Bill O’Brien was in a hurry Sunday morning. Understandably so.
As his SUV whizzed by mine and headed north past Meyer Dairy, Sheetz and then Home Delivery Pizza – founded by Frank Defluri, for whom Penn State’s old Fritz linebacker spot was named – the Penn State head coach may have been going a tad above the posted speed limit of 40. A tad.
No matter. While that stretch of Atherton Street is Ticket Alley, it was early enough that only church-goers, trout fishermen and college football coaches were out in force.
He hung a righty onto University Drive, then beat a hasty path to Hastings Road, home to Lasch Building. It may have only been 9:30 in the a.m., but O’Brien had miles to go before he slept.
In the immediate past was Penn State’s intra-squad scrimmage that took place in Beaver Stadium the day before. Down the street lay Saturday’s Blue-White Game. And along the long road ahead is the Nittany Lions’ season-opener on Aug. 31 against Syracuse at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey – just 19 weeks after Blue-White.
As O’Brien pointed out last week, “It’s April 11 and Aug. 31 is when we need to be ready to tackle and have our best players ready to go.”
The best player at quarterback these days? O’Brien says he is not sure, as he is in the midst of his second straight spring quarterback race. For their part, Penn State fans are facing their fourth consecutive year, and fifth in six seasons, of an April that may or may not lead to a starting signal-caller.
Saturday’s Blue-White Game marks the exact calendar midpoint between the official end of the 2012 season and the official start of the 2013 season. Then, as now, the No. 1 concern of the former coach of America’s No. 1 pro quarterback is finding a new No. 1 quarterback for the Nittany Lions.
“His quarterbacks,” my friend wryly noted over breakfast at The Waffle Shop, my own Sunday morning destination. “That’s why he was in such a hurry to get to the office.”
Fast drive, painfully slow decision. Hurry up and wait. Some kind of reverse football physics perhaps. Look, the day after the 2012 season ended Penn State had just one quarterback – Steven Bench. Now it has four, with two more on the way. Talk about just-in-time inventory. No wonder PSU’s business school is rated No. 1 in the nation for supply chain management.
FERGUSON AND BENCH
JUCO transfer Tyler Ferguson, one of those recent arrivals, seems to be making up the six-month jump that Bench – a freshman last season — had on him. Ferguson arrived on campus just in time for the Jan. 7 start of the 2103 spring semester and immediately hit it off with his new teammates. And folks who know this stuff say that O’Brien and quarterback coach Charlie Fisher are pleased with the way the kid from California is picking up the offense.
“I think they’ve both had their good moments and their bad moments,” O’Brien said on a Big Ten Conference conference call. “Any time you have practices left there’s always enough time for one guy to separate himself. We’ll see what happens over the next few practices here. I don’t really like to get into all the compare and contrast. I think they both do some things well and there’s some things that both of them need to improve upon.”
Last spring, Matt McGloin used 14 practices and the season-ending glorified scrimmage to separate himself from QB contenders Paul Jones and Rob Bolden. O’Brien told McGloin he was the team’s starter just days after the Blue-White Game, then made it public June 1.
Not going to happen like that this time around.
From what O’Brien has said, and what bits and pieces the media has seen in practice, Bench and Ferguson are fairly even. Last Wednesday, during a few 7-on-7 drills the two alternately looked sharp and uncertain – to the point of a quarterback firing a low fastball into end zone traffic and then later a quarterback literally shrugging his shoulders at the end of a play, unable to even get a pass off sans pass rush. Which quarterback(s) am I talking about? Take your pick.
And that’s O’Brien’s dilemma.
It’s a football truism that when you have two starting quarterbacks you really have none. O’Brien had played that hand before, at Duke in 2005. As the first-year offensive coordinator for the Blue Devils under head coach Ted Roof (remember him?), O’Brien gave quarterback Zack Asack two-thirds of the snaps and one-third to Mike Schneider, Duke’s starter in 2004. Duke finished 1-10 that season; not that it was the quarterbacks’ fault, but on an offense that averaged 16.1 points per game they had to be a factor.
Last week, in an online chat with Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com, a chat participant named “Doug” asked O’Brien, “Coach, you’ve indicated that you want one QB to come out of camp. Will you consider going to a two QB system if there is no big separation between your 1 and 2?”
O’Brien’s reply, typed out by Maisel: “No.”
TIME IS AN ALLY
There is plenty of time for O’Brien and Fisher to pick 2013’s starting quarterback. Last Saturday’s scrimmage may have provided some insight, the same with this coming Saturday’s scrimmage. But Blue-White, while not an outlier, won’t be the primary determinant as to who will start in the Meadowlands.
We do know this: There’s over a three-month wait until official summer drills begin – replete with pads, with coaches back on the field, with a summer of film-dissecting, with live pass rushers, with Christian Hackenberg and with Syracuse looming. (And who’s to say the starter against Syracuse will be The Guy all season? Maybe Hackenberg comes in, learns the offense, shows the big arm, and wins the job before conference play begins.)
Final exams are the week of April 29. In addition to perhaps Stat and Econ and Speechcom and whatever else is on their academic plates, both Bench and Ferguson will also find out from their head coach and offensive coordinator where they truly stand.
It’s unlikely he’ll McGloin one of the two by anointing him a starter then and there. And while he may hint who’s in the driver’s seat, it’s doubtful O’Brien will turn over the keys to the car until August.
It’s a fast-paced and complicated offense, certainly not easy to drive. Lucky for all concerned there’s a whole summer to figure out that tricky parallel parking.
