Lanning is football’s best story
R.W. McQuarters didn’t arrive in Stillwater in 1995 with the goal of being an iron man. He just wanted to have fun.
Turns out, playing offense and defense was fun.
Saturday in Ames, Iowa, the Oklahoma State Cowboys play against college football’s best story of 2017, Iowa State’s Joel Lanning. The quarterback-turnedmiddle linebacker is bucking the trend and has brought back the concept of a two-way player. Lanning is serving as Iowa State’s short-yardage quarterback in this breakout season for the 21st-ranked Cyclones.
Until Lanning, twoway players had gone the way of the wind.
But the same was true in 1995, when the talentshy Cowboys used their freshman defensive back on offense, too.
And in McQuarters’ final OSU game, the 1997 Alamo Bowl, McQuarters played 122 snaps. He had four catches for 43 yards and a touchdown, plus an interception.
McQuarters had eight catches for 245 yards that season, and a 56-yard touchdown off a reverse against Missouri.
“It was about having fun,” McQuarters said. “You just want to do it all.”
That was an era when teams experimented. Kansas State’s Chris Canty, Michigan’s Charles Woodson, Florida State’s Deion Sanders and Georgia’s Champ Bailey were star defensive backs who dabbled in playing offense, too. OU’s Andre Woolfolk was a wide receiver on the 2000 national title team but who played both receiver and cornerback in 2001.
OSU coach Mike Gundy calls Lanning’s linebacker quarter back combo“really crazy. You don’t see it as much. The game is way more complicated than it was in the ‘90s. The advantage he has is he’s played it (quarterback) before. And I’m sure he’s in a reduced package to a certain extent.”
So was McQuarters back in the 1990s. He would leave defensive drills and join the offense for 10-15 minutes, during which the offense would work on McQuarters-specific plays.
“The hardest part was understanding the formations, though Gundy and Coach (Bob) Simmons and Les Miles, they did a good job.”
Gundy was an assistant in 1995 before leaving for Baylor. “We had three or four route concepts” for McQuarters, Gundy said, “then we had reverse, couple of things like that. The defense back then was just pure zone or it was straight man coverage. You don’t see as many things as you do nowadays.”
So the preparation for a player like McQuarters was somewhat easy.
“After that, it’s all cardio,” McQuarters said. “Being in shape. If you’re in shape, you can handle both sides.”
Again, that was the 1990s. In the up-tempo craze of 2017, it’s hard for a defensive back or a receiver to play full-time one way, much less two ways.
Since college football left behind the single-platoon system in the early 1960s, few players have made a name for themselves going both ways. Holy Cross’ Gordie Lockbaum in the 1980s was a national sensation on the small-college level. Purdue’s Leroy Keyes was a big-time halfback and defensive back in the 1960s.
“I enjoyed it,” McQuarters said. “I wanted to stay on the field as much as I
could.”
McQuarters then played 11 years in the NFL, for the 49ers, Bears, Lions and Giants. As a pro, he never took the field on offense. He played defensive back and returned kicks. But McQuarters said all four franchises worked him out on offense and had plays ready if he ever got the chance, though none ever pulled the trigger.
In Stillwater, Simmons’ staff gave McQuarters the chance, and he made the most of it. Heck, he didn’t just play both sides in football, he joined the basketball team and helped out Eddie Sutton’s squad during an injury crisis.
“I take pride in it,” McQuarters said. “Playing both ways, playing both sports. You just want to do it all.”
McQuarters did it all. Now Joel Lanning is doing the same.