Quarterbacks take a hike
It’s been a bad month to be a Pac-10 quarterback.
First, Arizona’s Willie Tuitama and UCLA’s Ben Olson went down. Then, last weekend alone, three starters and two backups got hurt as well.
In addition to Washington’s Isaiah Stanback, who was declared out for the year on Monday with a foot injury, Stanford quarterback Trent Edwards is done for the season – also because of a foot injury.
“A very unfortunate, freak accident,” said Stanford coach Walt Harris, whose team is 0-7. “But it’s been a year for freaky-type accidents.”
Things got worse, as Harris’ backup quarterback, T.C. Ostrander, got hurt on the Cardinal’s last offensive play of the game. His knee injury could force him out of this week’s game against Arizona State. If it does, redshirt freshman Tavita Pritchard would have to start for the winless Cardinal. (Pritchard is a nephew of Cougars great Jack Thompson and a cousin of current Washington State long snapper Tony Thompson.)
Stanford wasn’t the only team losing a second quarterback. Arizona starter Adam Austin – playing because of Tuitama’s concussion – got injured against the Cardinal, forcing Kris Heavner into the lineup.
Heavner had transferred from Arizona to Baylor after losing the starting job under Mike Stoops, but then decided to return to the Wildcats as a walk-on. He’ll start if Tuitama can’t return this week.
WSU backup Gary Rogers went down, as well, with a shoulder separation that likely will keep him out of this week’s game.
All of the injuries have left at least one Pac-10 passer speechless. That’s because UCLA’s new starter, Patrick Cowan, injured his vocal chords during last week’s game. He should play this week, coach Karl Dorrell said – if he can talk in time for kickoff.
“We may not have a very strong-voiced quarterback this weekend,” Dorrell said. “It is kind of unfortunate right now with guys getting knocked out.”
Down and out
Stanford would have been an obvious candidate to lose all 12 games this season even if its top two quarterbacks hadn’t been hurt against Arizona.
Now that they have, it might be said that Harris’ team is a prohibitive favorite to go 0-12.
Against Arizona, widely regarded as the conference’s second-worst team, Stanford managed just 32 offensive plays, four first downs, and minus-6 yards rushing. Subtracting its penalty yardage (45) from its total yardage (52), the Cardinal netted 7 yards in the game.
“It wasn’t a lot of fun, that’s for sure,” said Harris, in his second year attempting to clean up the mess left behind by former coach Buddy Teevens. “We couldn’t get out of our own way. They obviously gave us trouble up front.”
It’s been widely speculated that the rebuilding effort in Palo Alto will take years, since Stanford won’t pluck the junior college ranks for immediate help based on its academic standards.
“It’s just not our year,” Harris said. “We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and really look at our entire program. We have a lot of areas I think we can get fixed.”