The numbers say that, in a 24-10 win at UCLA on October 10, 2009, Oregon linebacker Josh Kaddu recorded three tackles (one for loss) against the Bruins.
To hear Don Pellum speak about that game, the numbers must be lying.
“He was taking that game over. His presence was really being felt,” said Pellum, the Ducks’ linebackers coach. “He was flying all over the place.”
Numbers don’t seem to get along with Kaddu. The recruiting Web site Rivals.com pegged him as a two-star recruit when he committed to the Ducks out of Vacaville High School in Vacaville, Calif. His rating of 5.2 was one of the lowest numbers in the 2008 class.
This season, he is the starting strongside linebacker for the nation’s No. 1-ranked team. Kaddu’s tackling numbers are modest (28, ninth on the Ducks) but supplemented by 5.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks and two pass breakups.
“Josh has been incredible,” fellow starting linebacker Spencer Paysinger said. “He’s really driven. He wants to do well, and he just wants to go out there and play good football.”
Funny thing, though: Despite his obvious acumen for football — Pellum calls Kaddu “intellectually gifted when it comes to understanding football schemes” — Kaddu bears the bloodlines of another sport. Fred Kaddu, his father, was a national champion boxer in his native Uganda.
“I guess that’s where I get my athleticism from,” Josh Kaddu said. “He tells me all those stories. Especially now that I’m in college, he tells me more stories than ever. He tells me how hard he had to work.”
Fred and his wife, Margaret, moved to Richmond, Calif. from Uganda in 1988. Two years later, Josh was born.
Kaddu learned about the game of football through Fred and his passion for the Oakland Raiders.
“I used to always watch the Raiders,” Josh Kaddu said. “I was like, ‘I want to do that, Dad.’ He signed me up for Pop Warner.”
After making 92 tackles and 5.5 sacks in his senior year at Vacaville High, Kaddu accepted a scholarship offer from Oregon. Right away, the unheralded freshman began turning heads on the scout team.
“You start filming these drills, and he jumped off the charts. You go, ‘Wait a minute. This guy’s really good,’” Pellum said. “When you go through some of the kickoff drills, when you’re avoiding people in a small space and making tackles — a lot of guys can’t do it. It seems like a routine play, but it’s difficult. Josh was really good as all those drills.”
A spate of injuries convinced the Oregon coaches to let the true freshman see live game action on special teams. He played six games in 2008 and seven in 2009, soaking up the knowledge of veterans Jerome Boyd and Eddie Pleasant while developing his body and a taste for the weight room.
“He has that ingrained into him that he wants to do well,” Paysinger said.
Kaddu suffered a major setback on October 24, 2009, against Washington, breaking a bone in his foot. The injury effectively ended his season; his rehabilitation forced him to sit out 2010 spring practice.
“I’d never broken a bone in my body. I just thought it was like a tweak, or a little sprain. Then I couldn’t walk,” he said. “It was all bad.”
Exacerbating his off-season woes was a citation for minor in possession of alcohol in the early morning hours of Saturday, March 6. The incident was among a slew of run-ins with the law by Oregon football players in the off-season, compounding concerns of a program run amok.
“It was just something I needed to go through, just to learn from. All eyes are on us,” Kaddu said of the incident. “We just knew that a few people messed up, and we just had to pull together as a team and do what we had to do. It kind of brought us closer as a team.”
The distinction of “bad apple” appears out of character for Kaddu, an energetic presence who wears his smile as easily as he wears shoulder pads.
“Every time you talk to him, he has a smile on his face,” Paysinger said.
Some things, like attitude, don’t get along with numbers.
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Kaddu blossoms into top-notch player
Daily Emerald
November 22, 2010
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