By
Denny O'Brien
©2010 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
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The route to East
Carolina's starting
quarterback job goes
through Pirates
offensive coordinator
Lincoln Riley, above. |
(ECU SID Photo) |
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Enroll, or not to enroll.
That apparently was the quandary with which quarterback signee Dominique
Davis struggled after former East Carolina coach Skip Holtz departed the
Pirates for South Florida.
A part-time starter at
Boston College where he was an academic casualty following his freshman
campaign, Davis was a mid-year signee for the Pirates after spending
last season at Fort Scott Community College.
Instead of enrolling at
ECU for the spring semester as was originally expected, Davis took a
wait-and-see approach.
Part of the waiting game
was to see who the Pirates would hire as Holtz's replacement. Many
sources confirmed that Davis was also open to switching schools if the
right situation had presented itself.
As a result, Davis missed
spring practice, during which the Pirates installed their new Air Raid
offense. In order to have any chance of seizing the top spot in the
fall, the ECU staff made it clear that enrollment in the 1st summer
session was in everyone's best interest.
“When you miss spring
ball, you don't miss only the 15 practices and the scrimmages, you miss
the meeting time,” East Carolina offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley
said. “You miss the individual drill work. You miss so many things.
“Guys coming in, to be
able to compete, they are going to have to be good in a hurry. They are
going to have to have great summers.”
Davis finally enrolled
late last week according to several athletics department sources, and he
is currently listed as a “prospective student” on the ECU e-mail
directory.
Another incoming
gunslinger already enrolled for the summer is freshman Shane Carden from
Houston. He is the first quarterback that Riley recruited specifically
for his system, and the Pirates' OC is very high on Carden's potential.
But just like Davis,
Carden will have to absorb the playbook quickly and emerge as a
frontrunner for the position during the summer. Once fall camp begins,
Riley hopes to move quickly to identify a starter.
“We're going to have about
two weeks where we're going to have to really get after it in the fall
and then we're going to make some decisions and start narrowing it down
and focusing in on the guys who we think move the ball the best,” Riley
said. “A lot of it will depend on how good of a summer these guys have,
how hard they work and how many extra hours they spend in here on their
own time doing what they need to do.”
Translated, a long road
awaits both Davis and Carden.
For Davis, significant
progress must be shown with accuracy. He completed just 46 percent of
his throws during his freshman campaign at Boston College, and followed
that with a 53 percent completion percentage during his lone season at
Fort Scott.
Carden's accuracy numbers
mimic Davis' from last season. Carden completed 52 percent of his passes
during his senior season at Houston's Episcopal High School, though his
touchdown-interception ration was outstanding at 17-4.
Regardless of who wins
ECU's QB battle this fall, his completion percentage needs to approach
60 — not 50 — when the season commences.
Unique implementation
There is no shortage of
variations of the spread offense.
Mouse Davis, considered
one of the forefathers of the spread, years ago developed a
pass-oriented approach known as the run-and-shoot. Rich Rodriguez
demonstrated at both Clemson and West Virginia that the running game
could flourish without the quarterback under center.
Today the spread offense
and its many implementations are widespread across the high school and
college ranks. But the version Riley learned under Mike Leach's tutelage
at Texas Tech isn't one of the more commonly installed versions, and the
Pirates' offensive coordinator doesn't understand why.
“To me, you would want an
offense, as a head coach or AD, that has a track record like this one
does,” Riley said. “ I'm not really sure yet. I think it probably is
something on the horizon. In ten years, I think when you look across the
major programs, you'll probably see this offense a little more than you
do.
“It is a little
surprising, because people love to watch it, players love to play in it,
coaches love to coach it, and recruits love to come play in it. You
score a lot of points. There are so many big positives to it. The
offense took a program in Texas Tech that was just an average BCS
program and, over the last several years, it was extremely competitive
on the national scene.”
A quick glance at the NCAA
statistics suggests that Riley could be on to something. Texas Tech
finished fourth nationally in total offense in 2009, while Houston,
which runs a similar version of the spread, finished first.
Lack of success?
Even though the spread
offense is pervasive across college football, it's a system that makes
many NFL scouts and executives cringe. Many even suggest its heavy
reliance on shotgun and pistol formations is the primary reason for the
decline in NFL-ready quarterbacks.
But Riley isn't buying it.
“That doesn't make much
sense,” Riley said. “With all due respect to those guys, if they knew a
little bit more about football, they would probably be coaching. That
just doesn't make much sense to me.
“You look at the three
most dominant teams in the NFL right now — I think that most people
would agree is probably the Saints, the Colts, and the Patriots — those
teams are easily 70-80 percent in the shotgun. To say you can't succeed,
that doesn't hold water with me. I don't understand that.”
It might be time for NFL
executives to embrace it. Like it or not, the overwhelming majority of
the quarterback crop is being bred in some variation of the spread.