Football fun again for backup Husky QB DuRocher

SEATTLE – Johnny DuRocher admits he wasn’t having fun. In fact, his whole college experience hasn’t gone the way he had hoped.

At one time, he was the epitome of “Schoolboy Football Star.” Tall, athletic, cocky and with the numbers to back it up. DuRocher was one of the top passers in the history of Washington high school football, going 34-5 as a starter at Bethel High School and being named the Gatorade State Player of the Year as a senior.

Every major school in the West wanted him. In the end, he turned down the hometown Huskies and headed south for hated Oregon.

Of course, that didn’t last long. DuRocher redshirted the 2003 season and then left Eugene after finding the connection he had with coach Mike Bellotti during recruiting didn’t translate once he was on the team.

He came home, enrolling at Washington and battling Isaiah Stanback for the starting job leading into the 2005 season before discovering that he’d have to sit out the first four games of the season due to transfer rules. He ended up playing in five games behind Stanback and nearly took over the starting job before breaking his wrist against Oregon State.

And that’s when things went downhill fast. When spring ball rolled around, the Huskies moved more toward a spread out offense better suited to mobile quarterbacks Stanback, Carl Bonnell and incoming freshman Jake Locker. That left the more traditional drop-back passer DuRocher wondering what his role was. He spent most of this season watching while Stanback emerged as a star and Bonnell and Locker ran the scout team.

In fact, DuRocher said, it was only Locker’s enthusiasm that kept him focused.

“Once you get to the age that I’ve gotten to and things aren’t going real well for you, it’s really easy to get sour,” DuRocher said. “But having (Locker) around, having him be so excited about going to practice every day, be so excited about going to watch tape, I was like, ‘Man, this guy’s driving me crazy.’ But it made it more fun for me to go in, to almost be a freshman again. It made me remember this is a good time, this is fun what I’m doing.”

It’s been even more fun recently, as DuRocher has emerged as the backup to Bonnell, coming on last week to lead the Huskies into overtime after Bonnell suffered a concussion in the loss to Arizona State. Now DuRocher is one injury away from getting on the field again, and it could happen Saturday as DuRocher returns to Autzen Stadium with the Huskies for the second-straight year.

Last year, DuRocher went 2-for-2 for six yards in Washington’s loss to the Ducks and heard it from the Oregon fans all day. He expects the same this year.

“I don’t think they’ll ever get their fill of giving me a rough time,” DuRocher said.

That DuRocher even went in last week against Arizona State was a bit of a surprise. There was speculation that Locker would be Bonnell’s backup, but the coaches decided to save Locker’s redshirt year and go to DuRocher despite the fact that he’d seen virtually no snaps in practice.

DuRocher said he was thankful the first play call was a hand off so he could settle down. He then completed his first pass, a 10-yarder to Louis Rankin. He went on to go 4-for-4 on the drive, including a 4-yard touchdown to Sonny Shackelford that sent the game to overtime.

“After your first completion, it’s, ‘Alright, let’s start moving the football,’” DuRocher said. “(Rust) wears off pretty quick. … (It was) the most fun I’ve had the last four years playing football.”

Of course, Arizona State turned up the pressure on the relatively immobile DuRocher in overtime, and it magnified the biggest fear about playing DuRocher: For a team used to having a mobile quarterback, having DuRocher changes the offense quite a bit.

“He’s a pretty cool customer,” offensive coordinator Tim Lappano said. “He’s got a lot of confidence in himself and he’s got a lot of confidence in this offense. He knows what to do. With Johnny, we just want to get the ball out of his hand. Don’t hold it, anticipate. And if he can anticipate and get the ball out of his hand fast, he can play, he can do some damage.”