Jackson focuses his attention on being best backup QB
Quarterback controversy can tear a football team apart. At Arizona State this year, Coach Dirk Koetter made the decision to start sophomore Rudy Carpenter over senior Sam Keller and Keller transferred to Nebraska in search of playing time. The Internet rumors said after Koetter initially chose Keller, Carpenter threatened to transfer and Koetter made the decision to try and keep the younger player in the fold.
Carpenter hasn’t performed as well this year as he did last year in relief of the injured Keller, and Koetter has been second-guessed to death by the armchair quarterbacks.
USU football fans haven’t had to witness an ugly scene like the one in Tempe because Leon Jackson has handled being benched in favor of Riley Nelson with aplomb. Rather than grousing about the decision and possibly dividing the team, Jackson has turned his focus to being the best backup quarterback he can be and being ready to return to the field at a moment’s notice.
“I want the team to do well,” Jackson said.
Last Saturday against Fresno State, Jackson was a vocal presence on the sideline, clearly no less engaged in the game just because he wasn’t starting at quarterback.
“I’ve just been helping [Riley] out in terms of reads and calming down. If you saw me during the game I was trying to help him relax.” Jackson said, “He’s a good kid and he knows what he’s doing.”
Far from being bitter over losing his job, Jackson was in the thick of the on-field celebration after the game, even leading a charge of Aggies over to the west stands to include the season-ticket holders in the celebration.
“It was a big game,” Jackson said after practice Tuesday. “I wanted to celebrate that with the entire stadium.”
Jackson is also USU’s starting punter, but his responsibilities preparing for his role as backup QB mean he doesn’t get too much practice time on specialty teams. Head Coach Brent Guy always likes to say that the backup players are one snap away from being starters, and Jackson has taken that to heart.
“We do punt coverage maybe twice a week and I kick six balls a day and then I’m with the quarterbacks. Punter is my second job,” he said.
Upperclassmen might remember that the shoe was on the other foot Jackson’s freshman year. It was the last year of the Mick Dennehy regime at USU and the Aggies limped to a 3-8 record with senior Travis Cox at quarterback. Public opinion seemed to be calling for the exciting young Jackson, who sprinted onto the field whenever he got the opportunity, to replace Cox at the controls of Dennehy’s offense.
When he was asked if he gained perspective from that experience, Jackson answered, “I saw how Travis handled it and how much of a man he was. I wasn’t the person to feed into all that. When people were saying that in the stadium, I was telling them to shut up because he was our starter; he was our senior leader.”
Next year Nelson will be serving an LDS mission and it would appear the starting job will be Jackson’s to lose. Yet he refused to speculate on what the future holds beyond this Saturday’s game at San Jose State.
“I’m going to continue to work hard and the chips will fall as they may. Coach Guy is the head coach and he’ll make all the decisions determining where we’re going to go as a football team.”