Column: Junior QB hearing freshman footsteps

Kansas University quarterbacks from left: Carter Stanley, Montell Cozart and Ryan Willis.

The purpose of head football coach David Beaty’s news conference Monday inside Mrkonic Auditorium was to announce Kansas University’s starting quarterback of the present, Montell Cozart.

Those listening closely could hear the thundering footsteps of the program’s QB of the not-necessarily-distant future.

Clearly, Ryan Willis has done nothing but impress coaches with a strong summer camp. In fact, he’s coming on so strong that Beaty said the quarterback depth chart behind Cozart has not been determined.

Junior-college transfer Deondre Ford had been getting far more snaps than either freshman, Willis or Carter Stanley, but the freshmen both performed well at Saturday’s scrimmage that was open to KU students. For Stanley, that meant improvement from how he looked early in camp. For Willis, it was part of a steady progression from a prospect who had arrived from Bishop Miege with the look of a guy who felt as if he belonged.

“Ideally, you would like to red-shirt one of them if you could,” Beaty said. “I’m not sure that we’re going to have that luxury with either one of them. You just don’t know.”

Asked about Cozart’s accuracy, Beaty said it has been “really good.”

And then, unsolicited, Beaty shifted the conversation.

“The one guy that really stood out to me accuracy-wise was Ryan Willis,” Beaty said. “Ryan Willis, he is a talented guy. He really is. He’s going to continue to push these guys, whether he’s second, third, whatever. He’s going to continue to push. He can put it where he wants to put it, whether he’s on the move or sitting still.”

At 6-foot-4, 205 pounds, Willis has plenty of size. His mother won the Big Eight triple jump for Iowa State. His father was a kicker at Kansas State. One sister played basketball at Oklahoma, the other at Saint Louis University. He’s not lacking for athletic genes.

Beaty singling out his accuracy resonates because it’s always the former Bishop Miege quarterback’s arm strength that usually generates the loudest buzz.

“The thing about Ryan you can see if you just watch him throw it a couple of times is, man, he’s got a rocket arm,” offensive coordinator Rob Likens said. “I mean, he has got a rocket arm. His deal (area needs work) is not his arm or his arm strength. His is, as a young quarterback, you’ve got to make sure he’s looking in the right places and making the right reads. And is his mind right? That’s the big thing. We’re trying to develop that now.”

Willis’ mental game-readiness is at the beginning of a different sort of test. Summer camp ended Sunday. Kansas started its two-week preparation for the season-opener vs. South Dakota State.

“I like this guy,” Beaty said of Willis. “I like him a lot. He’ll continue to improve. We’re excited to move forward with Ryan preparing for a game to see if, when we pare the menu down, see how much more progress we can make.”

Going through installation of an offense, even one simple enough to have a three-day installation repeated over and over, can be overwhelming because of the wrinkles added to it as it goes along. Beaty effectively used an analogy to demonstrate how the evaluation of a quarterback during game preparation can be even more revealing because of its simplicity.

“Even though it’s the same stuff, we’re throwing a little tweak in, and that can be a little bit hard on a quarterback,” Beaty said of the offense-installation cycle. “Now we’re going to go shopping for what fits what they do, and we’re going to put it in the cart, and there’s our game plan. And now he gets to focus on those nine or 10 plays that we really like that week. I’m excited to see what he can do. He’s a talented guy. He’s got great accuracy.”

While the coach emphasized Cozart is the starter and a job share is not the way to go, he paid Willis a big compliment.

“I would say accuracy-wise he may have had a little bit better camp than even Montell in that regard, but overall, Montell was clearly ahead of the rest of the pack,” Beaty said.

Stanley, from Vero Beach High in Florida, ran the same offense as Kansas, which heading into camp gave him one advantage.

But he threw the ball with an odd-looking delivery, almost a windup, even on short throws, one that looked so different from his impressive high school video. Freshmen are off-limits for media interviews, so I asked Beaty about the seemingly different delivery that has resulted in a too-slow release.

“I met with Carter last night, and we talked a little bit about that,” Beaty said. “It’s actually kind of new. It wasn’t really on his video if you go look at it. His video didn’t have that. And he talked about that with me last night. He said, ‘You know, coach, I’m not sure where the hitch came from, but I’ve got to get that ironed out.’ He understands it, and he’s working on it.”

Stanley sounds as is if he could be headed for a red-shirt season.

“We will have a lot of time now to focus more on fundamentals with him that will help us get the motion back to where we need it to be, which is compact and efficient so we can get the ball out quick and he knows that, which is good.”

If Stanley were listed on the stock market, he would have been one of the few in the green over the past week.

“We had a good talk about that yesterday,” Likens said of the hitch. “Somehow, through the summer he developed a little something in his delivery … a little delivery hitch that he has that we’re working on now.

“I was very surprised and very excited about what I’ve seen out of him this last week. He’s improved immensely.”

Even so, the battle for backup quarterback, the result of which might not be revealed until a week from today, likely appears to be between Ford and the QB who looks to have the highest ceiling on the roster, Willis.