In a football program loaded with depth, sophomore quarterback Montell Cozart would be in an understudy role, holding a clipboard, trying to improve at a steady pace.
Kansas doesn’t have that luxury, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the coaching staff is demanding rapid growth from the QB who turned 19 Monday. If Cozart plays well enough to hold the starting position for the rest of his career, he’ll be far better at this time his senior year than he is now.
Where is he now?
“The best thing for me with Montell is I just see him getting better every day,” third-year head coach Charlie Weis said. “From the quarterback position, when you start having highs and lows, that’s what you really get concerned about. He’s growing in confidence every day.”
Weis hasn’t made the mistake he made with Dayne Crist and Jake Heaps in terms of creating ultra-high expectations. He did make one statement Wednesday discussing Cozart that will be criticized because Weis has a 4-20 record. If his record were 20-4, he would be praised as funny, colorful, frank and a “real character,” when asked about the role nervousness played in Cozart’s poor performances at the end of the season.
“I probably made a mistake,” Weis said. “I probably should have gone to the brown pants for the past couple of games, but because we played him, we’re in a different position now than if we hadn’t played him. … I’m so glad we did.”
Weis then referenced two shortcomings that stood out from Cozart’s rookie year.
“He acknowledges the fact that he was nervous and he threw some balls away or he’d run out of bounds,” Weis said. “You won’t see him running out of bounds now unless it’s a wise decision. He’s been making a lot of good decisions for a relatively inexperienced guy. I’d like to think that things are definitely moving in the right direction with the ball in his hands.”
The true test regarding such decisions, obviously, will come against defenses capable of putting the quarterback under duress. Based on what Weis has seen in practice so far, he’s comfortable sending Cozart onto the field in any and all uniform hues.
