As a high school quarterback, he turned down USC’s Steve Sarkisian to accept an offer to attend a once-proud program that had fallen on hard times.
He entered the college football world being seen as a savior who could restore glory to his new university’s program.
And it took two years for him to find his stride and finally live up to the expectations as one of college football’s best quarterbacks.
This is the story of University of Washington quarterback Jake Locker.
It’s also the story of Notre Dame’s Jimmy Clausen.
A pair of close friends and high-profile recruits who needed a little seasoning will square off for the first time when Locker’s Huskies face Clausen’s Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Both players are having outstanding seasons, which is exactly what was expected of them when they entered college football as freshmen. For both Locker and Clausen, the accolades took a little longer than anyone could have imagined.
“When you anoint someone the second coming: ‘Here’s the program, now go take us to it,’ that can be a lot of pressure,” said Sarkisian, now the head coach at Washington after spending seven of the past eight seasons recruiting as a USC assistant. “… I think it takes time to grow, it takes time to learn. You’ve got to learn from mistakes. I think they’ve both done that.”
What Clausen found when he arrived at Notre Dame just more than two years ago was that the weight of a suffering fan base was being heaped upon his shoulders. The pressure only grew when Clausen was handed the starting job, and he didn’t exactly escape the spotlight when he was arrested for an alcohol offense on the eve of his freshman year.
On the field, Clausen certainly didn’t look like the next Joe Montana as a freshman. He lost five of his first six starts, got sacked countless times and eventually lost his starting job to an older quarterback.
Clausen showed progress as a sophomore last season, but not until recently has he shown why he was the No. 1-ranked player in the Class of 2007. He currently ranks fourth in the nation in passing efficiency (172.9) and has thrown 10 touchdown passes to only one interception.
“He’s shown to be a complete quarterback right now,” said Sarkisian, who faced Clausen as a USC assistant last season and has been following Clausen since the QB’s days in junior high. “It’s just that maturation process.”
Clausen, who turned 22 last month, said his emergence as a college quarterback has been gradual but rewarding.
“It’s different coming from high school into college,” he said this week. “You think you’re good, and you think you can step right in and play, but it’s extremely tough. It’s taken me three years to get to this point.
“I feel like I did as a senior in high school. I know how to handle myself and be a leader of a team. It’s something I’ve had to evolve to here at Notre Dame.”
Locker has been through a similar journey, although his college hardships have had more to do with injury and team struggles than his own misfortune on the field.
The redshirt junior played 16 games over the past two seasons for UW and was plagued by an injury — a broken thumb kept him out of eight games last season — and inconsistent play. The UW program he was asked to save went 4-21 in his first two years of eligibility, and so Locker came into this season with a lot to prove.
But he said this week that the pressure of trying to carry Husky Nation on his shoulders never weighed him down.
“I never felt like it was all on me to turn this program around,” Locker said during his Monday press conference. “The game is played with 11 guys on the field at a time. If it was meant for one guy to change it, we’d play with one guy on the field.”
But Locker was clearly the face of the program.
“Jake was the big man on campus,” sophomore wide receiver Jermaine Kearse said this week when asked what he remembered about his arrival at UW. “He was a part of my commitment here. Jake is a great quarterback, and as a receiver you always want to play with a great quarterback.”
While there were times during Locker’s first two seasons when he appeared to be trying to win games on his own, this year he has thrived under more of a team concept. Sarkisian and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier have molded his game with one eye on the NFL.
“He has such great physical ability (that) the sky’s really the limit with him,” Nussmeier said. “… It’s like an artist painting: it’s not always right at the start, but it kind of progresses that way.”
The NFL could be in the future for both quarterbacks. CBS Sports scouting guru Rob Rang said that both Clausen and Locker are projected as second-round picks should they come out for the 2010 draft, and both have a chance to work their way into the first round.
Texas’s Colt McCoy and Florida’s Tim Tebow are the top seniors for the upcoming draft, but Clausen and Locker are part of a four-man group of underclassmen — along with Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Mississippi’s Jevan Snead — who are considered to be of similar caliber.
Should Clausen and/or Locker play out their eligibility and stick around for the 2011 draft, Rang said, they would both be “potential high first-round picks.”
It’s safe to assume that both Clausen and Locker will be rooting for each other on Draft Day — whether that comes in April 2010 or April 2011. The star quarterbacks have developed a close friendship that budded at an Air 7 Quarterback Camp in Santa Barbara two summers ago. They were roommates at another quarterback camp last summer and continue to remain friends by text message and phone calls.
Apparently, the quarterback camps have helped. When they take the same field for the first time on Saturday, Locker and Clausen certainly will look a lot different than they did as younger players.
“When you come in (to college), you think you can handle everything,” Clausen said. “But you really don’t know.”
Notes
Because the Huskies’ only game east of the Mississippi River has an afternoon kickoff, the team left for South Bend, Ind., on Thursday instead of the usual Friday departure. “It’s obviously a pretty lengthy flight — a little over four hours,” Sarkisian told reporters on Thursday morning, “so it’s just the advantage of flying, getting there so we have a really good Friday of our walkthrough, and not feel rushed on Friday and Saturday. Let’s get rushed on Thursday and get into our routine Friday and Saturday.” The Huskies and Fighting Irish play Saturday at 12:30 p.m. PDT. … After their final full practice of the week, the Huskies appear no closer to knowing whether wide receiver Devin Aguilar (knee) or linebacker E.J. Savannah (foot) will be available for the game. Sarkisian said he would like to have both players against Notre Dame but that he’s prepared to play without them. … Cornerback Quinton Richardson limped off the field late in Thursday’s practice, but Sarkisian said he should be fine.
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