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'Defining moment' Orange Bowl key for FSU's Weinke
Updated: Monday January 01, 2001 4:29 PM
By Paul Crane, CNNSI.com ATLANTA -- Chris Weinke has added the Heisman Trophy to an extensive resume that already includes one national championship. It has been a long road for a 28-year old quarterback who has truly come of age. "To look back at 1997 and look at what I am now? Two totally different guys," Weinke said. Age or no age, his head coach knows there isn't anyone he'd rather have with a title game on the line that No. 16. "Going into this [Oklahoma] ballgame," said Bowden, "there is not a quarterback in college football past or present that I would rather go into this game with than Chris Weinke." It wasn't always that way. Weinke has overcome obstacles that only begin with his return from baseball in 1997. "In very beginning I tried to talk him out of coming," says offensive coordinator Mark Richt who moves on to become the head coach at Georgia after the Orange Bowl. "I was afraid he might come a semester and quit and in meantime lose a prospect." Weinke admits that trying to jump-start his football career was difficult in the beginning. "It wasn't easy coming back at the age of 24 and going to school with kids that were 17 and 18," he said. "It wasn't easy taking seven years off from football and coming back and playing with some of the best athletes in the country." An injury to then-redshirt junior Dan Kendra threw Weinke into a starting role his sophomore season. But after throwing six interceptions in a loss at North Carolina State, he didn't look like a player who would become the only three-year starter at quarterback Bowden has ever had.
"He got off to a good start and then his second ballgame threw six interceptions," recalled Bowden. "Now you're saying 'Oh my goodness. We might have made a mistake.'" That's a question Weinke was also wondering "There wasn't a period of time where I said, 'Did I make the right decision?' But there were moments where I said, 'Was this the right decision?' " Weinke has become the comeback kid. He followed that N.C. State game by throwing 237 consecutive passes without another interception, an ACC record. "I've had a lot of guys with a lot of talent who didn't live up to their potential because of intangibles," Richt said of the 6-5, 240 senior from St. Paul, Minnesota. "Weinke showed up with intangibles, but he had to work hard on his skills." But Weinke has overcome more than just his late start. He came back from a career threatening neck injury in 1998 to lead his team to a title in 1999. And he played most of this season with a seriously injured left foot and still led the nation in passing while leading the Seminoles in every sense of the word. "He's not going to let anyone see him sweating," says tight end Ryan Sprague. "He's not going to let anyone see that he's frustrated and that's comforting to an offense, comforting to a line, comforting to a bunch of receivers to know the guy who's in charge of everything. "Nothing's fazing him. That's what he brings, and the experience of being so much older than we are is we look to him for that and he understands that so he provides it for us." Weinke believes this final game will be what he calls "his defining moment" as a quarterback. He then looks forward to becoming a 29-year old rookie in the NFL where there are still some who doubt he can make it. And those are the people next in line who he will try to prove wrong.
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