By CON MARSHALL
Breaking in a new quarterback is always, to put it mildly, an interesting experience. A major college coach once described it as like putting a tea bag in hot water: You don’t know exactly what you’re going to get.
But the Chadron State College football team needs a new quarterback. Both Jonn McLain, who was on the team six seasons and set nearly all the school records while starting four of them, and Patrick O’Boyle, who was McLain’s backup the last two years, have expended their eligibility. No one who is returning has ever taken a snap when the pressure was on.
What’s going to happen now? Nearly everyone connected with CSC football-the players, coaches and fans-are wondering. CSC head coach Jay Long said it’s the question he’s been asked the most often this spring, even though the Eagles also graduated nine starters at other positions. But because of the complexities of the quarterback position, it’s the one that gets the most scrutiny.
The Eagles have four candidates to take over as the field general. They are senior-to-be Chris Conroy of Gordon, sophomores-to-be Justyn Curtis of Richmond, Ind., and Matt Vinson of Box Elder, S.D., and redshirt freshman T.D. Stein of Chadron.
“All of them want to be the guy,” says CSC offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Chris Stein.
Yes, he’s T.D.’s father, but says the four began the spring on a level playing field and it’s how they perform this spring and again during preseason drills that will determine who is calling the signals when the Eagles open the season Sept. 3against Missouri Science and Technology in Rolla.
As a dad, he notes he won’t want to put his son in a position he can’t handle and adds, “I want to keep my job, so I want the new quarterback to be the best we have, no matter what his last name may be.”
The elder Stein adds that lack of an experienced quarterback is rather strange for the Eagles after having Jonn McLain at the controls for so long.
“I’ve kind of had the spring off the past two years,” Stein observed. “I knew Jonn could do the job as well as anyone we’d ever had and also was confident that Patrick could take over and do well if that was necessary. Now I’ve got to go back to work. Believe me, I’ve been doing a lot of coaching this spring and it’s only half over.”
Stein says each of the four candidates has strengths as well as shortcomings at this juncture of the spring.
“They’re all good athletes and were good high school quarterbacks or they wouldn’t be here,” he states. “There are some differences in them. The ones who throw the ball the hardest and the farthest may not be the most accurate. As far as passing is concerned, consistency is an issue and the one who develops that first may be the starter next fall.”
In a nutshell, Stein says that Curtis and T.D. have the strongest arms and Vinson has had the best accuracy during the early practices. Conroy is somewhere in between, possessing adequate arm strength and accuracy.
The highlight of Conroy’s career so far occurred during the spring game in 2012 when he was a redshirt freshman and directed a 17-play drive that netted the go-ahead touchdown, then completed a screen pass that put the ball in position for the field goal that clinched the 20-10 victory for the Red team.
The past two seasons, he has been a member of the travel squad, but with McLain and O’Boyle staying healthy his only playing time occurred at the end of a few lopsided victories, when he handed the ball to running backs or knelt after taking the snap while the Eagles were in the victory formation.
Of course, Conroy has sat in on dozens of quarterback meetings with Stein and the other QBs during the past four years. Now, he sits in the front row at those meetings and tries to absorb more of the nuances of the Chadron State offense.
At Gordon-Rushville High School, Conroy was a three-year starter at quarterback, threw for 1,192 yards and 10 touchdowns as a junior and the next year completed 64 of 130 passes for 804 yards and 11 TDs. He also ran for five TDs and received all-conference and all-regional honors. He’s listed at 6-feet, 205 pounds.
Curtis, who is 6-3 and 205, was a two-time all-conference quarterback for the Richmond Red Devils. As a senior, he threw for 1,550 yards and 14 touchdowns. He was contacted by Joe McLain after the former CSC quarterback and now a CSC assistant coach had seen Curtis at a University of Nebraska football camp when he was going to be a senior.
Stein says besides being tall, Curtis is “pretty athletic, can really sling it and is trying to improve his accuracy.”
Vinson’s father was in the Air Force and Matt had never played football when the family moved to Ellsworth Air Force Base and he enrolled at Douglas High School entering his sophomore year. He started for the basketball team that winter and told his teammates he’d also like to play football.
That word was passed along to the Douglas football coach, former Chadron State All-American offensive lineman Dan “Magic” Maciejczak, who, after two straight winless seasons, was continually encouraging more players to join the team.
“Matt went to camp with us that summer and became the starting quarterback his junior year. He learned fast and we finally won some games,” Maciejczak recalls. “He was self-motivated and worked hard to learn the game and improve his skills. He was all-conference his senior year.”
Vinson, who is 6-0, 190, redshirted as a true freshman in 2013, but had that season cut short when he sustained a broken leg during practice. The injury also forced him to forego contact last spring, but he joined Curtis and T.D. Stein in playing quarterback for the service team that ran opponents’ plays against the CSC defense last fall.
Of course, the Steins have watched and talked and thrown footballs to one another ever since T.D. could walk. Theirs is a family of coaches and quarterbacks. Grandpa Dick Stein was the Chadron High head football coach for 22 years and both of his sons, Chris and Kevin, were excellent quarterbacks for the Cardinals and also played at CSC, although Chris switched to tight end and was inducted into the Eagles’ Athletic Hall of Fame for his playing abilities in 2006. This will be his 15th season on the Chadron State football coaching staff.
Kevin is the head football coach at Grand Island Northwest.
T.D. Stein started at quarterback three years at Chadron High. Before he ended his career in 2013, he broke most of the McLain brothers’ career passing stats, completing 314 of 604 passes for 4,573 yards and 46 touchdowns. He also ran for 360 yards on the ground as a senior to give him 5,002 career total net yards.
During the recent winter conditioning, T.D. had the best time in the 40-yard dash among the quarterbacks, a tick ahead of Curtis.
“All of them have had their good days and their bad days so far this spring,” coach Chris Stein said. “All of them have taken snaps with the first team and all of them have taken snaps with the fourth team.
“We’re looking for a long-term quarterback who will do the best possible job at the position,” he continued. “We know none of them is going to do everything right away the way Jonn did it. Whoever takes over will make mistakes that we hope they learn from.”
Stein adds that he’s encouraging all the quarterbacks to make “all the throws” when the offense goes against the defense in practices.
“That way, both the coaches and the quarterbacks can figure out what we can and can’t do. During our early practices, we had more passes intercepted than we’d had the last two or three years. It’s a learning process.”
The coach says there are things he and the other coaches can do to help the new quarterback.
“We can help out with the play calling and our alignments so they don’t have as many responsibilities as an experienced quarterback would have. Even though we’ve also got to replace two great ones up front (Mike Lorenzo and Sam Parker), we expect to have a decent offensive line and should have a sound running game so we can mix in quite a few play-action passes. We’ve also got two of the best receivers (Kyle Vinich and Danny O’Boyle) in the conference. That’s a real plus.”
Stein adds that he doesn’t expect the starter to be named this spring. He says the final decision will probably be made a week or so before the season opener.
He also points out that those who don’t get the opening game nod will still be vitally important to the team. There’s always the potential for injuries and, as the Eagles demonstrated several times last year when O’Boyle replaced McLain at quarterback for a few series, a change of pace at quarterback can sometimes be beneficial.
“There’s still a lot to be decided,” Stein relates. “I’m just glad we’ve got spring football. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to break in a new quarterback with just two or so weeks of practice in the fall.”