Cal Football: Will Chase Garbers Be the Bears' 1st QB with 1,000 Career Rushing Yards?

Joe Kapp set the program record of 931 yards more than 60 years ago.

More than a half-dozen former FBS quarterbacks have compiled career rushing totals of more than 4,000 career yards.

That’s right — rushing. Not passing.

The list includes former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who rushed for 4,112 yards while passing for 10,098 yards during his four seasons (2007-10) at Nevada.

The FBS record for career rushing yards by a quarterback is 4,559 yards by Keenan Reynolds, who operated Navy’s triple-option offense from 2012-15.

At Cal, meanwhile, the quarterback position is about throwing the football. Over the years, the Bears have featured the likes of Craig Morton, Steve Bartkowski, Aaron Rodgers and Jared Goff, all of them accomplished passers.

Cal’s offense never has emphasized the quarterback as a runner, and the Bears rarely have had the personnel at the position to do it, anyway.

Legendary Joe Kapp, who both played and coached for the Bears, was the Bears’ most successful running quarterback, totaling 931 net yards. Keep in mind, in college football yardage lost on sacks is factored into individual rushing numbers. In the NFL, sacks count against team passing totals.

In Kapp’s era, before passing games became as sophisticated and prolific as they are today, running was part of the job description for quarterbacks.

Chase Garbers on the run / Photo by D. Ross Cameron, USA Today

While Kapp got as close to reaching 1,000 career rushing yards as any Cal quarterback, chronically sacked Gale Gilbert, who overcame knee issues while playing for the Bears in the 1980s, threatened to finish with minus-1,000 yards on the ground, finishing with minus-808 yards.

Actually, some of Cal's best quarterbacks have ghastly rushing totals. Check out the list below to find names including Joe Roth, Dave Barr, Pat Barnes, Craig Morton and Steve Bartkowski with rushing numbers deep in the red.

Fast forward to this season and senior Chase Garbers has a chance to not only surpass Kapp’s six-decades-old standard but also to perhaps reach 1,000 career rushing yards.

“That’d be a pretty cool milestone, being a quarterback and (be able to) say you rushed for a thousand yards in your career,” Garbers says in the video above. “I’m not looking to run all the time, but when it happen it happens. It would definitely be a cool thing top happen.”

Garbers has run or scrambled for 718 yards in his Cal career, averaging 3.2 yards per attempt (again, including sacks). That’s more than twice the total of Aaron Rodgers, the No. 3 QB on Cal’s rushing yardage list.

Reaching the 1,000-yar plateau is not exactly on Garbers' bucket list of goals for next season, but something would happen organically, if at all.

Garbers’ most memorable run was a 16-yard dash for the game-winning touchdown with 1:19 to play in Cal’s 24-20 win at Stanford in the 2019 Big Game.

Cal’s coaches have told Garbers they don’t want to take away his abilty to make plays with his legs.

“They just want me to play my game. I’m a pretty effective runner,” he says. “People underestimate my ability to run the ball and escape the pocket. I want people to keep underestimating me so they don’t throw a QB spy on me.”

The flipside is the Bears need Garbers to remain healthy. Cal has no other proven quarterback on the roster and cannot afford what happened in 2019, when two separate injuries caused Garbers to miss portions or all of six games.

Cal went 1-5 in those six games. When Garbers started and finished games in 2019, the Bears were 7-0, including wins at Stanford in the Big Game and over Illinois in the Redbox Bowl.

Garbers has been coached to try avoiding hits, to slide when a defender is coming his way. Mostly, he is just older and smarter.

“Yeah, 100 percent,” he says. “As a young guy you kind of want to prove your toughness, try and take on contact. But the older you get, the more games you play, you realize you can go a game and not get hit at all, which is what you need as a quarterback because any freak hit can knock you out. As long as you run smart and play smart, you’ll be fine.”

Here’s a list of how Cal quarterbacks have fared running the ball, dating back to the early 1950s:

CAL QUARTERBACK CAREER RUSHING TOTALS

931 yards: Joe Kapp (1956-58) 30 games, 274 rushes, 3.4 ypc, 5 TD

718 yards: Chase Garbers (2018-20) 24 games, 227 rushes, 3.2 ypc, 7 TD

336 yards: Aaron Rodgers (2003-04) 25 games, 160 rushes, 2.1 ypc, 8 TD

146 yards: Zach Maynard (2011-12) 23 games, 182 rushes, 0.8 ypc, 7 TD

110 yards: Troy Taylor (1986-89) 44 games, 328 rushes, 0.3 ypc, 2 TD

101 yards: Randy Gold (1960-62) 30 games, 168 rushes, 0.6 ypc, 4 TD

89 yards: Paul Larson (1952-54) Rushing totals from 1953-54

56 yards: Joe Ayoob (2005-06) 20 games, 62 rushes, 0.9 ypc, 6 TD

Minus-114 yards: Jared Goff (2013-15) 37 games, 170 rushes, minus-0.7 ypc, 1 TD

Minus-128 yards: Mike Pawlawski (1988-91) 44 games, 96 rush, minus-1.3 ypc, 4 TD

Minus-169 yards: Kyle Boller (1999-2002) 43 games, 275 rushes, minus-0.6 ypc, 6 TD

Minus-179 yards: Nate Longshore (2005-08) 39 games, 57 rushes, minus-3.1 ypc, 4 TD

Minus-222 yards: Joe Roth (1975-76) 22 games, 81 rushes, minus-2.7 ypc, 4 TD

Minus-348 yards: Dave Barr (1991-94) 46 games, 153 rushes, minus-2.3 ypc, 1 TD

Minus-358 yards: Pat Barnes (1993-96) 40 games, 171 rushes, minus-2.1 ypc, 2 TD

Minus-371 yards: Craig Morton (1962-64) 30 games, 155 rushes, minus-2.4 ypc, 0 TD

Minus-375 yards: Rich Campbell (1977-80) 45 games, 205 rushes, minus-1.8 ypc, 7 TD

Minus-496 yards: Steve Bartkowski (1972-74) 33 games, 164 rushes, minus-3.0 ypc, 2 TD

Minus-808 yards: Gale Gilbert (1980-84) 55 games, 194 rushes, minus-4.2 ypc, 1 TD

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Cover photo of Chase Garbers by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo