Learning quickly

10-08-2005

By Tom Shanahan, San Diego Hall of Champions

Welcome back to the starting lineup, Alex.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith probably thought the first four weeks of the season were an eternity while he served in a backup role. But he's moving into the starting lineup quicker than Carson Palmer, the Cincinnati Bengals' Heisman Torphy-winning quarterback the team nurtured on the bench his rookie season in 2003 as a backup.

With the poor play of San Francisco's offense and quarterback Tim Rattay, the 49ers no longer enjoyed that luxury. So Smith is making his first start on Oct. 9 at home against the Indianapolis Colts.

It's always a risk for a weak NFL team such as the 49ers to expose their rookie quarterback to too much too soon, but Smith is one who learns quickly on and off the field.

During the preseason, when he played a homecoming game at Qualcomm Stadium against the Chargers, Chargers quarterback Drew Brees and head coach Marty Schottenheimer offered some advice for Smith in his rookie season.

“Stay confident,” said Brees, a second-round draft pick out of Purdue in 2001 who sat behind Doug Flutie his first pro season. “Expect some bumpy roads up ahead. Expect some adversity up ahead and know that at some point things are going to clear up and that window is going to get bigger and bigger.”

Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer, in his 22nd season as an NFL head coach and fourth with the Chargers, says it’s not so much the size of the players in the NFL as it is the speed that accounts for the learning curve jump quarterbacks must hurdle.

“In college, you’re throwing to guys who are wide open,” Schottenheimer said. “There aren’t too many people wide open in our league.”

Smith is playing for a team coming off a 2-14 season with a thin offensive line, meaning he will have to learn on the run. But that comes with the territory for the first pick of the draft.

“You just have to endure it,” Brees said. “That which does not kill you can only make you stronger is the attitude you’ve got to have. You are going to have some rough times. That’s the way it is, especially at the quarterback position. A lot of top picks go to a team that is coming off a down year, and you’ve got to fight your way back. You’ve got to go through that as a team.”

Smith’s three seasons at Utah included fighting back from adversity.

As a true freshman in 2002, Smith made his college debut against San Diego State when former Utah coach Ron McBride inserted him into a lost cause, a game won by the Aztecs 29-10. He entered the game with 4:13 to play under a heavy pass rush. He was sacked twice and intercepted once. He saw only six plays during the season as the brief appearance against SDSU burned his freshman year.

The experience might have shattered the confidence of a less mature athlete, but Smith bounced back in 2003 under a new coach, Urban Meyer. Smith led the Utes to back-to-back Mountain West Conference titles as a sophomore and junior.

Last season, as a junior, he led the Utah to a 12-0 record that included a 51-28 rout of San Diego State at Qualcomm. In a turnaround from his 2002 appearance, Smith toyed with a strong Aztecs defense. He completed 22-of-38 passes for 298 yards and five touchdowns.

Smith declared for the NFL Draft after leading Utah to unprecedented national rankings of No. 4 from the Associated Press and No. 6 in the Bowl Championship Series. It was the highest ranking for a non-BCS conference school and Utah’s 35-7 win over Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl was the first time a non-BCS school earned a bid to a BCS bowl.

Smith finished fourth in the Heisman voting and was named the Sports Illustrated National Player of the Year. He completed 66.3 percent of his passes (389-of-587) as a sophomore and junior for 5,208 yards with an amazing touchdown-to-interception ratio of 47 to 7.

He also was remarkably accurate in high school, although he was lightly recruited out of Helix. The Highlanders won the CIF San Diego Section Division II titles in 2000 and 2001 when he teamed up with another future Heisman Trophy finalist, USC junior running back Reggie Bush.

The Highlanders beat San Pasqual 24-14 in 2000 and defeated Oceanside 41-30 in 2001 as part of the CIF quadruple-headers at Qualcomm sponsored by the Chargers. In two championship seasons at Helix, Smith led the Highlanders to a 25-1 record while throwing for 1,704 yards with 30 touchdowns and only four interceptions.

But there’s a lot to learn for a rookie facing the speed of the NFL, so familiar surroundings on at least one of Smith’s 10 road games has to help. He’s coming home to a place where he has plenty of support.

His father, Doug Smith, is Helix’s principal, but he was once a successful high school coach whose teams won league titles in Idaho and Washington. Coaching and football smarts run in the family since Alex’s uncle is Michigan State coach John L. Smith.

Helix is one of those schools with stable coaching staffs that keeps alive tradition and a place to come home for its alumni. Smith and Bush, the first Heisman Trophy finalists from the same high school in the same year, were honored last June when Helix opened its new Hall of Fame.

Helix football coach Donnie Van Hook was a long-time assistant before taking over the program two years ago. Retired head coach and athletic director Jim Arnaiz is still a presence around campus and football games.

And Smith, a 6-foot-4, 212-pounder, needs to look no further than the opposite sideline to be assured an NFL rookie can overcome a difficult first season.

Brees weathered his own hard times in San Diego before emerging as a Pro Bowl quarterback last year, his fourth season in the league and first as a full-time starter, when he led the Chargers to the AFC West title and 12-4 record. Brees threw 27 touchdowns passes with seven interceptions only a year after he threw only 11 touchdowns with 15 interceptions.

Brees and Smith share the same agent, Tom Condon, and Brees says he likes what he’s seen and heard of Smith so far.

"I watched him a little in college, and I was very impressed for him to be as athletic as he is for as big as he is,” Brees said. “He throws a nice ball and Utah did a lot of stuff, so he has to be pretty intelligent kid. He seems like a down-to-Earth-guy who carries himself well. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders.”

Schottenheimer said rookie-season patience is necessary for even the most advanced quarterbacks coming out of college. When Schotthenheimer was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns (1984-88), Bernie Kosar was his quarterback. Kosar, like Smith, had on-field and classroom smarts as athletes who earned their college degree before they finished their collegiate playing career.

“I had one of the best young players at that position in Kosar,” Schottenheimer said. “He was a brilliant kid who knew football, and it even took him awhile.”

Patience, Alex. Patience.