Two-way players, like Owen Marecic, rare, special, Stanford's David Shaw says
Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports 2:50 p.m. EDT August 22, 2014
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STANFORD, Calif. — It's impossible to walk into Stanford's renovated football offices without noticing Owen Marecic.
He's life-size, plastered on one of the walls along the entrance, frozen in time in the middle of the Cardinal's win against Notre Dame in 2010. That game was part of an 11-win season, culminating in an Orange Bowl championship. But Marecic is wall-worthy on his own, and for a very specific reason: His offensive and defensive touchdowns scored 13 seconds apart.
That season, Marecic was the only Football Bowl Subdivision player to start on offense (as a fullback) and on defense (as an inside linebacker). Against Notre Dame, he scored a rushing touchdown and intercepted a pass and ran it back for a score.
Marecic was, at the time, a rare two-way player; if he played now, he'd hardly be alone. UCLA's Myles Jack, the Pac-12's offensive and defensive freshman of the year last season, headlines a list of two-way players, detailed this week by USA TODAY Sports.
Marecic may have been the first in this latest wave of two-way talent.
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The decision to have him play both ways was due to necessity, says Stanford head coach David Shaw, then the Cardinal's offensive coordinator and running backs coach.
"We were at a point, when we came in with Coach Harbaugh (in 2007), we had really good talent … but we had no depth," Shaw says. "Coach Harbaugh was just crazy about it. 'We have to find more guys. We can't go out and sign them. It's not the NFL. We have to see what we have here.' So, for lack of a better term — and I'll just use Jim's phrase — we had 'bad-ass' periods."
Bad-ass periods meant offensive players who could play defensive positions would play them for a stretch in practice, and vice versa.
"It was a little bit of a train wreck sometimes because guys didn't know what they were doing," Shaw says. "But we got to see guys do a variety of things. It was a great way to see what they could do. Now, every single one of them eventually switched back to where they were before.
"But what Owen did at linebacker always stood out to us."
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The coaching staff ultimately realized it might need to use him there in games. He played linebacker sporadically during the 2008 and 2009 seasons, accumulating four tackles.
And in 2010, he went double-duty full-time. Over the course of the season, he scored five rushing touchdowns, and was fifth on the team with 51 tackles (30 solo), including two sacks.
"Guys were starting to question if he was human," Shaw says. "You've heard all the Chuck Norris things? Those used to be applied to Owen. It was fascinating. We took him off all special teams so he'd come off the field. If he came off on offense, he would sit pretty much by himself and stare down into nothingness. He would do this every single time. I wasn't sure if he was OK. I went over to ask him, 'Are you OK?' He said, 'Yes, I'm pushing out the offense and bringing in the defense.'
"It was kind of a Zen thing he would do when he was about to switch sides of the ball. 'I need to bring all of the other side of the ball to the forefront of my mind.' I would watch him do this every single time."
That was the most Shaw really ever got out of Marecic, who was typically quiet and never questioned the workload. The coaches tried to figure out ways to make meetings and practices bearable.
Marecic had spent the previous three years learning the Stanford offense, so he rarely spent more than seven or eight minutes in offensive meetings. Most practice time was spent on defense, too. Marecic, a human biology major, also was tasked with understanding how to keep his body healthy and durable.
"We had to take care of him practice-wise and meeting-wise," Shaw says. "When it came to games, I remember (defensive coordinator) Vic Fangio saying — there was one game Owen played over 100 plays. I felt awful. Here's a guy who has a collision every single play that he's out there. I went to Coach Fangio and I said, 'Gosh, he's playing too much.' He said, 'Take him off offense because I need him on defense!' "
Shaw laughs now. Both coaches eventually rotated players a bit better to try to get Marecic occasional rest. But even recounting these stories brings back the stress, and how much Shaw and Harbaugh worried about Marecic handling what they'd tasked him with.
When asked if he would use a two-way player again, Shaw is hesitant.
"It takes the right person," Shaw says. "Owen was physically perfect for this. He had the right build for both positions. He was meticulous about his body — yoga, stretching, training room, always in perfect concert with the trainers. If he needed something extra in the weight room, he got it. To play that many plays on both sides of the ball and have that much going on, you've got to be really, really bright. You have to be in unbelievable shape. And you have to be willing to say, 'Hey, I'm a little gassed today. I'm a little tired today. I can't do it today.' We had that relationship where there was one time Owen said, 'I'm a little tired.' I said, 'Thank you for telling me. Let's back you off.'
"Out of necessity or if we had just a dynamic athlete, we could do it. But I would be very, very cautious with it."
