Editor's note: This story is part of the Star's Aug. 27 college football preview section.
Few conferences can compare to the Pac-12 when it comes to quarterback play. And heading into the 2017 season, the league’s elite signal-callers are as talented as ever.
If it’s a day of the week that ends in a “Y,” you can count on a major publication writing about USC’s Sam Darnold.
UCLA’s Josh Rosen is the current college king of clickbait culture, a quarterback just as likely to lead a news cycle for his football abilities as for his outspoken nature.
Many now know the story of Washington State’s Luke Falk, the former walk-on who lost his starting quarterback job in high school to Arizona’s Brandon Dawkins and is now having the last laugh.
These are three bona fide NFL prospects, at the most headline-grabbing position in the sport.
Hidden in the Northwest corner of the map in Seattle, where there’s more rain than shine, Washington quarterback Jake Browning is away from the spotlight.
Browning is the second-leading returning passer in the Pac-12, and is coming off a season where he led the conference in both efficiency (167.5 rating) and passing touchdowns (43) all the while guiding the Huskies to a berth in the College Football Playoff.
CBS Sports has Browning ranked as the eighth-best potential quarterback prospect in the 2018 draft. Darnold is No. 1, Rosen No. 3 and Falk No. 4, and that’s in part due to physical stature. All three are 6 feet 4 inches or taller; Browning is 6-2.
“I think it’s pretty exciting,” Browning said. “Getting to know those guys a little bit off the field is cool. I think it makes for some pretty good games.”
The Star spoke to Browning about the upcoming season, defending the Pac-12 title and last year’s playoff loss to Alabama. Here’s what he said:
Your coach, Chris Petersen, talked about the physical traits of a quarterback being overrated. Do you agree?
A: “I mean, I just think it depends on what kind of game you play. If you’re a dual-threat guy and you run a 5-flat (40-yard dash), then you’re going to have some issues. But I think it just depends on what you can do with your physical traits and how do you use those? I think that’s more important than ‘OK, does he fit this mold of 6-5, throws a mile and can run everybody over?’ It’s more: he’s this height, this weight, how does he throw the ball, how’s his reads?
“That’s shown a little bit on the big stage with a guy like Russell Wilson, he’s a little shorter and can throw really well. So I think it just depends on your physical characteristics and traits and how you use them in your game. It’s not, ‘if you don’t have this, then you can’t play’ — especially at the college level.”
Is there anything in particular that makes it hard to defend a championship, complacency or anything like that?
A: “Yeah, complacency will kill you no matter who you are. Last year we had hype and I was barely above .500 as a starter. So I think complacency, if you start reading into too much about yourself and how great you are, I don’t care who you are, that’s going to start to effect you. The same goes if you’re reading about yourself, about how terrible a player you are, how you can’t do this, how you can’t complete an out route and all that.
“You just have to stay even-keeled, especially quarterbacks. There’s so much attention on how great you are and how you lost a game, there’s so many different things that go into it and so many split second decisions that need to be made. IN the back of your mind you’re subconsciously thinking ‘they all keep seeing I can’t do this’ so maybe you subconsciously are trying to force it more. You just have to hone in and be very disciplined and don’t read anything about yourself, just trust your coaching and try to get better every day. If you do that, you’re too busy to read anything.”
How many times have you seen that Alabama film, and what’d you learn from watching it?
A: “I watched it a lot. We watch all the games a lot, especially in the offseason, trying to get an overall idea of some things. You have an idea of what you want to work on but you kind of go through and watch it. But as far as that game particularly, that’s the standard I set for myself. That’s the team to beat. I know they didn’t win the national championship last year but that’s the team in college football and we got a first-hand experience of that with their defense. That’s who you want to beat and that’s the standard of what we need to be.
“I think that was pretty motivating, everybody had these lower expectations for us, whether they had us ranked or whatever, they didn’t fully expect us to actually do it. For us, I’m not happy with how that last season went. We lost. We finished with a loss and you have that sour taste in your mouth now for almost eight months. That doesn’t feel good.
“There’s no mistaking — there’s motivation for us that we can do better.”
