Early in the 2012 Clovis High football campaign, one radio announcer found himself accidentally referring to Wildcats' running back Kamal Cass as Brian Mead — a former CHS standout from a few years earlier.
But as Cass' game-by-game racked up yardage, eventually breaking the CHS single season record, fans and coaches alike began comparing him to Mead and the other greats in school history.
Clovis junior running back Kamal Cass, after setting Wildcat records for rushing yards and touchdowns in his junior season, is already in the conversation of great Clovis backs.
Selected earlier this month as the Gatorade New Mexico Player of the Year — the only Clovis gridiron standout to get the honor as a junior — Cass already ranks as one of the best. His 2,580 yards in one season is enough to lay claim to that distinction.
The style that got him to that prodigious number of yardage is comparable to some of the Wildcat greats in the past.
Eric Roanhaus, Clovis' head coach since 1978, said that Cass has speed — although perhaps not as much as a pair of backs in his first year when Irvin Beachum and Gus Williams led the 'Cats to the Class 4A state title. Michael Thompson, another Clovis great who eventually played collegiately at Oklahoma, usually tops the list of Wildcat backs blessed with speed.
"He's not 10.1, 10.2 hundred meters like Michael was," Roanhaus said.
"Micheal was one of those guys that could out-run you. Don't get me wrong. He was big and strong, but he didn't have the moves that Kamal has," said Chad Roanhaus, offensive coordinator for the Clovis offense this season.
When it came to quick feet and open field running, one of the best in the Eric Roanhaus regime was his current defensive coordinator — Darren Kelley. An example of Kelley's ability was the 211 yards he accumulated against Alamogordo in the 1985 championship game that gave Clovis a fifth-straight title.
But Kelley had help in the backfield as bruising Anthony Hall provided power from the fullback position. The strength of Hall carried him far — as far as the final cut from the Pittsburgh Steelers after Hall, whose pro hopes ended with a neck injury, finished his college playing days at Northern Arizona.
"It was like tackling a coke machine," recalled Eric Roanhaus of Hall.
While Cass has strength as well, as in the case of his speed compared to Thompson or Beachum, it's not at the level of Hall or the tandem of Nathan Nuttall and Aaron Smith. The latter backs led Clovis to the 2001 Class 5A state championship by beating Mayfield in the finale.
"They were both bigger kids, but Cass has the ability to make you miss," Roanhaus said.
Indeed, when it comes down to it, that Clovis radio announcer shouldn't feel too bad about the early season misidentification gaffes. That's because it's either Brian Mead or Doug Cavanaugh that Cass is compared to most by those in the know.
"Clovis High has been blessed with some great running backs," said Roanhaus, who also placed Ray Harris (1981) and the duo of Robert Grimes and Fred Baston (1983) in that list. "But if I had to compare him to anyone, it'd be Cavanaugh."
Doug Cavanaugh was a junior in 1991 when Michael Thompson was the speedy first option for Clovis. But it was Cavanaugh that ended up scoring the game-winning touchdown in overtime to beat Eldorado in the state championship game that year.
The next season, Cavanaugh rolled to 2,197 yards to set the school record. It was that record, by almost 400 yards, that Cass blew away in 2012.
Toward the end of the '12 season, when Cass was rolling up statistics like a 388-yard effort against Artesia, Cavanaugh routinely gave Chad Roanhaus some ribbing for allowing the Clovis junior the opportunity to break the 20-year-old record.
"I thought we were supposed to be friends," jokes Cavanaugh, now an assistant at Robertson High. "I got to have it for 20 years. I guess if you've got somebody like that, you need to put the ball in his hands. I didn't get a chance to see him live, but I saw him on tape and that kid can go."
"I would agree (that Cass is most like Cavanaugh). They both had the ability to make people miss in a small space," Chad Roanhaus said. "It's funny, I had told myself that I would never give the ball to a back more than 25 times in a game. But one time we gave it to (Cass) 41 times in one game."
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