Cass going indoors

PORTALES — After setting school rushing records at Clovis High and Eastern New Mexico University, Kamal Cass is taking his game indoors.

The three-time All-Lone Star Conference first team selection and winner of five All-American honors as a Greyhound signed with Indoor Football League’s Green Bay Blizzard. His first game with the team will be Feb. 24 against the Iowa Barnstormers.

Cass said he wasn’t particularly looking at arena football teams, and doesn’t know too much about the sport, the Blizzard or even Wisconsin in general.

“All I know,” Cass said, “it’s an opportunity.”

Cass rushed for a program-record 4,301 yards and scored 50 rushing touchdowns. He was the LSC’s running back of the year as a senior, when he carried 279 times for 1,448 yards and 14 touchdowns.

At Clovis, Cass set program records with 5,444 rushing yards and 73 rushing touchdowns. Both are fourth-best in New Mexico prep history.

“Kamal gives us another big-play weapon,” Blizzard head coach and general manager Corey Roberson said in a release. “Like most of the players we have signed, he was extremely productive and consistent at the college level, and his statistics certainly indicate that.”

The team has plenty of room to improve, finishing last in the IFL at 2-12 in 2018 with seven losses by 21 or more.

The Blizzard were founded in 2003, and joined the IFL in 2010 after jumping from the now-defunct af2 — the minor league of the Arena Football League. They play their games at Resch Center in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin.

Cass said in his year out of football, he’s worked out pretty much every day. But he doesn’t have a drill where he gets hit, and said there’s only so much you can do to replicate game conditions.

He’s getting ready to make the trip in the next few weeks, and has the same goals in the IFL that he’s had at the college and prep levels.

“Of course, I want to be the best,” Cass said. “But whenever I’m there I’m going to try to help the team out. Winning’s the important thing.”