- Thread starter
- #1
RaidaDave
Devourer of Souls
Oregon transfer QB Vernon Adams looking to lead Ducks to glory - College Football - SI.com
Former Oregon State coach Mike Riley, now at Nebraska, watched the film of the Washington game and shook his head. “We all made a mistake,” Riley said in November. “How does a kid like that slip through the cracks? I have to admit, after watching what he did to Washington, I felt a little better: It wasn’t just us.”
Dean Herrington tried to tell every Pac-12 recruiter who came through Bishop Alemany that he had another star in the making, if they would just ignore his size. Herrington had tutored former NFL starters Matt Moore and Kyle Boller, but the coach’s pleas fell on deaf ears. “I was pissed,” Herrington says. “The next few years, when Vernon was at Eastern, all those coaches would come through the school and say, ‘Man, he’s ripping it up.’ I didn’t say anything but in my head I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, I told you he would.’
Alemany lost to prep power Oaks Christian 28-17 in the first game of Adams’s junior season in ’09. Adams studied that film for the next year; in ’10, before the rematch, he brought Herrington a 55-page notebook meticulously detailed with every play his team had run, adding notes about what worked and what didn’t. Days later, behind passing and rushing scores from Adams, Alemany beat Oaks Christian 20-17.
“I’m tired of being close, and I know Oregon is tired of being close,” Adams says. “Maybe we can get over that hump together.”