Thanks to the NCAA’s name, image and likeness legislation, it is now perfectly legal for someone — let’s say a Sun Devil football fan — to spend $65,000 for a brand-new Corvette C8 Stingray and gift it to an ASU quarterback in the minutes after a stunning victory over No. 21 Washington.
By Thursday morning, there had been more than 14,000 YouTube witnesses to such a transaction as Sun Devil quarterback Trenton Bourguet exited the joyous ASU locker room and saw the Corvette, unattended, keys in the ignition, with his jersey No. 16 on the dashboard and his parents standing near the car.
Bourguet did what any college quarterback would do. He cried.
“I was already speechless from the game,” said Bourguet, the most prolific high school passer in Tucson prep football history. “But I’ll take the win over (the car).”
The Sun Devil “fan” who bought Bourguet the car was his father, Marana businessman Toby Bourguet, who did so as a pre-graduation gift, having no idea that Trenton would be the star of ASU’s 45-38 victory over the Huskies last week.
Until Saturday, Bourguet had spent 3½ years sitting on ASU’s bench, throwing for a modest 115 yards and one touchdown in various late-game wrap-up roles. His greatest moment: being elevated from a walk-on to full-scholarship by former Sun Devil coach Herm Edwards.
You’d cry, too, wouldn’t you?
For 35 games, Bourguet sat and wondered if he’d ever get a chance to be the QB of record at his school. His longest stint was in a 41-14 season-opening victory over Southern Utah a year ago. He mostly handed off, completing 3 of 5 passes. No touchdowns.
That’s a long way from throwing a state-record 89 touchdown passes at Marana High School, 2015-18, with a Tucson-record 7,612 yards.
But because Bourguet was judged to be a bit too small (5 feet 11 inches and 180 pounds) and slow, all the Power Five conference recruiters looked past his extraordinary statistics and labeled him a non-prospect.
Rivals.com give him zero stars.
“I’ve always been that guy — starting since I was a freshman in high school and breaking records,” Bourguet said in ASU’s post-game interview session on Saturday. “For me, I always know what I’m capable of and God has a great plan. Four years ago, I was the fifth-string walk-on. Just trusting God’s plan and putting my head down and preparing for this moment.”
Marana’s Trenton Bourguet kept Washington from the Pac-12 title game by leading ASU past the Huskies in Tempe nearly two months ago.
That “moment’’ was like something from a Hollywood movie.
You’ll probably never convince anyone that there is such a thing as a curse on Tucson quarterbacks, but I am one who believes it is a topic worth exploring.
Over 44 seasons, Arizona has never had the Pac-12’s first-team all-conference QB. The Wildcats have only had three players — Fred Enke in the 1950s, Bill Demory in the early 1970s and the still-active Nick Foles — play in an NFL game. (I don’t count ex-Sahuaro High and USC quarterback Rodney Peete, because he left Tucson before he completed his high school eligibility).
By comparison, ASU has had 10 QBs play in the NFL since 1972, and the greater Phoenix-area has produced so many Power Five conference QBs the last decade that it’s hard to keep track.
Bourguet’s winning performance against Washington puts him in a much-too-small group of former Tucson prep quarterbacks — four — who have played winning Power Five football. Here’s the brief list:
Pat Flood, Tucson High, who threw for 320 yards and five touchdowns as No. 7 Navy’s backup quarterback in 1956-57 when the Midshipmen relied heavily on the run and went 15-2-3.
Jim Krohn, Amphitheater High School, who threw for 3,120 yards and 24 touchdowns as Arizona’s quarterback from 1976-79, although Krohn was the No. 1 QB only in 1978 and 1979.
Reggie Robertson, Sahuaro High School, who threw for 1,280 yards at Cal from 2000-03. Robertson finally became the Golden Bears’ starter in 2003 and threw for a combined 411 yards against Kansas State and Colorado State before he was replaced by an unknown JC transfer, Aaron Rodgers.
James MacPherson, Mountain View High School, who was ignored by Pac-12 recruiters, went to Wake Forest and threw for 4,716 yards and 16 touchdowns from 2000-02.
Enke played in the low-brow Border Conference at Arizona in 1947, but he led the NCAA in total offense (194 yards per game) and was No. 1 nationally in passing with 1,406 yards.
ASU has not yet said whether Trenton Bourguet will start Saturday’s game against Stanford.
The remaining Tucsonans have played much smaller backup roles at Power Five schools: Rincon’s Bill Prickett passed for 215 yards when given the chance to play at Arizona in 1991; CDO’s Jason Verdugo passed for 192 yards in two limited seasons at ASU in the mid-1990s; Sunnyside’s Bobby Valdez spent four years at ASU but threw just six passes, completing none in the late 1980s; and Catalina Foothills’ Rhett Rodriguez played extensively in two Arizona 2018 games, against UCLA and Utah, and completed passes for 578 yards before transferring to Louisiana-Monroe.
That’s it. That’s the short history of Tucson quarterbacks in Power Five football, or its equivalent, dating to the 1950s.
Now comes Trenton Bourguet, who had a day he’ll never forget last week, and it had nothing to do with his new Corvette.
“Trenton’s not the tallest, fastest or doesn’t have the strongest arm but he has traits of a great quarterback because he knows how to anticipate, he knows how to rally around his guys and his guys rally around him,” interim ASU head coach Shawn Aguano said after the rally to beat Washington.
“He’s a guy that’s engaged, proactive, always showing the initiative to get better.”
As far as my research has determined, Power 5 quarterbacks from Tucson schools have started just 56 games in history, with Krohn and MacPherson dominating that list with a combined 53 starts. Now the question is if ASU believes in Trenton Bourguet enough to grow that number to 57 next week at Stanford.
