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Backing up the backup debate
Posted: Wednesday June 14, 2000 05:20 PM
Solid backup quarterbacks, like rollover contracts, let coaches sleep well at night. Writers might roll their eyes when coaches say it, but one of the reasons so many quarterback tandems have popped up during the last couple of years is that you can never have too many guys ready to step behind center. For an example, look no further than Miami. Kenny Kelly grumbled last fall when he had to give up snaps to freshman Ken Dorsey. But when Kelly bolted during the off-season to play professional baseball in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays system, coach Butch Davis had a quarterback with experience ready to go this fall. Alabama coach Mike DuBose continues to use the same logic in maintaining that Andrew Zow and Tyler Watts, both of whom started games last fall, are options 1 and 1A. As events at Nebraska and Washington have shown, Davis and DuBose are the lucky ones. Ever since Nebraska accelerated through the last postseason with dominating victories over Texas and Tennessee, the Huskers have worn the preseason bull's-eye for the coming fall. Late in spring practice, however, backup quarterback Jammal Lord tore a posterior cruciate ligament, the same injury that slowed down teammate Bobby Newcombe earlier in his career. It's hard to believe that the Huskers' national championship chances hinge on Lord, whom no one outside of Lincoln has ever heard of. But without him, Nebraska would be only one play away from a crisis at quarterback. Behind Eric Crouch, there are only walk-ons and Newcombe, the wingback who made a very public sacrifice last season by agreeing to remove himself from the quarterback position. With Lord's status in question, the Huskers ran the risk of staging another soap opera concerning Newcombe and the quarterback job. Should he take some snaps in August, just in case? The decision by former coach Tom Osborne to sign both Crouch and Newcombe in February 1997 is one of the reasons the Huskers found themselves in this predicament. They didn't sign a quarterback in 1998. Lord came to Lincoln in the fall of 1999. Last February, the one quarterback Frank Solich really wanted, Carlyle Holiday, signed with Notre Dame. There will be no soap opera this season. Lord's doctors recently decided that he will not need surgery to repair the knee. His progress in rehabbing the tear has been sufficient enough that the doctors believe Lord will be at full speed at some point during preseason practice. And so the Huskers machine will continue to roll in the fall. The depth-chart news is not as cheery at Washington, where the Huskies are one quarterback short. Coach Rick Neuheisel signed Mill Creek, Wash., running back Grady Sizemore last February with the idea that he would be converted into the heir apparent to Marques Tuiasosopo. Who better for Sizemore to learn from? Then came the June baseball draft. The Montreal Expos selected Sizemore in the third round and waved $2 million at him. Neuheisel rolled the dice, believing that Sizemore could be converted into a quarterback. Then he lost the gamble before the season even began. But despair not, Husky lovers. No quarterback in the country is physically tougher than Tuiasosopo. He proved that last October in the 35-30 victory over Stanford, when he threw for 509 yards of offense with a left hip and buttock so painfully bruised that he couldn't practice the following week. In the game that followed, Tuiasosopo returned to throw for 208 yards against Arizona. Every backup quarterback may be -- all together now -- one play away, but the guy behind Tuiasosopo is going to need Tonya Harding and her hubcap to get a chance to play. Two million dollars is ample incentive for anyone, especially if the alternative is trying to fill Tuiasosopo's cleats. Ivan Maisel is a Sports Illustrated senior writer who covers college football and is a frequent contributor to CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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