Novato’s Wilkins closes gap on elite Pac-12 QBs
Because of an injury, Palo Alto product Keller Chryst will be replaced in the starting lineup by redshirt freshman K.J. Costello on Saturday against Arizona State.
No matter who started for Stanford, though, the best Bay Area-produced quarterback in college ball may be on the visiting team.
To say Manny Wilkins has grown dramatically into the role of the Sun Devils’ signal-caller and team leader would be an understatement. He has become a very popular figure not only in the Phoenix area but in
Novato as well.
Last Saturday, the former San Marin High School athlete led ASU to its first victory over Oregon in 13 years. He passed for 347 yards and a touchdown and ran for two more scores in the 37-35 upset over the then-No. 24 Ducks.
When ASU (2-2, 1-0 Pac-12) is clicking, it’s “a work of art,” he said afterward. In a phone interview this week, he said, “We operated everything really well. As a group, we played well in all three phases — offense, defense and special teams. We continued to play through all the adversity we’ve had.”
He was referring to the fact the Sun Devils had lost eight of their nine previous games dating to last year, putting sixthyear head coach Todd Graham’s job in jeopardy. A Phoenix columnist wrote last week that, had they been thumped by the Ducks, “it’s justification to make a move right away.”
Asked if he felt the team was playing for Graham’s job, Wilkins said, “No, we’re not focused on that — just on what we have to do to win each week.”
Wilkins has wedged his way in among the Pac-12 “Big Four” quarterbacks — UCLA’s Josh Rosen, USC’s Sam Darnold, Washington’s Jake Browning and Washington State’s Luke Falk — to rank third (behind Rosen and Falk) in conference passing with 317.8 yards per game. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound redshirt junior has become one of the top run/pass threats on the West Coast.
Wilkins also has presented struggling youngsters of all stripes a blueprint for how to conquer life’s difficulties. He was 8 when his father got out of prison. Two years later, his dad died of a drug overdose. Wilkins struggled in school. During a five-year span, he moved from California to Minnesota to California to Las Vegas to California to Texas to Colorado to Texas and then back to California. He lived with his uncle and aunt in Novato his final three years of high school.
When he first showed up at San Marin, athletic director and basketball coach Craig Pitti took one look at his academic transcript and knew Wilkins faced long odds.
“He couldn’t play football at first because he had credits to make up,” Pitti said. “The first few months were rough. He easily could have fallen through the cracks and dropped out of school. He gives a lot of people credit, but it had to be self-driven. He made the correct choice time and time again. I’ve been here 12 years, and to me it’s a special story.” Two teams, one cause: Saturday’s game has been designated Sexual and Relationship Violence Awareness Day. Players from both teams will have teal and purple ribbon decals on their helmets — teal represents sexual violence awareness and purple represents relationship violence awareness. “If we can continue to raise awareness and talk about setting expectations for your relationships, and how you’re going to interact with other human beings,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said, “why wouldn’t we take advantage of that?”