Q. You’ve had quarterbacks of differing styles your
first year with Thomas, Mitchell. Now you have
Jalen coming in, taking over the backup role. What
have you seen from him? What kind of competition
has he given Jacoby?
COACH DOEREN: First of all, it’s the third year I’ve
been at State and first year I’ve had a returner at that
position, the first year I had a backup that we recruited
to be a scholarship quarterback. I’m excited about the
depth and the talent that we have there. I feel like
we’re in a great situation because Jalen traveled to
every game last year, was in every game plan meeting
with Coach Canada, took valuable reps in this offseason,
and is with Jacoby day in, day out. Jacoby is a
tremendous preparation guy. He’s getting to watch a
veteran guy go through it, a guy that’s going through it
the right way. He’s really dedicated, Jacoby has dedicated himself to the cause.
So for Jalen, I think he’s in a tremendous position. I tell kids all the time,
they want to play right away, all of them do, if you’re a
three-year starter at that level, that’s a lot. If you start
at quarterback for three years at the ACC or SEC,
you’re a pretty good football player now. He’s going to
be able to do that after Jacoby is gone. If we feel like
there’s a moment in a game, injury in a game, we don’t
have to change what we do. We have another 6’6″ guy
that can run and throw and is tough. It’s a great
scenario to have on your team. It’s the first time I’ve
had it since I’ve been here. I do sleep good at night
from a quarterback standpoint knowing that’s what we
have. Just like every year, you have different things.
Last year no one asked about our kicker and punter.
Now that’s the unknown. Our left tackle is a new guy.
That’s an unknown. At least at quarterback we don’t
have that problem.

Q. You raved about Jacoby the minute you landed
him as a transfer. Is it possible to overstate the
impact he’s had on the program? Can we overstate
how important he’s been to the transformation?
COACH DOEREN: No, I don’t think you can. I told
everybody last year, it’s his team because he’s the
quarterback. The quarterback’s the CEO of your
football team. We’re going to go, any team is, you can
go from Pop Warner to NFL, if you look at their
quarterback play, if it’s good, if he manages the team
the right way, if he’s tough, if he’s a leader, those teams
probably win some games. Vice versa, if you have a
team that has no identity at that position, they’re
probably not very good. So he’s helped us immensely.
I was excited when I got him because I’ve known him
since he was a freshman. He comes from a great
program. Was coached by a great high school coach
in Jack Daniels. He was a state championship
basketball player at point guard. I knew what I was
getting because I’d known him for so long. I knew what
we needed. I was coming from a program at Northern
Illinois that had tremendous quarterback play in Jordan
Lynch one year and Chandler Harnish they year
before. They were both Player of the Year in our
league. I knew that we were champions at Northern
because I had a championship quarterback. So to
know I was getting one that had that pedigree, once
you have that you can build around it. You can have a
lot of other things, but if you don’t have, that it’s hard to
reach the goals you have as a program.