Manhattan ? When Glen Mason was Kansas University’s football coach, he groused that quarterbacks received too much of the credit and took too much of the blame.
Maybe, but in 2003, KU football without Bill Whittemore is like Sonny without Cher, Garfunkel without Simon, Siegfried without Roy and Santa without Rudolph.
Whittemore lasted eight mostly thrilling games in which he ran and passed the Jayhawks back into the national consciousness. Now, he is a victim of foreshadowing, struck down by an injury — believed this time to be his collarbone — as he has been every season in which he has worn a college uniform.
As a red-shirt freshman at Tennessee-Martin, Whittemore missed several midseason games because of a knee injury. The next year he was at Fort Scott Community College, where he lasted — are you ready for this cruel coincidence? — eight games until he was shut down because of a shoulder injury.
And you no doubt remember last season, when a knee injury in the ninth game at Missouri ended Whittemore’s junior year.
Because of Whittemore’s brittle history, KU coach Mark Mangino decided before the season he needed to do everything he could to protect his meal ticket.
It didn’t work. In the opener against Northwestern, Mangino tried to make Whittemore a drop-back passer, and Whittemore looked like a fish out of water even though rain fell in buckets that night.
To Mangino’s credit, he realized that wouldn’t work, so he decided to let Bill Whittemore be Bill Whittemore, to roll the dice and take his chances. Mangino must have known sooner or later he would roll craps, but when you have a hot hand you have to keep tossing the bones.
I had a premonition something bad might happen to Whittemore in Manhattan, a hunch based on past history of the Wildcats squashing Kansas quarterbacks (remember Zac Wegner’s concussion). But there was nothing suspicious about Whittemore’s injury. When you run the ball up the middle near the goal line and are buried, as Whittemore was, anything can happen. And it did.
“It looked like one of those freak accidents,” KU offensive tackle Danny Lewis said. “That’s the risk we take when we run our quarterbacks. I had flashbacks to Missouri.”
There probably won’t be flashbacks to Whittemore anymore. He’s gone. It’s time to move on. Four games remain, and the Jayhawks need just one more victory to become bowl-eligible.
Last year, when Whittemore’s season ended, Mangino played out the string using Jonas Weatherbie, Brian Luke and Zach Dyer — three QBs who lacked play-making skills. Now Weatherbie has used up his eligibility, Dyer is a special-teams player, and Luke is so deep in Mangino’s doghouse you can’t hear him bark.
Luke lasted one play. He botched a hand-off to running back Clark Green, causing a fumble, and was immediately yanked in favor of John Nielsen, a walk-on who was a back-up in junior college last year. After the gaffe, Luke’s ears took a severe toasting from Mangino. They may still be red.
If the Jayhawks hadn’t worked so hard and come so far this season, Mangino would be wise to play out the string with utilitarians like Luke and Nielsen and save a year of eligibility for the Jayhawks’ quarterback of the future — 18-year-old Adam Barmann, who hails from Weston, Mo., a small river city noted more for its wineries and ski area than producing major-college quarterbacks.
At 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, Barmann boasts prototypical size and apparently skill.
“He moves well,” KU lineman Lewis said. “The kid’s an athlete.”
After the game, Mangino said we shouldn’t be surprised to see Barmann playing quarterback Saturday at Texas A&M. I’ll be surprised if Mangino doesn’t start Barmann.
The future is still now, not next year. KU’s players know Barmann gives them the best chance to win. It may take one game or two games or even three for Barmann to feel comfortable, but it’s no secret the only way the Jayhawks will annex that sixth win is if a child leads them.
And if Barmann does lead them to victory No. 6, then maybe Whittemore will heal in time for the bowl game. What a storybook season that would make.