A School of Hard Knocks : Beaver Freshman Quarterback Gonzales Faces UCLA Next

Little did Rich Gonzales know when he signed on with Oregon State last spring that he would end up as the starting quarterback by the time the Beavers came back to his old stomping grounds to play.

Gonzales, who last year helped Diamond Bar set a California state scoring record and led the Brahmas to a 14-0 season, will be directing the Oregon State offense against UCLA Saturday afternoon at the Rose Bowl.

That’s quite a success story, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

When the new coach, Dave Kragthorpe, came to Oregon State after last season, he brought with him plans to install an offense much like the one he had coached when he was on the Brigham Young staff--lots of passing, a little more passing, and a big emphasis on the quarterback.

Kragthorpe was asked if his offense was really that similar to BYU’s. He said, “What we have is a poor facsimile of BYU because we don’t have the experienced quarterback. BYU has never had a quarterback who hadn’t been in the system for two or three years.

“That’s the difference here. I’ve said before, you won’t see our offense until we’ve had a quarterback in our system for a couple of years.”

Understand that Kragthorpe is not slighting Gonzales’ ability. It’s just that Gonzales was thrown into the arena after only four games of his first season. Or, in a coaches’ way of looking at it, after just 21 practices.

Even in those 21 practices, Gonzales was not getting a lot of attention. At least 90% of the work was going to the starter, a redshirted freshman, Erik Wilhelm.

When Kragthorpe took the job at Oregon State, he expected to have four returning quarterbacks. But before this season ever started, the team lost its top two prospects.

According to Kragthorpe, one “defected.” That would be Ricky Greene, who transferred to Western Oregon State College. And then Steve Steenwyk left school for academic reasons.

That left Wilhelm to battle for the starting spot with Shaun Shahan, and the new kid from Diamond Bar in the No. 3 spot. About what he expected.

When Wilhelm became the starter, Shahan went home to Billings, Mont. And when Wilhelm went down in the game at Grambling with a knee injury that required surgery, Gonzales was it.

He made his first start against USC at the Coliseum, and although it might have been like a dream come true to be starting that game, it turned into a 63-0 nightmare before 50,624 witnesses.

Gonzales was sacked six times and Kragthorpe said: “As a team, we didn’t hold up well and we didn’t support him the way we needed to.”

Gonzales was the starter again the next week when the Beavers lost to Washington State, 34-0. Again, Kragthorpe said: “He took a beating again because we haven’t been protecting him well. Obviously the opponents are coming after him with everything in their arsenal. It is a tough position for him to be in. I think he held up pretty well and certainly showed a lot of improvement over the first week.”

The third time was the charm. Gonzales directed a 21-20 upset at Washington. Oregon State had gone into that game as a 37-point underdog.

But Gonzales has been this route before. No wonder he wasn’t crushed by that first defeat. No wonder he didn’t despair when it happened a second time.

When he was a high school sophomore, Diamond Bar was a new school. The sophomore class was the oldest class, so the newly formed football team played every game against teams stocked with bigger, older, more experienced players. The Brahmas were 2-8 that first year.

In his junior year, his team was 11-2-1, and in his senior year the Brahmas were undefeated.

Gonzales also played baseball in high school. He wore No. 10 for both sports, and that number has been retired at Diamond Bar High.

So what if it’s rough at the start? It can get better.

“I’m not the only young player on our team, and we have a new coach and a whole new offense,” Gonzales said. “I think in a few years we’ll have a much different team.

“It has been kind of hard with the way I started, but to tell you the truth, I’m honored to be playing for a Pac-10 team. We’re playing against the best. As the coaches keep telling me, I just have to go out there and do my best and keep learning.”

Kragthorpe said that Gonzales improves vastly from week to week.

He has completed 86 of 165 passes for 3 touchdowns, and he also has run for 2 touchdowns. But he has also thrown nine interceptions.

“I’m feeling much more confident right now,” Gonzales said. “This is a hard system to adjust to, but the coaches have been working with me, really trying to cram a lot into a short time.”

He’s happy to be back in Southern California, though, to play against the other local team.

“I’m excited about playing in the Rose Bowl,” Gonzales said. “The only time I was ever there was to watch a high school all-star game. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, God, it would be so good to play here.’

“I’m looking forward to it. I know it’s going to be another tough game. UCLA is the toughest team in the Pac-10. We’d have to play really hard and play one of our best games to beat them. But it’s always possible that they’ll be looking past Oregon State to USC.

“There’s going to be a lot of pressure on us again, and a lot of pressure on me. I just have to go out there and not think about who we’re playing or who’s in the stands.

“We just have to go out there and concentrate on playing football.”