For as long as the Niagara River has flowed north from Buffalo to Lake Ontario, the people of Niagara Falls have grown accustomed to seeing things a while after their neighbors to the south. This year, the folks from the Falls return the favor, providing the Buffalo Bulls with sophomore running back, and Niagara Falls native, James Starks, who has the Bulls offense poised to break out in 2007.
Starks, a 2005 graduate of Niagara Falls HS, was a two-sport standout as a Wolverine, playing alongside current Bull basketball player Greg Gamble on the hardwood, and quarterbacking the football squad on the gridiron. But like so many athletes who begin their careers under center, Starks changed positions after arriving in Buffalo in order to see the field more quickly.
“Last year was basically my first year ever playing running back,” Starks said. “I didn’t really know what the coach wanted me to do and what the team needed me to do.”
To an outsider, the transition may have looked smooth. In Starks’ first collegiate game, he came off the bench to score the game-winning touchdown in a 9-3 win against Temple in the 2006 season opener. Following a Jesse Imes interception, Starks took a handoff and scampered 18 yards on the first possession of overtime to give the Bulls a season-opening victory.
The late-game heroics marked the beginning of a roller-coaster freshman campaign that included several highs, but too many lows for Starks’ liking. Outputs of 162 and 86 yards led the Bulls to wins over Kent State and Temple, and 113, 77 and 69 yard days kept Buffalo competitive against Miami, Akron and Northern Illinois. But the year also included virtual no-shows against Ohio (11 carries, 12 yards), Boston College (9 carries, 1 yard), and Central Michigan (4 carries, 16 yards).
The ups and downs were an understandable part of the learning curve for a freshman still acclimating himself to a new position and new level of play. Starks expects that the year of on-the-job training will pay big dividends come fall.
“I think it’ll be big,” said Starks, referring to his first MAC go-round last autumn. “This year, I do know what the coach wants me to do, and I just have to put my faith in the line and go out and be productive every time I’m out there.”
In addition to a better understanding of the running back position, Starks has spent the summer working to add pounds to last season’s already potent 6-foot-2, 208 pound frame. According to Starks, he’s added 4 or 5 pounds and sits at 212 heading in to fall camp. In what the sophomore described as a “big, big improvement,” his bench press numbers have risen dramatically, from 275 pounds to 315, an increase that Starks hopes will leave a few more defenders taking note of his presence on the field.
“I can receive a lot more blows than I did last year,” he said. “A lot of the contact I took last year, I backed up from it, but this will help me absorb it, run through it, and dish some of it out.”
According to Starks, the increased physicality meshes well with the philosophy of new Bulls running backs coach Lee Chambers. Chambers, a linebackers coach on the 2006 squad, is a defensive-minded teacher with a strength and conditioning background. That mentality hasn’t been lost on Starks, and the second-team all-MAC performer expects it to show on the field.
“He doesn’t let us slack off at all,” Starks said. “He makes sure we work hard. He makes us laugh, too, but I’d basically say he’s a more strict guy than what we’re used to. He knows what he wants, and if you don’t do it the right way, you get punished.”
Chambers is just one part of a fairly young coaching staff assembled by second year Bulls coach Turner Gill. Like any program that has a history of struggling on the field, Buffalo is considered in some circles a coaching graveyard, and many wondered why Gill, a storied-athlete and promising assistant with Nebraska and, later, the Green Bay Packers would take the Bulls job. But Gill arrived in Buffalo optimistic, telling everyone that would listen that the Bulls “will be reckoned with as a formidable opponent…and we know it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.”
That kind of optimism was part of what impressed James Starks the first time he met his coach-to-be.
“Coming in here, he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and immediately gave me someone to look up to, and someone to motivate me,” Starks said of the coach whose first college victory came courtesy of Starks’ 18-yard scamper against Temple. There was also the small matter of Gill being able to teach Starks a thing or two hands-on.
“He can still really play football,” Starks said. “He can throw.”
While Starks probably won’t ever play Gill’s position, quarterback, collegiately, the two do share the common goal of turning around a Buffalo program with a dismal recent history. A recent ESPN.com article named the Bulls the worst program of the last decade, and it would be hard to completely disagree. Since joining Division I-A in 1998, Buffalo has posted a .132 winning percentage, been favored just once, and in that same stretch, hasn’t won more than three games in a season.
Last year marked a promising beginning to the Gill era at Buffalo, however, and despite the Bulls’ partly 2-10 record, Buffalo was probably a bit better than that mark indicated. The 2006 Bulls scored almost twice as many points per game as Buffalo’s 2005 edition, and actually led the MAC East in points scored during MAC contests. The improvement Gill has brought to the Bulls in just a year has made a believer out of Starks.
“I definitely think it (a turnaround) is very realistic for the program,” Starks said. “There have been a lot of teams that have been bad and then turned it around.”
2007 brings an imposing schedule for Buffalo; the Bulls have a slate that begins with three road games at Rutgers, Temple and Penn State. The first three visitors to come to Buffalo are Baylor, Ohio and Toledo. All will be stiff challenges for this Bulls squad. But, according to Starks, the schedule isn’t the focus of his preseason efforts.
“We have the talent now, and everyone’s turned in to a family now,” said Starks. We’re not settling for losses anymore. We’re working harder than a lot of teams, and it’s realistic that we can go to a bowl game.”
Starks is also well aware that this season’s success will depend a great deal on his consistency both running and catching. Three times 2006, Starks was over 80 yards on the ground; two of those outings led to wins (Kent State and Temple), and a third kept Buffalo very close to Miami in a back breaking defeat. Look for Starks to be a viable receiving option from Bull quarterback Drew Willy as well. When Willy went down with an injury at the end of last year, Starks’ solid receiving numbers dropped off. The junior signal caller has a knack for locating Starks, and the checkdown option will be a key to Buffalo’s continued success on offense.
If his rushing numbers improve from last season’s totals (704 yards, 6 TDs), Starks should have no problem landing first team all-MAC honors this season, and muscling his way firmly into the league’s upper echelon of backs. But while Starks comes across as quite a bit more humble than his two boyhood idols, Deion Sanders and Michael Vick, he already considers himself part of that group.
“I don’t want to sound cocky or anything, but I don’t really look up to anybody,” Starks said. “There are some great RBs in the conference, but I don’t really compare myself to anybody, I think I can play with any of them.”
No matter what classification James Starks earns among MAC running backs, he says his Buffalo career will be a disappointment if the Bulls don’t win a MAC title behind his leadership. If Starks leads Buffalo to Detroit and a conference championship this year, it would easily be the feel-good shocker of the college football season. But if, against all odds, the Bulls do win a MAC crown, the local boy who grew up a Buffalo Bulls fan will be a hero, and the noise coming from UB Stadium might out thunder the sound of the water crashing over the Falls at Niagara.
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