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Eckert, Romo emerge as top quarterbacks

09:00 PM CST on Tuesday, March 29, 2005


By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News



Eckert, Romo emerge as top quarterbacks
UNIVERSITY PARK – Quarterbacks Tony Eckert and Jerad Romo have emerged as the top quarterbacks during spring practice, SMU coaches say. Chris Phillips, who started the first three games last season before a rotator cuff injury, is third on the depth chart.

Briefly ...
Freshman basketball player Paulius Ritter is practicing with the football team at tight end. ... Lynsie Jones, a junior from Plano, was named the WAC's women's tennis player of the week. The men's golf team won the Pinehurst Intercollegiate behind medalist Colt Knost, who shot a final-round 69.

Wow! I strained my eyes reading that long winded story! What a joke. People want to blame Calvin for the lack of coverage, but from what I hear, he is just a step up from sweeping the floors around there.

Watkins covers boxing and SMU. It ain't the Cowboys, but it is a gig. Watkins ain't the problem.

Some people really overstate SMU's position on the old totem poll that is metroplex sports interest. Fact is that with the exception of the first win at Ford over Kansas, SMU has lost every opportunity to generate some buzz in this town.

Get a grip.

3rd string? Thats a major blow. Phillips had, at least at one time, a dimension that these other guys just dont have. His size, strength and elusiveness is pretty important behind the lines we've been trotting out there the past few years. Its hard to imagine much of turnaround in the next year or two without Phillips becoming a force. Hope I'm wrong but this sounds like major bad news.

As to the merits, don't they have to consider moving Phillips to a new position at this point? The guy is a tremendous athlete and it will make me sick if I see him sitting on the bench in every game.

Other than the news about Phillips, what do you think about Paulis Ritter working out at TE.

Does this open the door for more sharing between Bball and Fball.

Two sport recruits may think this is interesting.

I been saying all year that Ritter looked more like a tight end or a linebacker than a basketball player. Glad to hear that our coaches can share a player that hopefully can contribute with size (and hopefully more). Has anyone seen him practice?

Another question: Is Ritter on scholarship for B-ball. I thought if a scholarshiped athlete played two sports and one was football, you had to have a football scholarship. As the stories/jokes go, Bear Bryant had a bunch of football players with swimming scholarships.

I found several articles from Souh Carolina websites that say SMU has an official visit from C-PF Theryn Hudson (6-9 or 6-10, 225) of LaVergne, Tenn. on April 8, 2005 so it appears that SMU is still recruiting for 2005. Hudson is a Rivals 3 star who averaged 15 points, 10 rebounds and 5 blocks). Reports are that Ga Tech and Tenn have expressed recent interest-Tenn may be trying to get him to wait until coaching position is filled but Hudson doesn't appear to want to wait. South Carolina is his only reported offer and Hudson's leader. Hudson had a visit to South Carolina a few weeks ago. He is also being recruited and expects to visit schools like MTSU and Austin Peay.

Hoop Fan wrote:3rd string? Thats a major blow. Phillips had, at least at one time, a dimension that these other guys just dont have. His size, strength and elusiveness is pretty important behind the lines we've been trotting out there the past few years. Its hard to imagine much of turnaround in the next year or two without Phillips becoming a force. Hope I'm wrong but this sounds like major bad news.

now i am not saying that Eckert will be a Gino Guidugli, but I think he has more potential to match Guidugli's numbers than Phillips does b/c

1. he has much better pocket presence
2.phillips is a runner not a pocket passer and Burns' Offense is more of a fast break offense with a qb making quick decisions IN THE POCKET

here are Guidugli's numbers for his two years under Burns( take away some picks and I would love to see numbers like this

yr comp att yds pct ave td int sack rating rush yds td
2002 - 258 472 3543 54.7 7.5 22 21 22 124.2 69 27 0.4 3
2001 - 185 317 2573 58.4 8.1 16 9 18 137.5 47 110 2.3 1

sorry the alignment is difficult with this thing

DiamondM wrote:I been saying all year that Ritter looked more like a tight end or a linebacker than a basketball player....

At that size, wouldn't he make (or at least have the potential to make) a monster defensive end? 6'7" and getting those arms up as he comes around the corner?

Can Chris Reay be far behind?

tmustangp wrote:

Hoop Fan wrote:3rd string? Thats a major blow. Phillips had, at least at one time, a dimension that these other guys just dont have. His size, strength and elusiveness is pretty important behind the lines we've been trotting out there the past few years. Its hard to imagine much of turnaround in the next year or two without Phillips becoming a force. Hope I'm wrong but this sounds like major bad news.

now i am not saying that Eckert will be a Gino Guidugli, but I think he has more potential to match Guidugli's numbers than Phillips does b/c

1. he has much better pocket presence
2.phillips is a runner not a pocket passer and Burns' Offense is more of a fast break offense with a qb making quick decisions IN THE POCKET

here are Guidugli's numbers for his two years under Burns( take away some picks and I would love to see numbers like this

yr comp att yds pct ave td int sack rating rush yds td
2002 - 258 472 3543 54.7 7.5 22 21 22 124.2 69 27 0.4 3
2001 - 185 317 2573 58.4 8.1 16 9 18 137.5 47 110 2.3 1

sorry the alignment is difficult with this thing

You're seeing what I saw in the spring game a year ago. Since then, I always thought that Eckert would eventually win the starting job over Phillips in Burns' offense.

Dooby wrote:Another question: Is Ritter on scholarship for B-ball. I thought if a scholarshiped athlete played two sports and one was football, you had to have a football scholarship. As the stories/jokes go, Bear Bryant had a bunch of football players with swimming scholarships.

He can practice with the football team while on basketball scholarship. If he plays in a game, that's when he switches from a basketball scholarship to a football scholarship.

Planostang - about those numbers:

yr comp att yds pct ave td int sack rating rush yds avg td
2002 - 258 472 3543 54.7 7.5 22 21 22 124.2 69 27 0.4 3
2001 - 185 317 2573 58.4 8.1 16 9 18 137.5 47 110 2.3 1

I would hope to see a better rating than 124 but that is the same thing as saying fewer TOs so I guess we agree.

There were 58 QBs last season with a rating over 124 (with a minimum of 15 attempts per game.) That is about the average point.

Because you can only have 12 bball scholarships I'm kind of surprised that is the rule. But, hey, it works for me.