Carter Stanley threw for more than 3,000 yards and 40 touchdowns as a senior at Vero Beach (Florida) High.

True, they are called highlight videos for a reason. Bad plays don’t make the cut. The videos are intended to spark the interest of college coaches holding precious scholarships. Still, I challenge anyone to watch the highlight video of 2014 Vero Beach (Florida) High quarterback Carter Stanley and find a potential weakness.

Start with a checklist of every quality you want to see from a quarterback, and see if every box isn’t checked halfway through the video, easily found on YouTube.

Strong enough arm to make all the throws. Quick decisions. Quick release. Pocket presence. Ample speed and elusiveness to make defenses respect his running ability. Accurate arm. The head-up, shoulders-back body language of a leader.

“It’s funny you say that,” Vero Beach High head football coach Lenny Jankowski said by phone Tuesday of every box being checked. “In Florida, with us having spring football, this is the time we get a ton of traffic through here with college coaches. Well, Carter’s a unique case because he was only a one-year starter, so I’m sitting here in December of last year, this kid is the best player who has ever played for me, and he doesn’t have a lot happening. I’m thinking, ‘This is going to be one of the biggest travesties in the history of the sport.’ Now fast-forward to May.”

There was no film of Stanley to show last May. Yet, even though it’s too late to do anything about it because Stanley signed with Kansas, Jankowski said multiple coaches have asked to see his one-year wonder’s highlight tape.

“And they all have the same reaction,” Jankowski said. “It’s, ‘Golly, is he something else! Why didn’t we go on him?’ And they say, not in the same words as all the boxes checked, but they say that he has everything you want. That’s been told to me 10 times this spring. Now that they’ve been through spring ball, and guys that they thought would be the guy haven’t panned out, and there they are, saying, ‘Holy smokes! This kid is going to be something!’ He’s a great story and a completely unselfish kid who works his butt off.”

Jankowski said that Stanley arrived at Vero Beach as a “great athlete” but so small he could “walk under my desk.” He didn’t start at quarterback as a freshman, grew six inches in the offseason and tore it up as a sophomore playing JV while Dalton Stokes, a QB a year ahead of Stanley, had a big season for the varsity, and turned it into an extra year as a starter while Stanley waited his turn. Stokes is projected to start for Valparaiso University as a red-shirt freshman in the fall.

Stanley, listed at 6-foot-2 and 188 pounds, threw for more than 3,000 yards and 40 touchdowns, rushed for eight touchdowns, led the team in rushing yards and threw just seven interceptions. He led his team to an undefeated regular season.

After signing, Stanley said he wanted to compete for a starting job right away. Nothing that has happened since has hurt his chances of landing the job. His stiffest competition could come from fellow freshman Ryan Willis of Bishop Miege, given that Michael Cummings’ serious knee injury makes him a longshot and considering that Montell Cozart appears to have a higher ceiling at wide receiver than at quarterback.

Coast-to-coast link

Stanley’s knowledge of the offense that coordinator Rob Likens will run makes him the favorite to land the job, and it’s not a vague link.

Jankowski, then coaching at Walton High in the Texas panhandle, went to a clinic put on by current California offensive coordinator Tony Franklin in 2006. Franklin gave a clinic in Destin, Florida, and Jankowski and a couple of his assistants at the time drove to and from the clinic daily.

“We sat in big conference rooms for 15 hours a day, three straight days, watching film and taking notes,” Jankowski said. “Coaches, we all have egos and take pride in what we do, so we go to clinics as part of our professional development. I was a head coach at the age of 26, undeservedly so, so I had to use all the resources I had to get better.”

He told himself if he could take home even just one thing from the clinc to make himself and his team better, it would be time well spent.

Franklin saw it a different way, Jankowski remembered: “Tony says, ‘If you guys aren’t willing to use my terminology, call formations the way I call them, do everything the way I’m doing it, you’re wasting your time, and I’ll give you your money back.’ I thought, ‘This guy’s got to be kidding me.’ I thought I was a good coach, and this guy is telling me to throw it all in the trash and start over? It took me a whole day to digest that.”

Once that worked its way through the young high school coach’s system, he saw the wisdom of Franklin’s words and shared that with his two assistants, who also were initially skeptical.

“I told them the timing was perfect,” said Jankowski, 43. “We’re at a new school and have to implement a new offense anyway. Why would I have too much pride, too much ego and not do it? We’re getting to see college drills, a proven system, why would I try to reinvent the wheel? Attending that clinic was the best thing I’ve ever done in coaching.”

So he copied everything Franklin showed him, has been going to Franklin clinics on an annual basis and even was granted complete access during the spring of 2014 to some Cal practices and offensive meetings.

Likens, who worked at Cal under Franklin as wide-receivers coach, was in those meetings.

“I remember seeing him running around coaching the receivers, and now he’ll be coaching the best player I’ve ever had,” Jankowski said.

A simple offense

When Jankowski took over at Walton, he inherited players who had played in a split-back veer offense that “averaged about three or four passes a game.” Until he took over at Vero Beach in 2011, the school had run the Wing-T, “for about 100 consecutive years.”

He said he doesn’t call the offense the “Air Raid” and doesn’t have any name for it.

“The funny thing is, the kids love playing in it, the coaches love coaching it, and the fans love watching it,” he said.

Jankowski said his team follows the same three-day installation, repeated over and over in Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 order.

“I couldn’t think of an easier way to present an offense or run an offense,” Jankowski said.

Stanley’s efficiency running it in high school ought to give him a headstart.

“Definitely, it’s an advantage,” Jankowsi said. “But Carter will be playing at a very high level in college. Say what you want, but when you’re a true freshman, there are going to be some growing pains. Carter’s a very cerebral kid. His understanding of offensive football is pretty good, and his understanding of what defenses do to counter what offenses are doing is good, too. Once he gets up there and gets in the college practices, the game will slow down at a faster rate than a guy who hasn’t been in that offense.”

Kansas football fans understandably have no interest in falling for another sell job on a lionized quarterback who when handed the team to run gets replaced in midseason. David Beaty and his staff are careful not to put publicity before performance. At the same time, it’s obvious they are excited to have Stanley in the program.

If Stanley doesn’t show well enough in a short period of time in the summer to earn the job, he has proven that if he has to wait, he’ll figure out how to get better while someone else is taking the snaps. Either way, landing the late-bloomer experienced at running Likens’ offense counts as an exciting development for a program staring at a long, challenging road to recovery.