Cedric Benson is no stalker, though he plays one on TV. Turn on the tube and there's the Texas running back not only following Ricky Williams' career but reliving it down to every detail, except for a certain white-lace wedding dress. Dreads? Been growing them since 10th grade. Visored face mask? Wouldn't slip on his Riddell without one. Pro baseball? Plays it. Personality? On ice. On-field body language? Speaks Ricky fluently, from the way he raises his hand for the ball on a swing pass, to the way he runs with his head way up, to the way he labors to rise after a tackle.

	Down to the 'do, Benson wants to be like Ricky.

But to determine the depths of Benson's devotion, ask about his childhood room in Midland. Sunday papers were keepsakes. "He'd say, 'Save that part about Ricky Williams, I want to read it,'" says his mom, Jackqueline. The next thing she'd know, it'd be taped to his bedroom wall along with other photos and stories of Williams he'd collected.

"I want to be like him one day," he'd tell his mom.

"Baby," she'd say, "you'll be better than him one day."

Better? Williams finished his Texas career with 21 NCAA records, including rushing yardage, all-purpose yardage and scoring. A Heisman winner, a two-time All-America and the reason Mike Ditka traded away all of the Saints 1999 draft picks and two more in 2000.

Benson broke or tied 13 Texas freshman records last season. At 6'0", 205, he's 25 pounds lighter than his hero. But his career mimics Ricky's so closely that after 13 games, Benson and Williams had each rushed for 1,102 yards. Says Williams, "If he stays and keeps getting carries, I'd be surprised if he didn't break all my records."

Ricky first heard about his Mini-Me from Texas staffers. Coach Mack Brown even asked him to stop by the team hotel in Houston last season to meet Benson. Hands were shaken, advice given. Benson told his idol how much he admired him. "He's a just a very humble guy," says Williams. Funny, Benson said the same thing about Ricky.

Benson still has something to prove to Oklahoma. One other thing he has in common with Ricky: forgettable first games against the Sooners. Williams knows his numbers by heart. "I'll never forget that game -- eight carries, four yards. I learned. I torched them my last two years." Ricky bounced back with 362 yards in his next two games against the Sooners. Benson had exactly zero carries and was in on one snap in last October's BCS-killing 14-3 loss to Oklahoma. Texas coaches were worried about Benson's fear factor, about his pass blocking, about his blitz reading, about turnovers. So they sat him, threw 42 passes, rushed 25 times for 27 yards. "Coach Brown had a tough decision," says QB Chris Simms, "to put his paycheck in Cedric Benson's arms." The next day, Brown decided there were worse places for his paycheck to ride and made Benson a starter. "We just bit the bullet," says O-coordinator Greg Davis. "We figured he's a true freshman, he'll make mistakes, we'll go from there."

Some bullet. Benson reeled off five consecutive 100-yard games, finished with 1,053 yards and became the best pass-blocking back Simms has ever had. Barring injury or kidnapping, Benson will be in the Texas lineup against OU. He aches for the pressure. "It's like Miami-Florida," he says. "All eyes are going to be glued to the TV. I think about it every day."

Williams says Benson's under more pressure than he was. "I was just a kid from California, a fullback," says Williams. "When I got there, we were barely ranked in the Top 25. Now, they're Top 10. He's supposed to be great. The expectations are higher."

Benson picks his moments to go public. Part of it is personality: He's quiet, almost cautious, a human mute button. But his hesitation also stems from an off-season arrest for marijuana possession; he was at a party where it was used. The charges were quickly dropped, but the publicity turned him into a postgame couch potato. "I think something had to happen for me to get a grasp," Benson says. "Now I go home after games because I'm too sore to do anything else."

He's only 19, still daydreams during film sessions and is so late to so many meetings that his mother told the coaches to lie about start times: Meeting at noon, tell Cedric 11:30. Otherwise, though, Benson is low maintenance, high production. His linemen say he's a breeze to block for. "We do double takes when we're watching film of him," says guard Tillman Holloway. "Cedric does things that don't seem human."

Sound familiar?

This article appears in the October 14 issue of ESPN The Magazine.