O’Brien steps to the plate by stepping away from it
There was a snapshot — a little one, fleeting, but it stuck like peanut butter to the roof of his brain — that told Steve Calhoun that Patrick O’Brien wasn’t messing around.
It came this past summer, out of the blue — or rather, out of the blue cheese. Calhoun, the Southern California-based quarterback guru, approached O’Brien, a guy he has been tutoring since the eighth grade, after a workout, suggesting they nosh on their usual postgrind treat: wings at Santora’s in Mission Viejo.
And O’Brien responded to Santora’s wings in a way he’d never responded before — with a stiff-arm.
“He says to me, ‘Nah, I can’t eat that,’ ” Calhoun said with a laugh. “(I thought), ‘That’s awesome. That’s OK.’ That just showed me his commitment to what they’re doing.”
Through all the starcrossed moments — coaching changes at Nebraska, transfers, the quarterback derbies that ended with a place ora show instead of a win — O’Brien’s commitment never wavered, even as events seemed to conspire or crumble all around him.
“I think everyone has those moments,” said O’Brien, the redshirt junior QB who’s slated to finally make his first collegiate start Saturday when Colorado State (1-2) hosts Toledo (1-1) at Canvas Stadium (8:15 p.m., ESPN2). “But at the end of the day, you realize why you do this. It’s for moments like this.”
This was a long time in coming. A four-star pocket passer as a prep prospect at San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., O’Brien was courted heavily as a teen by CSU, CU, Texas Tech and UNLV, ultimately electing to cast his lot with the Cornhuskers and the pass-happy philosophy of former Nebraska coach Mike Riley.
O’Brien redshirted in the fall of 2016 to much promise, but made only sporadic appearances in relief of Huskers starter Tanner Lee in 2017 during a 4-8 campaign that caused athletic director Bill Moos to clean house.
Riley and his pro-style offense got supplanted by Scott Frost and his optionfriendly zone read attack, and the 6-foot-5, 244-pound O’Brien became a square peg as the new staff installed round hole after round hole. He transferred to CSU, ultimately coming out of last spring pegged by coach Mike Bobo as the backup to junior Collin Hill.
“My one saying to all the quarterbacks I work with is, ‘We’re going to break big rocks into little rocks with a small hammer,’ ” Calhoun said of O’Brien. “The hammer we have is just a little bit bigger than our thumbs. Let’s just keep chipping away.”
O’Brien chipped, sticking to the diet prescribed by the CSU training staff, sticking to the plan, until fate intervened — this time, by opening a door.
During the third quarter of last Saturday’s 55-34 loss at Arkansas, a Razorbacks defender rolled into Hill’s left knee, a knee the Rams quarterback had already had surgically repaired twice. O’Brien replaced Hill, whom Bobo said Tuesday will miss the rest of the season because of surgery on that left knee, and completed 7 of 10 throws for 106 yards.
“I think (on Saturday) you’re going to see a guy,” Calhoun said, “who has a really big chip on his shoulder,”
A big arm, too. O’Brien’s first pass off the bench at Arkansas was an 8-yard completion to tight end Trey McBride. O’Brien’s fourth throw, with 2:26 left in the third quarter, was more spectacular. O’Brien eluded pressure in the pocket, spotted freshman speedster Dante Wright up the left boundary and fired a 75-yard touchdown strike that would set up the gametying extra point. O’Brien’s stat line in Fayetteville earned him the Pro Football Focus’ top passing grade for Week 3 among Mountain West quarterbacks at 79.8.
“Last year, sitting out, I didn’t really know what to expect,” O’Brien said. “This season, I knew what my role was and going into the season that anything could happen at any moment.”
That moment’s here. Finally. Even if the vision O’Brien had for his first college start three years ago didn’t exactly look like Fort Collins under the lights.
“Going back then, probably not,” O’Brien chuckled. “I was probably full-on Nebraska. Everything happens for a reason.”