Vol Guy

Casey Clausen says he pays little attention to what has happened at UCLA this year, how the Bruins have struggled to find a quarterback for a team that might have challenged for a national title.

Clausen doesn’t have time to wonder about what would have happened if UCLA had recruited him hard, had told him he had a chance to challenge for a starting spot, if UCLA had been enthusiastic, instead of only polite.

Because even though Clausen says his heart is still in Southern California, his powerful arm, his eyes that see where everybody is and will be on a football field, his mind, which processes in two seconds the movements of every receiver, linebacker, tackle and safety so that he can make the right decision, all those things are in Knoxville and are the property of the University of Tennessee football team.

When the Volunteers play at Florida today, Clausen will be the quarterback. Think he regrets that he’s not at the Rose Bowl, playing a painful game against Arizona State, standing on the sidelines for a team that has lost its way, for a program buried in controversy?

Uh, no.

Clausen, from Northridge and Mission Hills Alemany High, will be leading a team that still has a chance--maybe small--but a chance to play in the Rose Bowl for the national title. Beating Florida at the Swamp would give the Volunteers that chance.

“That’s what you play this game for, these moments,” Clausen says.”That’s what you wait for--a game like this. I can’t describe what it’s like in Knoxville this week because it’s something you don’t experience at home. Everybody in town cares about this game. The whole place is behind you.”

The enthusiasm crackles when Clausen speaks of his two years as a Volunteer. He is happy, clearly. He is comfortable with the choice to move a couple of thousand miles from home, to give up the beaches and the sun and the California life. He will not express regrets about how two schools he might have loved--UCLA and Notre Dame--underestimated his talent.

His high school coach, Jim Bonds, will do that instead. Bonds played at UCLA. He played for a Bruin team that went to Knoxville to play the Volunteers. Bonds also understood how the Clausens were a strong, Catholic family and that the lure of the Golden Dome was strong.

“I was a little disappointed,” Bonds says. “I guess it all depends on the numbers. Who you have. Who you think you’ll have. But I suspect, in hindsight, some people at UCLA and Notre Dame wish they would have gone after Casey. Because those schools didn’t, it motivates Casey. It motivates him that he was overlooked locally and was told he couldn’t play at Notre Dame.”

Clausen wasn’t a quarterback from birth, even if it seems that way.

His father, Jim, a former high school and college coach, has been compared to Marv Marinovich, the Southern California legend who set out from the beginning to make his son, Todd, the best quarterback ever.

Casey says there is a photograph of him at 3 months and in it he is holding a football. He has two brothers--both quarterbacks. Rick is a redshirt freshman at Louisiana State. Jimmy, 14, is a seventh-grader who will be, according to most people who have seen him, the best of the brothers. All three were held back a grade to allow for athletic development.

“But my dad didn’t push,” Casey says. “I got to ride on the team buses with him when he was coaching and I got to sit with the players and learn from them and that’s what made me like football. Doesn’t every kid want to be with his dad?”

Says Bonds, “I’ve had Jim Clausen on my staff. He’s a good coach who wants what’s best for his boys and that’s all I saw. He has three sons who’ve been lucky to have a father who could help them in what they love.”

Clausen loves being a Volunteer. He skipped the second semester of his senior year at Alemany to get a head start at Tennessee. That diligence paid off. Clausen became Tennessee’s starter at midseason of his freshman year and led the Volunteers to six consecutive victories.

His first start was against Alabama in front of 107,709 fans at Neyland Stadium. Clausen was only 19, still a California boy, more beach than country, and he completed 17 of his 24 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns. Tennessee won, 20-10. Clausen had earned the job once held by an idol, Peyton Manning, who had been the last true freshman to start for the Volunteers six years earlier.

Randy Sanders, Tennessee’s quarterback coach, ticks off Clausen’s best attributes:

“Casey is a great competitor. He loves to play football. He has the ability of a really good baseball hitter, the guy who can pick up the spin on a ball coming at him at 90 mph. The game slows down for Casey, it happens in slow motion for him. He can tell you what the linebacker, the safeties, the receivers are doing, then make the decision to throw it, then throw an accurate pass and do all those things in two, 21/2 seconds.”

Clausen is 6 feet 4 and 205 pounds. Sanders would like him to gain 10 or 15 pounds of muscle, which, Sanders says, would enable Clausen to throw harder and withstand hits better.

In his last three games, Clausen has thrown for 11 touchdowns. In 10 games this season, he has completed 183 of 286 passes for 2,469 yards and 19 touchdowns. He is the fifth-rated passer in the Southeastern Conference. The SEC’s best passer, and the top Heisman Trophy candidate, is Florida’s Rex Grossman, a sophomore. Mississippi’s Eli Manning, Peyton’s brother, and also a sophomore, is the SEC’s third-leading passer. Georgia freshman David Greene is fourth.

“We’ve got a lot of great quarterbacks in the league,” Clausen says. “That’s why it’s fun to play here.”

Casey has a bit of a Southern twang to his speech these days. He says he loves being in a town where “everything shuts down when UT plays football.” He loves playing in big games and loves that the big games matter to everyone around.

“How many sellouts did UCLA have this year?” Bonds asks. He knows the answer. So does Casey. No regrets, then.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Casey at the Snap

Tennessee sophomore Casey Clausen ranks fifth in average yards passing in the quarterback-strong SEC:

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QB, SCHOOL TD INT AVG. Rex Grossman, Florida 32 11 353.4 Rohen Davey, LSU 17 9 301.8 Eli Manning, Miss. 27 6 266.2 David Greene, Georgia 14 8 257.9 Casey Clausen, Tenn. 19 7 246.9

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Of note--Tennesee ranks sixth in the SEC in offense and fifth in rushing offense. The key is the Volunteers’ defense--ranking second behind Florida--giving up fewer than 300 yards a game.