Stanford WR Owusu Will Sign w/ 49ers

Stanford wide receiver Chris Owusu will sign with the 49ers as an undrafted free agent, his agent confirmed tonight.

Projected as at least a mid-round pick before his senior season, Owusu went undrafted due to concerns about his injury history. He had three concussions in a 13-month span during the latter part of his college career. Owusu had two concussions in three weeks during his senior season and missed Stanford’s final four games.

At the NFL combine, Owusu’s 40-yard dash time (4.36 seconds) matched the fastest by a wide receiver. His broad jump (10 feet, 9 inches) ranked second among wideouts, and his vertical jump (40.5 inches) was third.

Limited to 10 starts in his final two seasons, Owusu had 60 catches for 772 yards and five touchdowns as a junior and senior. He could also have value as a returner. As a sophomore, he tied a record in what was then the Pac-10 by returning three kickoffs for touchdowns. He had six kickoff returns of 50-plus yards in his career.

* Stanford defensive lineman Matt Masifilo just stopped by the media trailer after signing with the 49ers as an undrafted free agent. Masifilo said Stanford safety Michael Thomas will also sign with the team and reunite with Jim Harbaugh.

Masifilo became the first undrafted rookie to sign a free-agent contract, driving over to Santa Clara from Palo Alto.

“Coach Harbaugh likes to cut drag,” Masifilo said. “He said it’s a competition to get down here as fast you can.”

Masifilo beat Owusu to the 49ers headquarters. Owusu is at home in Southern California.

“That’s probably … the last race I’ll ever beat Chris in,” the 6-3, 300-pound Masifilo said.

(Chris Owusu 2012 NFL Combine Workout Video Link)

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Speed Runs in Owusu's Family

The bar is set pretty high in the Owusu household.

All five of the kids are A students who play multiple sports. If one of them came home with, say, a B-plus on a report card? "I would take them out of sports," said their father, Francis Owusu.

There's something else that all five kids have in common: They're very quiet.

The eldest, Chris, Stanford's 6-foot-2, 201-pound sophomore wide receiver and kickoff return man extraordinaire, carries it to the extreme, his dad said.

"He's way too quiet," he said. "He keeps things to himself."

On Sunday, a day after Chris returned a kickoff for a touchdown for the third time this season, tying the Pac-10 single-season record, he talked on the phone with his mother, Luaiva. And didn't mention the touchdown.

The NCAA single-season record is five (Tulsa's Ashlan Davis) and the career record is six (Davis and USC's Anthony Davis).

"You've got to decide if you're going to kick it to him," said UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel, who won't say which way he's leaning for Saturday's 12:30 p.m. game at Stanford. "It's like Barry Bonds when he was hitting all those home runs. You didn't have to pitch to him."

Francis Owusu had made the Ghanaian Olympic team in the 400 meters, but didn't compete because most of Africa boycotted the 1976 Games in Montreal over Olympic officials' refusal to ban New Zealand. There was an uproar over the New Zealand rugby team's tour of South Africa, which had been banned because of its apartheid policies.

He came to the United States in 1978 to attend Utah State on a track scholarship, met his Samoa-born wife and started a highly religious family. All five of their children are excellent athletes - Brian is a freshman defensive back at Harvard - but academics came first.

Chris, the oldest, plans to go to medical school. He had a 4.2 grade point average at Oaks Christian High School in Westlake Village, a 35-mile drive from their home in Oxnard (Ventura County). When Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh came for a visit, he was given a combination of Samoan and Ghanaian food, including fried plantain. "Oh my goodness, he ate and ate," Francis Owusu said.

At Oaks Christian, Chris was one of the main targets for quarterback Jimmy Clausen, now at Notre Dame. But he didn't return kickoffs, despite his exceptional speed.

"That shows you how good a coach I was," said Oaks Christian's Bill Redell, whose teams have gone 111-11-1 over 10 years. "I was afraid of him fumbling because he had done that a little bit in practice. If I had let him run back kickoffs, we probably would have been 114-8."

As a college freshman, Owusu returned kickoffs in five games after returning from a knee injury he sustained in a preseason scrimmage. His longest return was a 54-yarder. Now he's practically a touchdown machine, showing why he was one of the state's top prep sprinters until he pulled a hamstring as a senior.

"Honestly, it doesn't surprise me at all," said Georgetown quarterback Isaiah Kempf, a longtime pal. "I knew he was an extraordinary athlete. When he got hurt last year, I knew it was just a matter of time before people saw what he could do."

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Stanford's Chris Owusu Returns Opening Kickoff for Touchdown

When the Washington Huskies opened the season against Louisiana State and its dangerous returner, Trindon Holliday, UW coaches played it safe, kicking the ball away from him.

But the Huskies gambled Saturday at Stanford, deciding to kick it deep to the Cardinal's Chris Owusu, who already had two returns for touchdowns this season and came in leading the nation in kickoff return average at 52.8.

The move backfired on the Huskies as Owusu took the kick at his own 9-yard line, found a seam, and quickly darted through the middle of the field essentially untouched for a touchdown to put Stanford up 7-0 just 10 seconds in.

Owusu's third return for a touchdown tied him for the Pac-10 season record with USC's Anthony Davis in 1974 and UCLA's Matthew Slater in 2007.

It also meant that Stanford had scored a TD on its opening possession in all four games this season.

It was also the second straight game that UW won the toss and elected to defer and then saw the opponent score. Last week, USC drove for a TD on its first drive.

The Huskies learned their lesson from there as they kicked it short on their following kickoffs of the first half, not allowing Owusu to get the ball.

Owusu is a sophomore from Oaks Christian High in Southern California, the same school as heralded UW commit Nick Montana, a quarterback who has said he will sign with the Huskies as part of the Class of 2010.

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