then, once again against Alabama, injury struck. Cobbs hurt a hamstring and missed two games and most of two others, as Talley and others again took over.
He came back to produce a combined 201 rushing yards and five touchowns against Ole Miss and Mississippi State, but that season he was largely Cedric the Supporting Actor. He was splitting time with Talley and others -- and falling out of favor.
In the 2002 Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma, Cobbs had two carries for a minus-one yard. Later that same month, Cedric the Supporting Actor became Cedric the Bad Actor, getting arrested for marijuana possession. The cops had it on videotape. He was convicted in July, but stayed on the team and missed no playing time because of the incident.
"I came in being a strong Christian my freshman year and I probably backslided more than I should," Cobbs said.
Last year he came back too bulked up, and too slow. The burner who produced nine plays of 24 or more yards from scrimmage as a freshman had just four of that length in his next 24 games. He missed three more games with a toe injury, and Talley stepped in to run wild. In the final four games of 2002, Cobbs had a total of seven carries for 26 yards as Arkansas won the SEC West largely without him.
A can't-miss career was disappearing, and the fans who adored him as a freshman were calling him a bust four years later.
"Everyone had hopped off the bandwagon," Cobbs said.
Act III: The Return of Cedric The Entertainer
Funny thing about being all alone on your own abandoned bandwagon. You have to start reaching out, instead of having everyone reaching to you.
"A lot of times I didn't have anyone to talk to -- even my parents," Cobbs said. "I turned to God and prayer, read the bible and got my composure back. ... God is always there. ... I felt something was missing inside, and I wanted to work on that."
Cobbs resumed attending church every Sunday. He became more diligent than ever about getting into peak physical condition. He showed up at spring practice needing to prove -- to his coaches, teammates and himself -- that he still had the old magic in him.
He proved it.
"There was doubts in my mind that I still had the mentality, or even the desire, to play," he said. " ... There's been many times I just wanted to give up football or transfer. But I stuck it out, took everything that came to me, leaned on God and kept striving. Now here I am, my fifth year at Arkansas, and things are working out for me."
Here he is, leading the SEC in rushing at 121 yards per game. Here he is, the lead offensive weapon on the No. 10 team in America, off to a 3-0 start that was highlighted by a jarring upset of Texas in Austin -- a game in which Cobbs went for 115 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries.
Today a matured Cedric Cobbs has been nothing but a delight for Nutt to coach. A humbled Cedric Cobbs remembers to praise his offensive line for the blocking. A slimmed-down Cedric Cobbs has already busted runs of 24, 46 and 58 yards this year.
Playing Alabama has meant heartbreak in the past: a shoulder injury one year, a hamstring injury another. Saturday Cobbs gets his final shot at the Crimson Tide, and he approaches the game as a new man.
"I didn't give up," Cobbs said. "I kept striving for what I knew I could do. ... I've been through tough times, but I feel all this has made me a better person."
In a sport that too often produces sad tales, The Cedric Cobbs Story has turned into a feel-good hit.
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