Oakland native Lynch a pillar of Cal's Berkeley campus

There is a point where Oakland and Berkeley cozy up next to each other, though hardly holding hands. The California campus -- bastion of free thought, home of Nobel laureates -- shoulder-to-shoulder with gritty, urban Oaktown.

"It's probably a lot different than a lot of places in the world," said Robert Jordan, a junior receiver at Cal from East Oakland. "It's everything that you see in the movies -- high crime, drugs. ... You just have to keep your head on straight."

Marshawn Lynch, a high school QB, might be the best thrower among top college RBs. (Getty Images)

That tells you a lot about what you need to know about the two cities and Jordan's celebrated cousin, Marshawn Lynch. Cal's junior tailback also grew up in Oakland, on Telegraph Avenue, five minutes from the Berkeley campus. But he finds himself -- at least figuratively -- elbowing his way onto those campus banners that celebrate the school's Nobel winners in economics, physics, chemistry and literature.

"You know Marshawn when you see him," said Jordan of the Bears' increasingly hyped Heisman candidate. "Most people do. They know him because of his dreads. Everybody starts playing with his hair."

Hairstyles at liberal-thinking Cal shouldn't be a big deal. These grateful dreads, though, bridge a gap -- between two cities and between two cultures.

The clash of cultures has to do with the one that doesn't want to accept Cal into the club of major-college big timers. Coach Jeff Tedford has the program in contention for a BCS bowl -- if not the national championship -- with a preseason top 10 ranking. Known as a master developer of quarterbacks, Tedford might have to rely on the kid with the grills from Oakland to elevate his program to the next level.

It wouldn't be the first time. J.J. Arrington ran for a school-record 2,018 yards in Lynch's freshman season. At Oregon and Cal, Tedford has helped produce eight 1,000-yard backs in the past seven years. Cal junior Justin Forsett came within a yard last season of becoming the ninth.

"He's as talented a back as I've been around," Tedford said of Lynch. "A guy who can run in traffic or cut outside. He can throw it as good as anybody, too."

Throw?

"I could probably get it about 65, 70 yards," Lynch says of his quarterbacking days at Oakland Tech.

This is a slice of one of the more obscure of last season's 46 1,000-yard rushers. As a freshman part-timer in 2004, Lynch averaged 8.8 yards per carry while playing in Arrington's shadow. Last year, despite missing 2½ games because of a broken finger, he threw up 1,246 yards in only 10 games.

Among returning rushers, only Northern Illinois' Garrett Wolfe averaged more yards per game.

Lynch's running style is both unique and eerie -- punishing one moment, incredibly quick and vibrant the next. Somehow Lynch knows when to lower his pads and when to break ankles.