The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ex-Vol familiar with QB decision
Clausen competed for starting job as true freshman at Tennessee.
ATHENS — Casey Clausen can see what’s going on at Georgia all the way from his home in Calabasas, Calif. He’s seen this movie before, and he knows how it turns out.
The former Tennessee and NFL quarterback has followed the development of Jacob Eason with keen interest. The parallels are many between Eason’s story and his own coming out of Mission Hills, Calif. So he can’t help but watch.
Like Eason, Clausen was a fivestar quarterback prospect living on the West Coast and was recruited by pretty much every major program in the country. And like Eason, he was attracted to the idea of playing in the SEC. He signed with Tennessee to much fanfare in 2000, enrolled early and entered preseason camp as the great hope for the Big Orange Nation.
That’s where Eason’s and Clausen’s stories diverge slightly.
“My situation was unique because I developed tendinitis in my shoulder about a week into camp, so I was pretty much out of it right away,” said Clausen, who’s now head coach at Calabasas High. “I had a pretty good
spring, and I was ready to compete with Joey Mathews and A.J. Suggs . ... If I was healthy, I think I might’ve had a chance to start that first game.”
Tennessee’s opener that year was against Southern Miss, a well-respected opponent known for its stout defenses. Mathews got the start over Suggs and both played, but neither was impressive as the Volunteers eked out a 19-16 win. Mathews then injured his knee during the off week after the first game, and Suggs, a graduate of McEachern High in Powder Springs, started the next four games, the last one against Georgia.
But the Vols slowly worked Clausen into the rotation. By the time they left Sanford Stadium with a 2-3 record after a 21-10 loss to Georgia, the clamor to start the hotshot freshman from California was deafening.
Even though the next opponent was Alabama, they turned to the freshman.
“I guess the coaches were thinking, ‘we’re struggling, let’s just go with the young freshman,’” Clausen said. “That’s when we started doing some things as a team.”
They sure did. Clausen led Tennessee to a 20-10 victory over the Crimson Tide, and the Vols won the next five to end the regular season. The Vols finished 8-4 after a loss to a powerful Kansas State team in the Cotton Bowl.
“There’s a fine line between this guy is a safe pick versus this guy is the future,” Clausen said. “It comes down to, ‘are we going to be able to beat Georgia and Florida and Alabama with him?’”
If Georgia chooses to go with Eason, it will have some realities to face. History tells us when an SEC team turns to a freshman quarterback, the overall results usually aren’t that good.
According to research done by CBSSports.com, 15 freshmen ended up as the primary starter at quarterback in the SEC over the past 20 years. The average record for those teams at the end of the season was 7-6 (4-4 SEC). The average passing stats were 1,464 yards with a 54.4 completion percentage, 10 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Twice in that span, Georgia went with freshmen. Quincy Carter started every game in 1998, while Matthew Stafford started eight games in 2006. In both cases, the Bulldogs outperformed the mean. They went 9-4 behind Stafford and 9-3 behind Carter.
Making Carter’s success even more remarkable was the fact that he didn’t show up until a week into preseason camp. Nevertheless, he beat out four others in a competition that featured veterans Jon England and Mike Usry and highly touted underclassmen Daniel Cobb and Nate Hybl.
“We felt like with the guys we had lost on defense that we were going to need to score points, and we felt like Quincy’s athleticism gave us the best chance of the five, though all of them had a lot of good qualities,” said Jim Donnan, who the Bulldogs’ head coach as well as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Therein lies the difficulty of the decision. Coaches have to weigh a player’s innate talent and playmaking ability against his level of knowledge of the offense and the largely unknown qualities of being able to perform in a highly charged environments while also serving as a leader for older teammates.
“Quincy was fully capable after three weeks of practice of handling our offense,” Donnan said. “I mean, he knew what to do as far as knowing the system. But executing it, that’s a different story. You can talk about knowing the offense all you want but once you get on the field, you just have to be able to move the team.”