Dane Evans became a quarterback by default. Now, the Tulsa signal-caller engineers one of the most prolific offenses in college football.
by Dick Weiss for The American
Tulsa has been one of the pioneers in the development of the forward pass.
Now, second-year head coach Philip Montgomery, the innovative former Baylor offensive coordinator, has reinvigorated the high flying aerial circus at this American Athletic Conference program. The tradition-steeped Golden Hurricane averaged 37.2 points last season and ranked 11th in passing (333.2 yards) and 13th in total yardage (507.4), finishing with a 6-7 record after a wild, high-scoring 55-52 loss to Virginia Tech in the Camping World Independence Bowl.
“I won't say Tulsa invented the forward pass, but they certainly made it relevant,” Golden Hurricane quarterback Dane Evans said. “Like Jerry Rhome and Billy Guy Anderson and Gus Frerotte, they could play ball. It didn't matter than they were at Tulsa. That's how we move the ball. Some guys like Navy like to run the ball. We like to take deep shots and throw it. And I think it fits our skill set.”
Rhome was a first team All American in 1964 and runner up to John Huarte of Notre Dame in the Heisman Trophy balloting that season. Anderson started only one season, in 1965, but became Tulsa's most prolific passer as a senior, setting 10 school records and finishing his regular season by throwing consecutive scoring bombs of 60, 63 and 51 yards in the fourth quarter as the Golden Hurricane defeated Colorado State. Frerotte played in the 1993 Blue-Gray game and enjoyed a 15-year career in the NFL.
History is important to Tulsa, the smallest school that plays Football Bowl Subdivision football with an undergraduate enrollment of 3,473 students.
Evans, a 6-1, 210-pound senior who led The American in passing in 2015 and is looking to become the first quarterback in school history to throw for 3,000 yards in three straight seasons, is following in their footsteps. He and acrobatic wide receiver Keevan Lucas, who caught 101 passes for 1,219 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2014 and averaged 102 yards and five touchdowns in the first four games of last season before being sidelined for the season with a knee injury, are ready to explode in a big way.
Evans, who completed 63 percent of his passes for 4,332 yards and 25 touchdowns last year, is originally from Sanger, High School in Texas, Despite the fact that he was a second team Class 3A all-state selection, he had only one Division I offer - from Tulsa - until Signing Day. “Everybody told me I was too short,” he admitted.
Evans signed to play for former coach Bill Blankenship and has gone on to become a perfect fit for the spread offense and a willing student of Montgomery's progressive philosophy, which proved successful when he coached Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III at Baylor and Case Keenum and Kevin Kolb at Houston.
“I know I'm not going to wow anybody with my speed,” Evans said. “Tulsa is where I wanted to be. I had a couple other schools come in who wanted me to play baseball. But a commitment is a big thing to me. And TU was with me for a year-and-a-half. I'm glad I went there. I got my undergraduate degree in sports science and I'm working on a second one in management. I'd eventually like to get into coaching.”
Evans became a quarterback, not because of his physical skills, but almost more by default. “Growing up, I played nose guard my first year-- littlest guy on the team,” he said. “Next year, I played running back and only moved to quarterback because I was the only one who could remember the plays. Then, going into seventh and eighth grade, I was a wide receiver for the Arlington (Texas) Thunder Pop Warner team. When the team needed a quarterback, I got the job because I was the only guy who could remember the plays again and throw it to people. It wasn't like I was a prodigy.”
Evans did have a magical year as a 12-year-old. He led the Thunder to a national championship, played on the USSA World Series baseball team and won the Texas state wrestling title at 92 pounds. “In high school, I never thought about playing college football until the end of my sophomore year,” he recalled. “Then I started to receive letters and decided maybe I could play quarterback at the next level.”
Evans redshirted his freshman year when Tulsa won 11 games and defeated Iowa State in the Liberty Bowl,. Then, the program slipped, winning a combined five games over the next two seasons before the school decided to make a change.
“Football wasn't fun and I had never felt like that before,” he said. “Then, Coach Monty arrived. He changed the game, changed how I looked at the game. It's fun again. I don't want to say it's like playing in the backyard but we're scoring points. It's like playing with your friends in the streets. That's how we look at it We'll do trick plays in practice to spice it up a little bit. It's fun.”
Evans polished his knowledge by attending the Manning Passing Academy this summer and learning from Eli, Archie and Peyton.
“He's got it now,” Montgomery said of Evans. “He's the trigger man. He has to make things happen. We still got a lot of growing to do but I think those guys are playing with a level of confidence they didn't have last year.”
Evans’ chief targets this season should be senior Josh Atkinson, who caught 76 passes for 1,071 yards and five touchdowns; and Lucas, who is back after a 10-month stint in rehab after suffering an ACL injury.
“From Oct. 6 to now, I've been working every day in the training room, three, four hours at a time,” Lucas said, “trying to sacrifice my time to get back out there with these guys. It was kind of upsetting last year being on the sidelines and not being able to play, but I feel like it was a good time for me to grow. it makes you appreciate it more, making you not want to take anything for granted. Go out and have fun every day.”
Lucas has also been perfect for this fast-paced, freelance system that should keep them competitive with high-scoring teams like Houston and USF, who were both picked to finish first in their divisions in the league's preseason media poll. But Evans isn't conceding anything.
“I see us at the top,” he said. “I don't see why not. We've been in the league for three years. We were in every game we played last year, except maybe Navy. We've been looking forward to it all summer.”