College of San Mateo football coach Larry Owens was taking a look at the stat sheet of Saturday’s game when he was asked what he had liked from his team’s performance. Owens paused for five seconds, searching for something positive to say before he grinned and commented, “I like the final score.”

The host Bulldogs’ 51-13 win over Gavilan College of Gilroy was hardly a shock; CSM (4-1) was expected to win going away. What the game did give Owens and his coaching staff was a sense of how much they needed to improve before entering NorCal Conference play in two weeks at Butte.

With powerhouse programs City College of San Francisco, Foothill and Santa Rosa, you could make the argument for the NorCal of being not only the toughest conference in the state, but in the nation. It’s that good, which is why Owens stressed a sense of urgency even after a sound thrashing of a clearly overmatched Gavilan (1-4) squad.

“We’re not where we need to be to play at the level of the teams we’re going to play,” Owens said. “The other (NorCal) teams are probably more consistent right now. We don’t play a full game, we play in spurts, and that’s not going to be good enough to compete in conference.”

But against Gavilan, the Bulldogs’ efforts were plenty good enough. They led 28-0 at halftime, totaled 431 yards of offense to the Rams’ 342, and were never seriously threatened. CSM set the tone on the game’s opening drive, marching 73 yards on 12 plays, capped by Jason Washington’s 19-yard touchdown reception with 9:39 left in the first quarter. After a couple of ineffective drives from both teams, the Bulldogs’ Michael Harris returned a punt 68 yards for a score to make it 14-0 as time expired in the first quarter. Harris took the ball at his own 32-yard line, immediately sidestepped a defender before dashing to the left sideline. Latu Moala helped spring Harris to the end zone after delivering a crushing block at the Gavilan 35-yard line.

After the Rams went three-and-out, CSM drove 49 yards on five plays, capped by Julian Edelman’s 1-yard lunge into the end zone to make it 21-0. Drew Ryan set up the Bulldog’s final score of the first half when he intercepted a Matt Virus pass at Gavilan’s 21-yard line. One play later, Edelman hooked up with E.J. Boganey with 1:36 in the second, and the rout was on. With the exception of a couple of big plays, CSM’s defense was stout, often smothering the Rams’ offense with its superior athleticism and tenacity. Moala had a sack and broke up a pass, while Ray Hisatake, Mike Bellagamba and David Lomu had one sack each. John Harris, Sandeep Bath, Jon Blekis, Justin Cain and Peter Thompson had tackles for losses.

The Bulldogs rushed 41 times for 252 yards, with Edelman leading the way with 91 yards on 17 carries. The Woodside High graduate proved to be dangerous once again in the open field, juking and spinning while leaving defenders in his wake.

Edelman completed 10 of 19 passes for 143 yards and two touchdowns. Ryan Faumuina finished with 63 yards on nine carries, Boganey had four receptions for 59 yards, and Michael Harris had a 32-yard touchdown reception midway through the fourth quarter to make it 44-13. With Kevin Linnell out with a sprained shoulder, Jose Avina played three series and threw his first passes in a CSM uniform. He finished 2 of 4 for 36 yards and a touchdown.

“I felt a little nervous, but it was cool being able to throw and I’m going to take this with me and learn from it,” Avina said. “We’re good, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”

Owens agreed: “I thought we played very intense verus College of the Sequoias (Week 2), but I haven’t seen that since. That scares me and bothers me, and those are the questions I have for this team. Maybe over the bye week I’ll bring in a psychologist. I don’t know. We have to work on that because we have the athletic ability and potential (to win in conference), but all potential means is you haven’t done anything yet. And that’s the scary and frustrating part.”

When told that Michael Harris had graded his team’s performance a ‘C,’ Owens said, “We better get to an ‘A’ real quick or we’ll be on the exact opposite of today’s score the next time we play.”