Jury’s Still Out on O.C.’s Quarterback Class of ’93

Everything predicted, anticipated and expected may come to pass this season for California quarterback Pat Barnes.

Two attempts at taking a redshirt year didn’t pan out. A season of proving he was worthy of being Cal’s starter is behind him. Now his senior year is before him. The possibilities may not be limitless, but there is a very high ceiling.

In another corner of the Pacific 10 Conference, Sean O’Brien is preparing to begin classes again at Arizona. His football career, once so promising when he was a quarterback at Santa Margarita High, doesn’t exist anymore.

Last week, he attended the Wildcats’ scrimmage and left after 10 minutes. It was too hard to take. He wanted to be on the field playing but had quit after injuries and attitude took a toll. The only option left is concentrating on getting a college degree.

Those are the extremes that have befallen Orange County’s quarterback class of 1993.

Some called it the best group in county history--did Todd Marinovich just gasp? Is that Bret Johnson growling? In 1993, four quarterbacks within a 30-mile radius signed with major Division I schools. The quality and quantity were impressive.

“Pat and I played together in junior high,” O’Brien said. “We took a trip to Cal together. I always wanted to play against him. These things don’t always work out.”

They did for Barnes. They didn’t for O’Brien. The other two are still on the bubble.

* Stanford’s Tim Carey, one of the most sought-after quarterbacks in the nation as a senior at Los Alamitos, is competing for the Cardinal starting job. It’s a battle he has lost before.

* Kansas’ Matt Johner, mostly overlooked while at Estancia, has bided his time and is now getting a chance. He will start in the Jayhawks’ season opener Thursday.

The best quarterback class in Orange County history? At the time, a case could be made. But now? None has won a conference title or a bowl game.

“That group has definitely stood out,” said Saddleback College Coach Bill Cunerty, who runs the West Coast Passing School, considered one of the top youth quarterback camps in the country. “But in this area, with the sheer number of athletes and the emphasis on the passing game, I don’t know if they were unusual. Still, they all went to some pretty good schools.”

Where things haven’t gone as planned.

“What’s happened to them is just college football,” said Allen Wallace, editor of Super Prep Magazine. “You can pretend every guy you sign is going to work out and be a great player, but that’s not possible in the real world.”

All four have experienced that real world.

Pat Barnes

What’s different about Barnes under Cal’s first-year coach, Steve Mariucci?

“I think I’m more aggressive,” Barnes said.

Just what the Pac-10 needed. This is a guy who, as a sophomore, picked a fight with Arizona’s All-American defensive end Tedy Bruschi. Aggressiveness never seemed to be a problem.

But Barnes, who is 6 feet 4, 215 pounds, isn’t talking about bare-knuckle brawls.

“I think my work ethic is better and I’ve allowed myself to open up and listen,” Barnes said. “I keep my mouth shut and absorb as much as I can.”

Barnes’ guru is quarterback coach Hue Jackson, who worked with All-Pac-10 quarterback Jake Plummer at Arizona State the past two seasons. Jackson, a quarterback at Pacific in the 1980s, started from scratch with Barnes.

“It was back to square one, right from taking the ball from the center,” Jackson said. “We recruited him at ASU. He was our No. 1 guy. I wanted a chance to coach him and get him driven on being the best in the country.”

Barnes, who threw for 6,182 yards in high school, always had the potential. It just seemed to be wasted early in his college career. Barnes was to be a redshirt during his freshman and sophomore seasons, but injuries to other quarterbacks forced him into the lineup.

“I was thinking, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ ” Barnes said. “But when the coach says, ‘Do you want to play?’ I don’t think anyone would say, ‘No.’ ”

Last season, Barnes won the starting job. He passed for 2,685 yards and 17 touchdowns. In the final four games, Barnes threw for 793 yards with seven touchdowns and one interception.

The Bears, who were 3-8, won only one of those four games.

“He was one of the statistical leaders in the conference and no one gave him any honors,” Jackson said. “Quarterbacks are judged by how they raise their teammates to another level.”

Tim Carey

The euphemism to stay away from: “Tim Carey throws a nice touch pass.”

Nothing gets Carey as riled.

“[Other] people took that as a negative thing,” Carey said. “They would say that like I couldn’t get the ball to the receiver. Guess they want me to prove something, and I think I’ve already proven it. I got tired of hearing it.”

Carey, a 6-4, 195-pound junior, spent the summer in the weight room and said he will put an end to such talk. The question is, will he get the chance?

He is currently No. 1 on the depth chart, ahead of sophomore Chad Hutchinson. But the competition continues. No one has ever questioned Hutchinson’s arm strength. He has a 96-mph fastball and was a first-round pick of the Atlanta Braves in 1995. And Carey hardly has an edge in experience; he has thrown four passes in three seasons.

Carey has faced nothing but competition since arriving at Stanford. He was rated the nation’s fourth-best high school quarterback prospect as a senior at Los Alamitos. But Scott Frost, the nation’s third-best prospect, also signed with Stanford.

Carey debated transferring to Alabama after his freshman season, but it was Frost who left. He transferred to Nebraska in 1994 and is expected to be the Cornhuskers’ starter this season.

A year ago, Carey and Mark Butterfield competed for the job. Carey admits the media focus affected him. He found that a quarterback controversy is big news at a college that produced the likes of Jim Plunkett and John Elway.

Now Carey said he is more adept at dealing with such things.

“The only pressure is the pressure I’ve put on myself,” said Carey, who threw for 5,898 yards during his high school career. “I think I’m right where people expected me to be at this point.”

Last spring, Carey completed 16 of 29 passes for 166 yards in the Cardinal-White intrasquad game. After spring practice ended, he declared it, “my job to lose.” But there had been no competition. Hutchinson was pitching for the baseball team and missed spring practice.

Matt Johner

As a senior at Estancia, Johner used to huddle in the corner of the locker room before games, clutching a towel.

“It was a phobia I had,” Johner said. “I had to make sure I kept my hand dry. I would always be clinching my towel in the back of the room.”

Johner plans to have two towels handy Thursday.

Ben Rutz, who was expected to be Kansas’ starting quarterback, is still not completely recovered from an off-season knee injury. So it will be Johner, a 6-1, 200-pound junior, starting against Ball State.

Not bad for a guy who didn’t have a high profile in high school. Of course, Johner wasn’t exactly bubbling with self-esteem either.

“I really wasn’t expecting to go to a big school,” Johner said. “I thought maybe I’d go to Orange Coast for a couple years and then see what happened.”

It wasn’t that Johner lacked talent. He threw for 1,010 yards and rushed for 342 as senior. He just didn’t have the size and Estancia was a bit off the beaten path for most college recruiters.

“One day, my coach came to me and said, ‘A recruiter from Kansas was here and wanted to see film on you,’ ” Johner said. “That got me real excited.

“From my standpoint, I wasn’t being recruited by anyone and then I had a scholarship to a Big Eight school.”

The just-happy-to-be-here attitude began to wear off after his first year, which he sat out as a redshirt.

“After that first year, I started getting an itch to play,” Johner said. “I wasn’t used to going through a whole season without playing.”

Johner’s chances improved when Kansas switched to a pro-style offense last season. His throwing and scrambling skills began to impress coaches, who started comparing him to former Kansas quarterback Chip Hilleary (1989-92).

“It seems like it’s been one huge step since Estancia,” Johner said.

Sean O’Brien

There were nights last year when O’Brien couldn’t sleep because of the sharp pain in his stomach.

“My parents finally had me go to a doctor and he told me I had four ulcers,” O’Brien said. “I’m 21 years old. I shouldn’t have ulcers.”

It pushed O’Brien to make a decision. He was going to quit the Arizona football team.

“It all came from the stress I had over football,” O’Brien said. “I had trouble dealing with the idea that I had been the man at Santa Margarita and things weren’t going my way [at Arizona].”

O’Brien said his problems began even before he enrolled.

He was a multipurpose quarterback at Santa Margarita, a threat as a passer and a runner. Some schools wanted him as a safety, others as a tight end. He wanted to play quarterback and signed with Arizona, which wanted him at that position.

“A week before camp, everyone else is working out, and I was in the Caribbean,” said O’Brien, who is still on scholarship. “It was a senior trip, but I’m sailing around. It was the biggest chance in my life. I should have been lifting weights, throwing the ball, working out. I was so stubborn, I didn’t listen to anybody. I thought I knew it all.”

Everything deteriorated from there. O’Brien developed a sore arm in practice, which limited his time. By the end of the season, he was thinking about transferring.

“I even got my [scholarship] release,” O’Brien said. “I wanted to regain what I had in high school. I knew I could be a great quarterback.”

O’Brien changed his mind and decided to stay. He was moved to strong safety during spring practice and his grades began to suffer.

Last season, he was switched to tight end.

“I was lining up to get my butt kicked every day in practice by Tedy Bruschi [now with the New England Patriots],” O’Brien said. “I weighed 215 pounds. I couldn’t play tight end in the Pac 10.

“I wanted the ball on every play. I wanted to be the playmaker. All I wanted was to be a quarterback.”