A promise offered to his late mother has driven Quinton Flowers to become one of the best players in college football. Could he become The American’s first Heisman Trophy winner?
 
by Dick Weiss
 
The American Athletic Conference has taken rapid steps in the last five years to establish itself as a competitive rival with the nation’s power conferences. One of the few things missing from its resume, so far, is a Heisman Trophy finalist.
 
It should have happened two years ago when Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds was having a record setting season for an 11-2 team that was ranked in the top 25. Reynolds scored 24 touchdowns rushing.
 
Navy had arrangements made for Reynolds to be flown to New York City by helicopter after the Army-Navy game if he was selected for the Heisman Trophy presentation.
 
But it never happened. Reynolds finished fifth in the voting that season, but only three players were invited to attend the ceremony.
 
Fast forward to this season where The American has some other potential Heisman candidates.
 
Houston defensive tackle Ed Oliver has been tabbed as the best defensive player in college football by Sports Illustrated, and SMU wideout Courtland Sutton has been rated as one of the game’s top offensive players.
 
But the Heisman has largely been an award for quarterbacks. Six of the last seven winners - and nine of the last 11 - have been quarterbacks, including last year’s winner, Lamar Jackson of Louisville. The only non-QBs to win since 2006 were Alabama running backs Mark Ingram (in 2009) and Derrick Henry (in 2015).
 
So most of the potential Heisman attention in The American has gone to USF senior quarterback Quinton Flowers. Flowers, who is from Miami, is coming off a blockbuster junior season in which he set a school record with 4,342 yards of total offense for an 11-2 team on his way to American Offensive Player of the Year honors.
 
Flowers ranked third in the conference in rushing yardage with 117.7 yard per game (7.7 yards per carry) and was the conference leader in pass efficiency (153.6). He finished the season as the only player in the conference to both throw for 2,000 yards and rush for 1,000, setting school records for rushing yards (1,530) and total touchdowns (42) on a team that averaged 511.5 yards total offense and 43.8 points.
 
Flowers will get a chance to take the next step under Charlie Strong, the former Texas coach who is beloved in the Sunshine State, where he once was the defensive coordinator at Florida and built up valuable high school coaching contacts throughout the state.
 
Strong has some experience with a Heisman candidate. When he was the head coach at Louisville, he coached Teddy Bridgewater, a 6-2, 215-pound high school All American from Miami Northwestern who was a huge star on the 2012 and 2013 Cardinals teams that went 23-3 in the old Big East and the first year of The American.
 
As a sophomore, Bridgewater passed for 266 yards and a pair of touchdowns against SEC power Florida in the Allstate Sugar Bowl to become the game’s MVP in a 33-23 Cardinal victory. The next year, he completed 303 of 427 passes for 3,970 yards and 31 touchdowns and four interceptions. In his final college game against Miami in the Russell Athletic Bowl, Bridgewater completed 35 of 42 passes for 447 yards and three touchdowns and was named the game’s MVP in a win over the Hurricanes.
 
Bridgewater was the real deal, a first-round NFL draft pick. Strong liked the 6-0, 210-pound Flowers as an athlete and tried to recruit him to Louisville as a defensive back when he was a senior at Miami Jackson. Miami wanted Flowers as a running back, as did Alabama and Tennessee. But Flowers wanted to be a quarterback in college and now is drawing some comparisons to gifted players like Bridgewater for his offensive productivity.
 
“They’re two different people and Teddy is very talented like Quinton is,” Strong said. “But it’s not so much a skill set, but a mindset. Our defense at Louisville knew when Teddy was on the field, we had a chance to score. Our defense at USF knows when Quinton is on the field, we have a chance to score. As for their leadership qualities, they never say very much.  They just let their play speak for itself.”
 
Flowers’ success at USF has been a special journey from what had been a difficult childhood.
 
When Flowers was seven years old, he was sitting on his father’s lap on the front porch of their apartment in Liberty City, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Quinton got up to go to inside. When he returned, he heard a gunshot; his father was killed by a bullet meant for someone else.
 
More tragedy followed. Shortly before his senior year in high school, his mother Nancy, who raised him, died of cancer. “It was really emotional,” Flowers said. “Growing up without your parents is really tough. There’s time when you want to go talk to your mom, talk to your dad. And I can’t do that.”
 
Quinton could have quit then, but he kept going, motivated by his high school coach, Antonio Brown, a former NFL player with the Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins, who had faced the same kind of tragedy in Liberty City and saw football as a way out of the daily violence Flowers faced. Flowers put together impressive high school numbers –  6,042 passing yards and 2,022 rushing yards.
 
Former USF coach Willie Taggart was one of the few coached who believed in Flowers as a quarterback because he knew Flowers could perform magic with the ball in his hands - to the point where Taggart changed his philosophy mid-season, switching to a spread offense to accommodate Flowers’ special talents.
 
Flowers, meanwhile, has had to tweak his mind to adjust to a slightly different offense under Strong that is designed to bring out the best in his passing.
 
“(Strong) said he was watching some of my old film and he doesn’t want to stop me from doing what I have been doing and being successful,” said Flowers. “And there will be days when you have a new coaching staff. They’re running a new system so I need to get used to that as well.”
 
Flowers has been so much fun to watch. But he has never forgotten his family.
 
“They were part of my life,” Flowers said. “Before I go out on the field, I take a knee and pray. Then, I take a lap around the field. Then I go inside and call my brother, call my sister, tell them I love them. Before the game, I look up, then I cross my chest three times so my parents know I’m there.”
 
Before his mother died, Flowers promised her he would graduate from whatever college he attended. He will walk down the aisle this spring.
 
“I think it will really be emotional,” Flowers said. “I told her I would do it,” he said. “She won’t be there physically, but I think she’ll know.”
 
Flowers was listed as one of the top five quarterbacks in the country at the end of last season. This year, the Heisman focus is largely on quarterbacks Sam Darnold of USC, 2016 winner Lamar Jackson of Louisville, Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma, JT Barrett of Ohio State, Deondre Francois of Florida State and running back Saquon Barkley of Penn State, with Flowers cast as a dark horse candidate.
 
But Flowers has the talent to force himself into the conversation if USF, the preseason favorite in The American, has a magical season and Flowers has a late season-defining moment.
 
“I would say it’s possible,” Flowers said. “You just have to stay focused and make every day count. It’s funny. Last year, the College Football Playoff was in Tampa and a lot of the guys were thinking, ‘What if this was us playing tonight in our home stadium. It would be great.”
 
Everyone is entitled to their dream. It’s what makes college football so great for a player like Flowers.