Josh Portis, Chris Turner and Jordan Steffy (L-R) competed for the Terps' starting job in 2007 and 2008. Photo courtesy of examiner.com
In today’s print edition story, I wrote quite a bit about the Terps’ future at quarterback. But one thing there wasn’t space for was an analysis of the last major Terp quarterback competition.
In 2007, spring practice became the story of a quarterback controvery. At the time, the Terps were loaded at the position: Jordan Steffy, Chris Turner, Josh Portis, Jeremy Ricker, Bobby Sheahin and Jamarr Robinson all cluttered the roster.
Steffy was the only one of the group with in-game experience — though it wasn’t exactly the prettiest of displays. Turner was the unheralded second-stringer. Portis was the option quarterback who had transferred from Florida and had all the fan hype. Ricker was the four-star recruit who seemed a year or two away. Sheahin, Robinson and Smith were good runners, but clearly didn’t factor heavily into the competition.
So it came down to Steffy, Turner and Portis. Many fans and media members believed Steffy would win the job out of camp, but Portis’s upside as an option quarterback would win out in the long run of the season.
Steffy did win the job, but Portis was declared academically ineligible for the season. So when Steffy was injured against Rutgers in the season’s fifth game, Turner came in and played the rest of the year.
Current running backs coach John Donovan was the quarterbacks coach that year, but he said the 2010 situation is looking better than 2007 did at this time in 2006.
“I don’t think it will be as hard this time,” Donovan said. “Not that it was hard last time, but all the guys that we have now, we think, are pretty decent. People feel good about the guys we have coming in next year. … They see those guys in practice every day, and they feel pretty good.”
There are some interesting parallels from 2007 to this year, though.
It would appear Robinson takes the roll of Steffy, the favorite to win the starting job simply because of experience, though he, like Steffy, hasn’t impressed anyone in that time.
O’Brien, consistently praised for his poise and intelligence, then, would be Turner — the safe choice who should be able to get the job done if called upon, but may not have great long-term potential.
Brown and Clay Belton would then duke it out for the title of 2010 Josh Portis, though both lack the unbelievable hype Portis drew from fans. Brown might be the most physically talented quarterback on the roster, while Belton, a Miami (Ohio) transfer, has the title of the biggest of the bunch and a prototype build.
That leaves incoming freshmen Tyler Smith and Devin Burns as Jeremy Ricker and Bobby Sheahin, in this situation.
Both of those quarterbacks transferred after not winning the job. But in this year’s case, I could see Burns, a fluid athlete who isn’t highly regarded under center, deciding he’d rather switch to wide receiver a la Torrey Smith.
I had a chance to talk to Tyler Smith about it all, and he said he was very excited because coaches promised him a chance to earn the job. He seemed confident he could compete, if not next year, by at least three years in.
If none of these guys transfers and no one wins the job and dominates, we may have quarterback controversy part II in 2011, with the same group competing for that same spot. Robinson is the senior-most of the group, and he’s still got two more years to go.
I asked offensive coordinator and current quarterbacks coach James Franklin about why he would recruit two quarterbacks in a single class, and he gave me an interesting, if in part joking, response.
“What I’d love it to be is a situation where one of them’s the starter and one of them’s the backup, and they’re here for the long haul,” Franklin said. “And worse case scenario is, when they’re fifth-year seniors, one gets drafted and one gets drafted like [former USC quarterback and current Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Matt] Cassell, who is a backup and ends up going to the NFL. That’s the ideal situation.”
The Terps aren’t quite of the stature of USC. But we’ll have to wait and see with these guys. For now, it’s Turner.
ajoseph@umdbk.com