Vernon Adams' Long Road To Oregon

Unless you're an avid follower of high school football in Southern California, chances are you've never heard of Dean Herrington. You are, however, familiar with his work. The bazooka-armed Cal standout and former Ravens first-round draft pick Kyle Boller was a Harrington protégé. So was Matt Moore, who improbably has clawed his way to a career of eight years and counting in the NFL after going undrafted out of Oregon State.

Herrington has been the head coach at Los Angeles powerhouse Bishop Alemany since 2006, but he's a lifer with three decades of coaching to his name. He's seen everything in the high school game and has accomplished almost as much. More than anything else, he knows quarterbacks.

Which is why, four years ago, he was the picture of agitation. He had a signal caller named Vernon Adams whom he knew was as good as Boller and Moore, and who had earned accolades to match. On Monday, Adams became the likely successor to Heisman winner Marcus Mariota at Oregon, after he transferred up a level from Eastern Washington. But the reason he wound up at Eastern Washington in the first place—the reason Herrington was, to put things diplomatically, "really frustrated"—is because Adams is 5-foot-10.

"I tried to tell these Division 1 schools, 'Don't worry about the height. You're in the shotgun, it's not going to be an issue," he says, with what might be described as gleeful indignation lurking in his tone. "[The] Pac-12 teams that told me he's too short"—and, here, he pauses for laughter—"[are] probably going to be kicking themselves that they didn't take a shot at him."

There are two overwhelming reasons Adams is likely to be a success for the Ducks. The first is his resume at the FCS level, which includes twice being named a runner-up for the Walter Payton Award, the rough FCS equivalent of the Heisman. Another is his pair of Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year awards. This is where the inevitable, "Yeah, but can he do it in the Pac-12?" questions arise, which would be warranted had Adams not already answered them in each of the past two seasons. As a sophomore, he carried Eastern Washington past Oregon State in Corvallis; a year later, he damn near did the same thing as a junior in a 59-52 shootout loss to Washington. His combined statline from those games: 54-of-76 passing for 886 yards and 11 touchdowns, plus another 123 yards rushing and two scores on the ground, all with zero total turnovers. Adams didn't merely outplay those defenses: He incinerated them and scattered their ashes to the winds.

But perhaps the best reason this should all work out is the offense Adams will be running, which is itself the star, albeit one that doubles as a star-minting juggernaut. There is no better machine in college sports than Oregon's no-huddle attack, which crafts quality backfields every year out of players with notably divergent skill sets. The results are particularly compelling at quarterback, where, since 2007—the year Chip Kelly arrived in Eugene and installed the majority of the offensive concepts used today—the average season by a Duck quarterback consists of 2,808 yards passing on 64 percent passing, 27 passing touchdowns against 5 interceptions and 612 rushing yards with nine more touchdowns. The system elevates above-average talents like Darron Thomas and Jeremiah Masoli into impact players, and great talents like Mariota into superstars. A skeptic would point out that Mariota single-handedly raised all those averages, but there is a reason why Oregon's seven-year run of double-digit winning seasons stretches back two quarterbacks before him. Adams doesn't have to be a star on Mariota's level, or even especially close, to put the Ducks back in contention for next year's playoff. He just needs to find a way to fit into college football's most fearsome offensive system.

What makes Adams so intriguing is that until now, he has been a star on Mariota's level. There's the aforementioned success at Eastern, but he was just as devastating at Alemany, where he compiled 41 total touchdowns as a senior in one of the most competitive high school leagues in the country.

"No one gave us a chance to win the league, let alone make the playoffs," Herrington said of a season in which the Warriors did both. "He ends up being the MVP of the league."

What happened next was what always happened to smaller quarterbacks at the time: Next to nothing. SMU gave Adams a sniff but ultimately passed, and no one one aside from Eastern and Portland State even offered him at the FCS level. Herrington knew his protégé deserved better, but that he was ultimately doomed by conventional college football thinking. By the time Adams finally signed his scholarship papers, Herrington admits, "I was just excited that he was going to get his college paid for."

In effect, Adams was among the last generation of pre-Russell Wilson quarterback casualties—dynamic players whose height either mandated a position change if they wanted to play high-level college football or forced them compete below their skill level if they insisted on staying under center. Adams' experience stands in stark contrast to this past recruiting cycle, when one of the foremost storylines was a fearsome local tug-of-war between Texas A&M and Texas over Kyler Murray, a 5-foot-11 quarterback from Allen, Texas. Could that have happened to Adams had he come along just four years later, with USC and UCLA substituted for the Texas schools? It's a question without an answer, although it speaks to how much has changed that both the Longhorns and Bruins reportedly vied for his services along with Oregon.

However belatedly, Vernon Adams will finally arrive in major college football this fall. Herrington is already planning to visit Eugene during Alemany's bye week to see him play. It will be a culmination of a far-too-long journey for each of them: the coach who believed and the player who endured. Just as he did four years ago, Harrington seems to have complete faith in his quarterback. But is he totally sure that Adams will prove himself once again, on the biggest stage yet?

"He already has," Herrington says, and then he laughs once more for good measure.