Spring Break
The Next Big Thing
In the game of college football quarterbacking, some diamonds are deeper in the rough
Nick Hubel
Issue date: 10/31/08 Section: Sports
Justin Holland stood on the CSU football practice fields in a pair of athletic shorts and a sweatshirt, mesh-back hat pulled down tight against the October wind, watching. A long mid-week, mid-season practice was over, and most of the players had already headed into the locker room.
Junior third-string quarterback Grant Stucker, donning a black quarterback jersey and standing a few paces to Holland's left, dropped back in an imaginary pocket, turned and fired a spiral some 25 yards toward the endzone.
His target, a hole in the mesh net tied securely to the extreme flanks of the goalpost, was no larger than two feet high by two feet wide. The spiral never got more than 10 feet off the ground as it rifled toward the goal, passing through the hole and into the dangling mesh bag with two other footballs. Three in a row.
"That's 30 bucks you owe me," Stucker said, half-jokingly.
Holland smiled, picking up a football and getting into position to make a throw to win some money back. The 2005 CSU graduate and former Rams quarterback, now a volunteer quarterbacks coach with the team, would need every bit of the arm that made him such a highly touted high school prospect in Colorado. With the wind gusting and without even an arm circle to loosen his muscles, Holland missed low. But the zip was there. Talent is hard to hide.
For the Rams football team, however, it's not a matter of recognizing talent at the quarterback position. The Rams have seen talent come and go.
It's everything that comes after -- the hard work, nurturing, long hours in the film room studying and heavy dash of luck -- that's needed to turn a talented prospect into the kind of leader that Ram fans have come to expect from a school that was once the quarterback capital of the conference.
Finding the diamond recruit or building him from the current stable of quarterbacks in the program is a process that head coach Steve Fairchild believes will continue to evolve.
Junior third-string quarterback Grant Stucker, donning a black quarterback jersey and standing a few paces to Holland's left, dropped back in an imaginary pocket, turned and fired a spiral some 25 yards toward the endzone.
His target, a hole in the mesh net tied securely to the extreme flanks of the goalpost, was no larger than two feet high by two feet wide. The spiral never got more than 10 feet off the ground as it rifled toward the goal, passing through the hole and into the dangling mesh bag with two other footballs. Three in a row.
"That's 30 bucks you owe me," Stucker said, half-jokingly.
Holland smiled, picking up a football and getting into position to make a throw to win some money back. The 2005 CSU graduate and former Rams quarterback, now a volunteer quarterbacks coach with the team, would need every bit of the arm that made him such a highly touted high school prospect in Colorado. With the wind gusting and without even an arm circle to loosen his muscles, Holland missed low. But the zip was there. Talent is hard to hide.
For the Rams football team, however, it's not a matter of recognizing talent at the quarterback position. The Rams have seen talent come and go.
It's everything that comes after -- the hard work, nurturing, long hours in the film room studying and heavy dash of luck -- that's needed to turn a talented prospect into the kind of leader that Ram fans have come to expect from a school that was once the quarterback capital of the conference.
Finding the diamond recruit or building him from the current stable of quarterbacks in the program is a process that head coach Steve Fairchild believes will continue to evolve.
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