FORT COLLINS — About this 1-2 punch business …
Make it a 1-1A punch.
It doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily but for now is more fitting when talking about the Colorado State running back deployment with Dee Hart and Treyous Jarrells.
The juniors broke out by combining for 260 yards on the ground against Colorado — Hart for 139 and Jarrells 121 — before getting nowhere as the Rams were pushed around physically at Boise State. Then, on Saturday against UC Davis, Jarrells had 84 yards on 12 carries, Hart 38 yards on eight rushes.
Hart, the transfer from Alabama, is better known. Through three games, he has 40 carries for 193 yards. But Jarrells, the junior college transfer, has overtaken him for the team rushing lead with 212 yards on 34 carries.
Like , Jarrells is from central Florida. He was born in DeLand and starred at Lake Mary High School, just outside of Sanford, before winding up at Grossmont College in El Cajon, Calif.
“I talked to a ton of jucos, and Grossmont really was the only one that told me, ‘We’ll have equipment for you when you come here,’ ” said Jarrells, 21. “It was a great decision. I learned a lot there, and the guys I played with taught me a lot.”
He rushed for 1,139 yards for the Grossmont Griffins in 2013 as a sophomore and Not only had Kapri Bibbs declared for the NFL draft after his redshirt sophomore season, Donnell Alexander had left the program during spring ball. Hart’s transfer from Alabama was in motion over the summer but didn’t become official until he practiced with the Rams for the first time Aug. 4.
“We played against each other in high school,” Jarrells said. “We didn’t know each other (personally), but we knew of each other because we were both talented players in central Florida.”
Jarrells said of Hart’s transfer: “That was good news to me. I was excited. Where we come from, we never back down from competition. When I knew Dee was coming, I knew I was going to be fired up and ready to compete.”
He said sharing the running back duties “doesn’t bother me at all. I can come in and bust a big run, and Dee can come back in and bust another big run.”
Jarrells, 5-foot-7, 185 pounds, provides a change of pace to the stocky Hart, in part because he’s hard to spot.
“My granddad always told me it’s the heart of the dog, not the size of the dog,” Jarrells said.
CSU coach Jim McElwain said that because both Hart and Jarrells had played baseball, he used an analogy from that sport with them early in the UC Davis game, emphasizing they couldn’t hit a “home run” on every carry and to be patient.
“I was a good second baseman,” Jarrells said. He laughed and added, “Hitting wasn’t really my thing, though.”
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei
