NEW ORLEANS -- Meet Jacob O'Hair, the Californian in Monday night's Bowl Championship Series title game.
If you are into tracking the progress of home-state players, better memorize that name now. You won't hear it a lot Monday night, if at all, when O'Hair and Louisiana State play Ohio State in college football's national championship game.
"A reporter asked me the other day what I hoped for in publicity," O'Hair said here Friday. "I told him I hoped for nothing."
And he meant it.
Besides being the only player from the Golden State who is certain to play, O'Hair is also the only player, other than perhaps his counterpart at Ohio State, who craves anonymity.
O'Hair is LSU's long snapper.
He plays only on his team's punts, field goals and extra points. Were announcers to pay any sort of extended attention to him Monday night, it would probably be for a mistake -- a bad snap. Then, he becomes a story. Matter of fact, that's pretty much the only way.
"Sometimes, they say your name as the field goal team comes out," he said, almost wistfully.
It is interesting that, from the approximately 200 players on the rosters of the current Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the country, only five are from California and only a long snapper from Rancho Cucamonga is likely to get into the big game.
The only other Californian on LSU's roster is reserve quarterback Jimmy Welker from Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High. One LSU official said that, if Welker plays, it means "the game's been really good for us or really bad."
Ohio State has linebacker Mark Johnson from Los Angeles Dorsey High, tight end J.D. Larson from Ventura and defensive back Grant Schwartz of Dana Hills, all buried deep on the depth chart.
So, from one of the most fertile high school football recruiting states in the union, that leaves O'Hair.
"Hadn't realized that," he said. "Kinda neat."
His road to this national championship stage actually started in the school registration line at Mt. San Antonio College in 2004. He had been a good offensive and defensive lineman at Rancho Cucamonga High and had done a little long snapping as a junior, but none as a senior.
When it was time for college, nobody recruited him.
"I wasn't big enough. I was something like 6-1, 220," he said. "Heck, our line here is something like 6-8 and 350 now."
So, needing to work and still wanting to participate in football -- and knowing that registration day at Mt. SAC is a nightmare unless you are an athlete -- O'Hair came up with a plan.
