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closeMobile Drake may give Nittany Lions a third quarterback option
Jeff Rice
One of the few criticisms of Penn State’s Class of 2009 was that of the 27 players the Nittany Lions added this winter, only one — early enrollee Kevin Newsome — was a quarterback. Pat Devlin’s December transfer left Newsome as the lone scholarship backup heading into starter Daryll Clark’s final season. Or did it?
One of Penn State’s wide receiver recruits played quarterback all through high school. He played it pretty well, too, leading his West Catholic team to the PIAA Class AA title game and earning Class AA state player of the year honors last fall.
Curtis Drake will be under center when the
Pennsylvania squad takes on Ohio at 7 p.m. tonight in the Big 33 Football Classic in Hershey. And it’s looking like the Penn State coaches might want to keep him there when preseason practices begin in August.
“At first they were talking about wide receiver, playing in the slot,” Drake said last week. “Then I had a couple of all-star games and started practicing with the Big 33 team as a quarterback, and I got to see Joe Paterno in person. They started talking about me playing quarterback at Penn State.”
Drake began his sophomore season at West Catholic on the bench — the Burrs already had a two-year starter at quarterback. But when the team started 2-4, head coach Brian Fluck decided to open up the offense and looked to the quick-footed Drake for a spark. The Burrs won the final seven games of the season, and Drake would go on to finish his career 32-3 as a starter. As a senior, he became the first player in Philadelphia City League history to run for 1,000 yards and pass for 1,000 yards in the same season.
“He’s just a kid that brings a lot of excitement to the game, wherever he plays,” Fluck said.
The 6-foot, 170-pound Drake doesn’t look like today’s prototypical college quarterback.
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