Story by Aaron Turner/Photo by Eric Sun
Coming off of a season-low 189 yards of offense on Saturday, the City College of San Francisco Rams knew they would not be able to survive many more games moving the ball that poorly. Saturday night in Hayward, the Rams nearly tripled their offensive production, en route to their second straight victory, a 40-7 rout of Chabot College.
As has been the case for the entire 2019 campaign, it was the City defense creating turnovers and setting up their offense for success. With no turnovers of their own all day, the Rams intercepted Chabot quarterback Chayce Akaka 4 times, limiting the sophomore to just 6 completions on the night. Meanwhile, Rams quarterback Ethan Bullock, coming off of his late-game heroics last week against DVC, threw 2 touchdowns with no interceptions, completing 14-20 passes for an efficient 176 yards.
“Winning the turnover battle is always a must, but for our defense to cause the turnovers at the times they did and to present the offense with such great field position was instrumental in our success,” Rams head coach Jimmy Collins said after the game. “Like we have been saying, our defense is a championship defense. Now our offense is performing at that level too.” Aside from the now weekly dominant defensive performance, it was the Rams’ running game that shone the brightest. Demonte Aleem racked up 175 yards rushing on just 16 carries, with a lone rushing touchdown. CCSF runners combined for 285 yards rushing, a huge reason why they averaged 7 yards per offensive play on the game.
“It seems as though we have built a lot of momentum from that final drive against DVC,” Collins said. “We feel as though we are a very scary offense to defend when we are executing properly.”
As for the Gladiators, they saw their offense struggle to move the ball all night. Aside from Akaka’s 4 interceptions, they would finish with just 108 yards on the ground, and with 257 yards of total offense.
With College of San Mateo still undefeated at 8-0, the Rams can set up a potential Bay 6 conference championship game at home on November 16th. First, they must travel north to Santa Rosa this Saturday and take on a 1-6 Santa Rosa Junior College team that is better than its record would lead you to believe. The Bear Cubs have suffered three different losses this season that have been decided by a single score or less. SRJC’s defense also allows just 165 yards passing per game.
“Santa Rosa is a very good program that is very, very well coached. They have had a lot of challenges this year but nothing phases them,” Collins said. “We will be walking into a very intense and competitive environment next weekend and it will be a huge challenge for us. This is going to be a game that is very telling about where we are as a team.”