Stanford has big problem: Cougars’ Minshew
College football’s leading passer stands about 6-foot-2. That’s tall for the general population, but not for Division I quarterbacks.
That — and some suspicions about his arm strength — helps explain why Gardner Minshew II wasn’t highly recruited coming out of Mississippi’s Brandon High School.
After taking a long and circuitous route to Washington State, he’ll lead the No. 14 Cougars against No. 24 Stanford on Saturday in the Cardinal’s reunion homecoming game.
He’s a couple of inches shorter than head coach Mike Leach’s previous record-breaking WSU quarterbacks — Connor Halliday and Luke Falk — but “Mississippi Mustache” (as WSU offensive quality-control coach Drew Hollingshead dubbed him) has become a force.
In high school, he not only threw for 11,222 yards and 105 touchdowns in the state’s top classification, but was also a 4.0 student.
After going to Alabama’s Troy University for six months, he realized he wasn’t going to beat out the incumbent quarterback. So he left and led Northwest Mississippi Community College to the 2015 National Junior College Athletic Association title.
He transferred to East Carolina, where he split the starting job with Duke transfer Thomas Sirk, and got his degree in December. With a year of eligibility remaining, he committed in March to Alabama. The Crimson Tide have Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts at quarterback, but Minshew wants to be a coach and hoped to learn the ropes under Nick Saban.
Then he got a call from Leach, who said, “Hey, you want to come lead the country in passing?”
Minshew said, “That sounds pretty cool.” So he said no to Alabama and yes to Leach’s Air Raid offense.
Minshew didn’t arrive in Pullman until May, so he missed all of spring practice and had to learn the playbook. He was behind two other quarterbacks when he began, but quickly established himself. Now, he leads the nation with 392.1 passing yards per game, and has thrown 23 touchdown passes (fifth best in the nation) and only six interceptions.
“This kid’s got active feet,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said. “He’s very quick, and he gets out of trouble. He’s a perfect fit for what Coach Leach does. Quick decision-maker. Great vision. Throws the ball accurately. That’s what Coach Leach wants, and that’s what he’s got.”
A tragedy played a role in Minshew’s ascendance. Tyler Hilinski, last year’s backup, was expected to start at quarterback for the Cougars this season, but he took his life at his Pullman apartment in January. His parents disclosed that he had the degenerative brain condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy at the time of his death.
Had Hilinski still been alive, Leach probably wouldn’t have called Minshew.
In Saturday’s 34-20 win over Oregon, Minshew completed 39 of 51 passes for 323 yards and four touchdowns, one of them a perfect fade pass to Easop Winston, a Serra High and City College of San Francisco alum. Another was an even better 22-yard pass to Dezmon Patmon on a post route for the clinching score with 3:40 left.
Minshew, 22, told reporters, “After the game, I was thinking, ‘I made the right choice coming here, man. I love it here.’ ”
This week, Leach described what appealed to him about Minshew.
“Off the top, I liked the way the ball came off his hand quick,” he said. “Off the top, I liked the way he was competitive and accurate. He didn’t take many tackles for loss (at East Carolina). He wasn’t a full-time starter, either . ... He picked up the (Air Raid) package real fast. He’s real smart and elevated the play of the people around him.”
Leach said he hasn’t “dealt with anybody more motivated,” and Minshew is “one of the smartest I’ve had.”
He has passed for at least 300 yards in each of his seven games as WSU’s starter and has surpassed the 400-yard mark four times.
Minshew was familiar with some aspects of the Air Raid long before arriving. Wyatt Rogers was coaching in Louisville, Miss., when Minshew was in sixth grade and told the Spokesman (Wash.) Review that Minshew and his father, Flint, regularly would drive 90 miles to Louisville to learn the Air Raid system from Rogers.
Rogers later would bring the offense to Brandon High School as offensive coordinator. Minshew thrived in it, and he’s doing it again at WSU.