A new start at the quarterback position



When Charlie Weis did his post-spring practice evaluation, he found that he still had a Brady Quinn on the roster. However, the 2007 version of Brady Quinn is manifested in three different personalities.

"The guy who made the most plays was Demetrius (Jones), the guy who threw the ball the best was Jimmy Clausen, and the guy who really ran the big picture the best was Evan (Sharpley)," said Weis, repeating why there will be three quarterbacks vying for the starting role come August. "If you had all three of those in one – that's Brady Quinn. You had three elements of Brady in three different guys."

About halfway through spring practice, Weis informed members of the media that his goal was to cut the quarterback derby from four candidates to two at the end of May. Some opinion held that singling out Zach Frazer as the lone candidate who didn't make the cut seemed a little cold, but to quote a Dan Hill song, "I'd rather hurt you honestly than mislead you with a lie."

"I'm not a liar," Weis said. "I could have used (Bill) Parcells' old line, 'I reserve the right to change my mind.' But I said I was going to cut this down. I felt cutting it to two would have been premature, because which one of those three guys are you going to cut out then? Trust me, I would have liked to have gotten down to two, but I just couldn't.

"You really didn't want to eliminate (Frazer), either. I studied every single thing they did the entire spring. We charted everything, every fumble exchange, every throw versus the wind, short, intermediate, long – and the reps were almost identical for all four. After we came to an objective analysis, it really came down to three things. That didn't mean Zach wasn't good. It just means he didn't win any of those three categories."

Consequently, Frazer now has the opportunity to decide whether he wants to remain at Notre Dame or explore options elsewhere – which he currently is in the process of doing.

At the conclusion of spring drills, Weis left the door ajar on whether he would use a second quarterback in specific situations, a la Tim Tebow at Florida last year in place of Chris Leak in goal-line or short-yardage situations.

This is not a new concept in football. Alabama's legendary head coach Bear Bryant used such a system at Alabama in the 1970s. When the No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide faced Notre Dame in the 1973 Sugar Bowl, Bryant used Gary Rutledge more as an option quarterback and Richard Todd more as a passer. During the Tide's 1978 run to the national title, Jeff Rutledge was more the passer while Steadman Shealy was more of a runner. In 1979, Bobby Bowden regularly used two QBs (Jimmy Jordan and Wally Woodham) during Florida State's 11-0 regular season.

Lou Holtz sometimes had dual quarterbacks at Arkansas, and even tinkered with it at Notre Dame – although he did state it's not his preferred mode of operation. In his second season with the Irish (1987), after starter Terry Andrysiak suffered a broken collarbone in the fourth game, Holtz used option wizard Tony Rice as his No. 1 quarterback but also inserted freshman passing sensation Kent Graham in certain situations.

However, on occasion Holtz "outthought" himself that year. In a 21-20 loss at Penn State, Rice drove the Irish inside the Nittany Lion five-yard line in the closing minute of the first half. From there, Holtz surprisingly inserted Graham, who then tossed an interception in the end zone. The next spring, Holtz decided to go with Rice alone. Graham was a quality backup but opted to transfer to Ohio State after the 1988 national title.

Holtz also used Paul Failla as a red-zone quarterback in place of Kevin McDougal for much of the 1993 season in which the Irish finished 11-1 and No. 2. Failla also started in the 31-13 victory over USC when McDougal was reportedly hampered by an injury. Yet when push came to shove in the 41-39 loss to Boston College and a hard-fought 24-21 victory over Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, Holtz went exclusively with McDougal.

Is Weis still amenable to using a situational substitution system at quarterback this year?

"It's still there because I haven't gotten to the hierarchy of No. 1 and No. 2," Weis replied. "Once I get from three to two, it'll be a little easier to answer that question. Let's just say Evan and Jimmy are the same person and Demetrius is different – because that's how people see it anyway.

"If they're the same, then why would you use two quarterbacks? If they're the same (quarterback), you pick the guy who is better and that's who you play. Now, if you have two different guys who are 1 and 2…"

Obviously, Jones has the most playmaking ability with his legs and provides a different dimension to the offense that opposing defensive coordinators would have to spend time accounting for in game preparation. Although Weis definitely prefers a Pro-style passer to run his offense, he says he's hardly averse to setting up different offensive packages for his personnel.

"Rohan Davey never played for me at New England, but he was our second quarterback," Weis noted. "He didn't have Tommy's (Brady) plays. He had his own plays we used to practice every week. If 'Ro' would have gone in, we would have run the running plays we had, but all his plays were his own. He had his own wristband for his own plays."

This May, Weis reportedly met with West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez, whose spread option schemes have made the Mountaineer offense among the most lethal and feared in the country. As esteemed as Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta is, Rodriquez's offense made mincemeat of it in the 38-35 Gator Bowl victory last January. West Virginia trailed 35-17 in the second half but rallied to victory with 311 yards rushing, 145 of them by quarterback Patrick White. Georgia Tech happens to be Notre Dame's opener this year.

Naturally, Weis would not divulge the Xs and Os aspect of such a meeting with Rodriguez, nor even verify that it occurred, but he did say this is the best time of year to enlighten and broaden your own coaching horizons.

"I sent every coach on our staff out this spring to do a different project," Weis said. "Last year we all went to Carolina (Panthers) together. This year we went all over the country. We covered all sorts of different ground. It was just research projects.

"We have our own offense and our own defense. We're not going to run somebody else's offense or somebody else's defense. But that doesn't mean we can't get ideas from all those other places. We went out to see what things are out there that we can apply to our offense or defense. I call it professional enhancement."

According to Weis, if you're not willing to adapt or tweak in football, you can become as obsolete and irrelevant as a portable CD player to today's iPod.

"If you're stagnant, if you're not always trying to get better and think you have all the answers – especially at the head coach position – if you think you're just better than all those other people but you're not doing anything to get better, then people are just going to go right by you," Weis said.

"When you've worked in the NFL, you understand how you can be outworked. We live a paranoia that a lot of college coaches don't understand. That's why with the professional enhancement, it's important for your coaches to do some work away from your own staff."

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