Ex-Wildcat runs with Aggies

Daniel McFadden did not expect any favors last summer when he arrived at UC Davis. The 2018 Will C. Wood High School graduate was nothing more than a walk-on with the football team. The running back was about as low as he could go without having to put away equipment and sweep the locker room after practice.

Then again, McFadden asked for it. Several smaller colleges were interested in his services after he rushed for 1,086 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior in 2017. McFadden may have even received a scholarship. UC Davis had nothing more to offer than an opportunity to try out if he could qualify for admission.

His 4.1 GPA at Wood saw to that. Any chance of playing was out of the question, however. Even dressing for home games would have been asking too much. He was a walk-on and a redshirt. He was nobody.

As McFadden labored in the shadows, sophomore Tehran Thomas and redshirt freshman Alonzo Gilliam dashed into the spotlight in 2018 by combining to rush for 1,662 yards and 19 touchdowns. McFadden did not need a depth chart to figure out where he stood on game days. He knew that would be on the sideline in street clothes.

“It’s humbles you for sure,” McFadden said after practice Aug. 17. “You just have to put your head down and keep working hard. You can’t control when you’ll get (in a game), but you can control how hard you work.”

A demanding academic workload pushed McFadden to his limits as a freshman. “I took my first math class andI  barely passed with a C-minus. After that, I had to buckle down,” said McFadden, who could have hardly been blamed if he began to contemplate whether football was worth all the time and effort.

McFadden chuckled when asked if he would been missed last season had he skipped a practice or two. That was when he revealed why he could have never done that. Thomas would have noticed if the walk-on was absent.

Thomas made a habit of having McFadden stay after practice for extra work to expedite the former Wildcat’s learning curve. Thomas took interest in a freshman who would have nothing to do with the Aggies finishing 10-3, earning a share of the Big Sky Conference championship and making their first appearance in the FCS playoffs.

McFadden appreciates the favor now as much as he did a year ago. He learned what it means to be a teammate. He learned a team is only as strong as the weakest player on the roster. He learned what is expected.

“That showed that the culture here is different,” McFadden said. “(Thomas and Gilliam) are such good role models. They work so hard. If that’s what I get to shadow and work up toward, that’s just going to make me better.”

Most importantly, McFadden learned he belonged. “I’m part of it now,” he said.

Last year was not the first time McFadden felt like a stranger in football. He came to Wood from Vacaville Christian High as a junior and was informed by then-Wildcats coach Carlos Meraz that any playing time he received would have to be earned. McFadden responded to Meraz’s challenge by running  for 923 yards and nine touchdowns in 2016.

“He didn’t flinch,” Meraz recalled. “That’s exactly the kind of kid he is. We went from splitting reps to being the guy.”

McFadden is one of four Wood graduates who will play at Division I universities in 2019. Two are wide receivers – Arthur Jackson is a senior at Eastern Michigan and Tayvian Cunningham a junior at Arizona. Quarterback Carson Strong is a redshirt freshman at Nevada and will start against Purdue on Aug. 30.

“I definitely have pride,” McFadden said of the foursome. “I was only there for two years, but those two years were amazing.”