The Scramble Drill and TE Jake Ashton's First Big Moment

It's something that no defense has an answer for, according to Beau Baldwin.

"Whenever you have a quarterback that can extend plays, and you're on the same page with a scramble drill," Baldwin opined, "ask most defensive coordinators, if you say what gives you the most fits from a quarterback, what's the one thing you struggle with most, it's when they extend the play, because you don't have a defense for that. Ben Roethlisberger has made a living for 15 years doing that in the NFL."

That's what Chase Garbers did twice Saturday in the win over Idaho State. In the second quarter, he moved out of the pocket, which drew cornerback Koby Lowe down, leaving a wide open Jordan Duncan on his first touchdown pass.

It left play by play announcer Joe Starkey sounding disappointed at how easy the pass appeared to be. It's been made that easy because of running the scramble drill throughout camp.

"In 7 on 7 drills where it's just passing, if something's not there coach Baldwin tells us to roll out of the pocket," Garbers noted, "it creates that true 'scramble drill' we don't really work in practice. On Saturday it carried over from fall camp and spring ball."

That led to Garbers' final touchdown throw on the afternoon.

The situation here: 10:30 left in the 4th quarter. Cal with a 31-9 lead and driving. From the Idaho State 20, Garbers takes the snap in 11 personnel, a play-action fake, and then took off to the right.

"What I saw was that nothing was really there at first," Garbers said, "Jake had a huge play, running up the field, the defender lost him, and we connected."

"He just ran the scramble drill well, and what I mean by that is he didn't hesitate," "he saw Chase start to scramble, and he just wheeled it up."

Ashton had gotten behind a linebacker, who came up to try and stop the scramble threat, and as quick as the play started, it was over. One career catch for the senior tight end. One career touchdown for the former walk-on

"It was definitely satisfying, a lot of years of hard work," Ashton said, "but it's not, this may sound weird seeing as it was my first catch and happened to be a touchdown, but it wasn't something that necessarily surprised me, because I put in so much work and it's definitely been showing out in practice. The opportunity just presented itself."

It's been a career marked by seeking opportunity for Ashton, who earned a scholarship over the summer, but might not have even come back to the program, according to tight ends coach Charlie Ragle.

"We talked about, at the end of last year, was he gonna come back for this year," Ragle noted, "like, 'hey, you know, do I have a chance to play? If not, I'm doing my master's, I'm doing some things, maybe I'm done.' We said, 'hey let's take a step back and think about this, you only get so many years to play football,' and he decided to come back, but it wasn't 'hey I'm gonna come back and come back,' it was 'I'm gonna come back and work like it matters.'"

And that's what Ashton did, the same thing he's done since he arrived at Cal from Xavier College Prep in 2014, worked his way into playing time, and quietly earned his scholarship over the summer.

"Coach Wilcox does it in a quiet manner, it was a relatively quiet conversation," Ashton remembered, "but it was definitely satisfying for me, and not necessarily because I need any outside validation, but just because of the situation that I've come from with my parents, I wish they were there, with me to celebrate it, but I have my uncle so I called him up just as practice got done that day, told him 'hey, I got on scholarship,' and I called a couple other people, it was just a really gratifying moment. Definitely helped a lot of things financial-wise."

Ashton's parents passed away during his middle school/early high school years, but his uncle, Lee Ashton stepped in and in Ashton's words "really helped shape the person I am today."

"To be real honest, when coach Wilcox called me in, when he told me, I kinda started tearing up," Ashton said, "there was so much going on in the moment running through my head, but making the call, it wasn't necessarily about me, it was more about my uncle and his reaction. Because he's sacrificed so much for me, that call to tell him, 'you've been getting me for all these years, now I've got you,' that was just an absolute awesome moment."

Now, Ashton's working on a master's degree in education, after graduating last December, and like his action in catching his first touchdown pass, he's set to go with the flow from here on out.

"It's easy to get caught up in it, but I think it's important to just be like water, in a way," Ashton noted, "just flow with it. I think that's a lot of life, just being present in the moment, when you remove yourself from the moment, you make things too big or too little. We all make an emphasis to stay in the moment, just enjoy it, because it comes and goes really fast."