Mensa(h) Society: A Scandurro Story

BY TIM SCANDURRO

“The kid's got really good poise and really good anticipation on the throws we're asking him to make. He's growing right in front of our eyes.”—Jon Sumrall

"The boys in front of me were blocking well the whole game and I got dudes around me making plays. I don't have to do much. I just get the ball in my playmakers' hands, and they do the rest."—Darian Mensah

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”  --Matthew 6:34

Quarterback is widely regarded as the most difficult position, and also the most important position, in any team sport.  If you have the right guy playing it, he can lift the performance of everyone around him. He can turn an average team into a good team, and a good team into a great team.  If you have the wrong guy playing it, well, just reverse all of that.

Tulane fans reacted with a mixture of skepticism and panic a few days before the opener when FTW broke the news that Darian Mensah had beaten out both a heralded transfer and an experienced returning player, vaulting from third string quarterback to starter in a few short weeks of fall camp.   In the skeptics’ defense, the young man had never taken a live snap in a college game. 

The position is one of the most difficult to evaluate in the offseason.  You don’t hit quarterbacks in practice.  You can’t simulate the pressure of playing in front of thousands of people and millions more watching on television.  You can’t prepare them for making a throw while standing still, a split second before being hit in the chest by big, fast, violent men running full speed.  You just don’t know until you throw them in the pool and see if they can swim. 

This kid swims.  He sees the field.  He keeps his eyes downfield both inside the pocket and outside of it.  He throws a catchable, feathery, accurate football.  His ball fakes are excellent.  He’s calm when he needs to be, and fiery when he needs to be.  He’s dependably tough in the pocket and willing to take a shot to deliver a ball. 

But he also has an innate sense of how to climb and slide in the pocket.  When he runs, he doesn’t give up on the play and is usually looking to buy time and find open receivers, which he has done often.  He also converted two third and longs with his legs against USF, another step forward in the rapid evolution of his game.

At halftime Saturday, Mensah had led Tulane to 31 points on the strength of 242 yards and two touchdowns on 12 of 14 passing.  One of the two incompletions was dropped, and the other was batted down at the line.  He finished 18 for 22 for 326 yards and three scores in a virtuoso performance marked by high level decision making, poise, recognition, accuracy, leadership and toughness. 

ESPN has a stat called Adjusted Total Quarterback Rating (QBR).  This metric “values the quarterback on all play types on a 0-100 scale adjusted for the strength of opposing defenses faced.” 

In Saturday’s game, Darian Mensah’s rating was an Ivory soap-matching 99.4. That was good for Number One in all of college football this week, ahead of every other celebrated quarterback and Heisman front runner at every ‘big school’ in the nation.

For the year through five games—the only five games he has played in, including two against ranked opponents-- his QBR puts him in the top 20 of all college quarterbacks this season.  In comparison, Michael Pratt in four seasons at the helm finished 86th, 101st, 47th(the Cotton Bowl year), and 49th. 

In fairness to Pratt, Mensah is working with coaches who are putting him in a position to succeed and tailoring the offense to his strengths and those of his weapons.  He’s not a finished product; he’s been better at home than on the road, and there’s much more room to grow.  But halfway through the season and with the competition we’ve played, those numbers are no fluke.  Those numbers and the eyeball test tell you that the kid has “it,” and he’s only going to get better.

I know what some of you are already thinking.  “How are we going to keep him?”  Outside of very, very few schools, any team with a quarterback this good has the exact same dilemma.  We used to worry only about coaches, but would any of you take a lesser coach over a better one “because he won’t leave”?  No, I didn’t think so.  And the same holds true for quarterbacks.  It’s the new era we’re in, and we will all have a say in how it turns out.

But right now let’s all stay in the moment and enjoy what we’re watching, which is the emergence of a national star who we uncovered and our program developed, and whose other scholarship offers were from Idaho State and Lindenwood.  If we get to the point in November or December where we have to start hand-wringing, that’s exactly where we want to be.

It sure as heck beats the alternative.

By Tim Scandurro