HP's QB...Could He Have Been a Mustang?

[MrMustang1965]

By GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News


So, let's debunk the rumors and wishful thinking right at the top.

Matthew Stafford, the nation's top quarterback recruit, will graduate next month from Highland Park and said he will enroll at the University of Georgia in early January so he can begin working out with the Bulldogs' football team.

Some University of Texas fans hoped – prayed – he would change his mind. They weren't alone. Some cheerleaders from Lincoln even tried to talk him into switching to Grambling after a non-district game earlier this season.


But Stafford has never wavered from the oral commitment he made in May. Georgia is the right place for him, he said during a recent interview at his home. He wore a Georgia sweatshirt.

Before moving to Athens, Ga., though, there is a little unfinished business here. Highland Park meets Ennis on Friday afternoon at Texas Stadium in the Class 4A Division I Region II final. A win means the Scots would be just two victories away from their first football state championship in nearly 50 years.

That quest is one of the reasons Stafford, who turns 18 in February, committed to Georgia early. And one of the reasons he gave up a promising baseball career to focus strictly on football.

He started at shortstop and said his fastball was once clocked at 88-89 mph when he closed some games for Highland Park his sophomore year.

"I wanted it to be total concentration this year on our football team," he said.

One of the guys
Stafford, who has passed for a school-record 8,000 yards in three seasons, is a marvel on the football field. Coaches and scouts rave about his strong arm, quick release, marksman accuracy, field awareness and size (6-3, 225 pounds).

They also praise his competitiveness and calmness when a game is on the line. He showed it his sophomore season when he completed 7 of 10 passes during a game-winning 80-yard drive in the final three minutes of the regional final against Kilgore.

"I just like having the ball in my hands at the end of a game," Stafford said. "I try not to let the situation dictate how I play."

Off the field, despite his high profile in the recruiting wars, Stafford's friends said he is just one of the guys and has a great sense of fun. He likes to rap along with Tupac and even break dance, his friends say.

He hangs out and plays video games with the same group of friends – many he has known since elementary school – several times a week. Madden football is a staple.

"He respects everybody and everybody respects him," said Drew Newman, a senior and a captain on the wrestling team.

"He's not cocky at all," said Pan Lucas, a senior wide receiver. "Matthew is always talking about the team and how we can get better."

Jason Corcoran, another friend since elementary school, said Stafford relates to and can talk to anyone, anywhere. "He's a humble guy," said Corcoran, a Highland Park senior and a musician. "It amazes me."

Steve Kirwan coached Stafford and some of his friends in basketball from fourth through eighth grades.

"I know Matthew receives a lot of glory, but I don't think he gets wrapped up in it," said Kirwan, a teaching intern and assistant girls basketball coach at Highland Park. "He wants to take care of his friends. It's just a great, close-knit group of kids."

Maturation process
Highland Park football coach Randy Allen said he first became aware of Stafford when Stafford was a sixth grader. He talked to Stafford after his eight-grade season because he saw potential for him to start as a sophomore.

"It's bad coaching not to have a good quarterback," Allen said.

This season, Allen said Stafford has matured by learning patience and learning to take what the defense gives rather than forcing the ball. His completion percentage (64.3 percent) is way up and number of interceptions (three) way down from a disappointing junior year when he passed for less than 2,000 yards and Highland Park lost in the first round of the playoffs.

"I think he tried it his way as a junior," Allen said.

A major factor in Stafford's maturation, Allen said, was attending the EA Sports Elite 11 quarterback camp in California last summer, where Stafford could measure himself against the best in the country.

Stafford agrees. He called the experience "awesome" and said he learned a lot about how to attack different coverage schemes. Mainly, though, he liked meeting the other high school quarterbacks and the college players who were counselors. He said he would like to return to the camp someday as a counselor.

His difficult junior year taught him a lot, Stafford said, especially not to get frustrated if he starts slowly in a game. His model as a quarterback is NFL Hall of Famer John Elway. Stafford wears No. 7, Elway's number.

"He was a tough guy with a big arm who could move a little when he needed to," Stafford said. "Captain Comeback."

Big dreams
Stafford said that like many kids he has dreamed about being a big-time player since he started football in grade school. After his first varsity game as a sophomore, he said SMU offered him a scholarship. "That's the first time I realized it could happen," he said.

His father went to graduate school at Georgia and his older sister, Page, is a student there. A former girlfriend also attends Georgia. When they broke up, some speculated that Stafford would change his commitment.

Stafford thinks all that interest in his personal life is humorous, and misplaced. His attraction to Georgia has always been his comfort level with head coach Mark Richt, Stafford said, from the offense Richt runs to the coach's focus on his own family. On a trip to Georgia last spring, Stafford said Richt invited him to his house for lunch. Stafford met Richt's wife and children and played pingpong with the kids.

"It was a great gesture," Stafford said. "And, yes, I paid for lunch." Stafford said he regularly calls and contacts other Georgia recruits to convince them to join him there.

Stafford, who said he has a 3.4 grade-point average and scored about 1240 on the SAT, attended summer school and is taking an on-line computer course so he can graduate early. His favorite classes this term are business law and English. His favorite TV programs involve law and order – anything CSI, he said – and he likes Shakespeare's Hamlet.

"I'm a decent student, but I could apply myself a little more," Stafford said. His mother, Margaret, standing nearby, nodded in agreement.

Two weekends ago, after Highland Park's first-round playoff victory, Stafford visited the Georgia campus. He got home from the playoff game in Tyler about 2 a.m. Saturday. Three hours later, he was up to catch a plane and didn't get to bed again until 2 a.m. Sunday. Then it was back to Dallas in time for 7:30 a.m. game-film review on Monday.

Even after he enrolls at Georgia, he plans to return to Dallas to participate in Highland Park's spring graduation ceremonies and to go to Mexico with his friends over spring break.

"It is crazy," Margaret Stafford said of her son's schedule.

John Stafford, Matthew's father, said he hopes when his son leaves Highland Park, that he will be remembered as a great kid who was a football player, and not just as a great football player.

"I really believe that's what they will say about him," John Stafford said.

[Corso]

No, he was always headed to a high-profile national program. And with his sister and girlfriend at Gawja, that was the only "Dawg" in the race. (Sorry -- couldn't help myself.)

[me@smu]

Perhaps if he had stumbled this year like last year, then we might have stolen him.

Considering his spectacular season...there was no way he was not going to a major program.

We just aren't even a thought on these major recruits right now

[Stallion]

under that analysis-just about every player in the Texas Top 100 "could have been a Mustang" THEY ALL RECRUIT THE SAME PLAYERS UNTIL THEY ARE TOLD TO GO AWAY. Then they drop down until someone says yes. You people that think Phil's got a secret list he works from are hilarious. The only secret list is the list of sleepers they have to resort to when they get turned down by the guys they really wanted.