Daniel happy to be a Tiger
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
Had Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel shown his true colors while playing at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas, en route to being named the 2004 EA Sports National Player of the Year, he would have flashed the Hook ’em Horns sign after every touchdown.
“I was always a Longhorn fan. My parents grew up Longhorn fans and my sister went there,” Daniel said.
What’s more, his high school coach, Mark Dodge, was a star quarterback at Texas.
“They looked at me a little bit and things didn’t work out,” Daniel said of the Texas coaches. “If they were one of the first offers, you never know. Missouri was my first, and I decided to stay true to them. And I love the decision I made.”
For the Tigers, the match with Daniel has been love at first sight.
While playing in 10 games as a redshirt freshman last season, the 6-foot-1, 220-pounder proved he could be more than just a solid backup to Brad Smith, who started every game of his four years and set 69 school, Big 12 Conference and NCAA records.
Against Iowa State, Daniel relieved Smith midway through the fourth quarter with Missouri trailing by 10 points. He then guided the offense on 75- and 87-yard scoring drives to force overtime in a game the Tigers eventually won.
“I knew they had Brad Smith,” Daniel said when asked how closely he followed Missouri’s program while in high school. “(I) knew what type of athlete he was, knew what type of things they asked him to do — and I wanted to be that next breed.”
Proof that his performance against the Cyclones was no fluke came in this season’s opener, when Daniel tossed a school-record five touchdowns in his first Mizzou start.
It gave Daniel, who ran the same no-huddle spread offense at Carroll, further verification of what he’d long since concluded.
“I knew where I wanted to be, for sure,” he said.
For all of Daniel’s success in his first nine starts — the school single-season-record 19 touchdown passes, being 177 yards away from the top single-season total in school history, ranking No. 2 in the Big 12 in total offense with a 289.9-yard average while leading his team to a 7-2 record — he and the Tigers will likely be judged on how they perform at Nebraska on Saturday.
Missouri and the Huskers enter with identical 3-2 Big 12 Conference records, and Saturday’s winner will likely need to win just one of its remaining two games to clinch first place in the North Division and a spot in the league championship game.
“It’s a title game, pretty much,” Daniel said.
One that he figures he’ll have a say in.
During last week’s 26-10 loss to Oklahoma, Daniel accounted for 359 of the Tigers’ 360 yards. He was involved in 66 of 73 offensive plays, producing career highs with 44 passes and 20 rushes.
Half of those runs, however, came on scrambles. And while he had a sure touchdown pass dropped that would have given Missouri a 10-0, first-quarter lead, Daniel also threw three interceptions.
“It’s a high-risk, high-reward offense, and I didn’t play well enough,” he said. But “I’m a competitor. I want the game in my hands when the time comes down to it.
“... I’ll just go back and prepare better.”
Daniel came out of the Oklahoma game with a bruised thigh, but vowed it won’t slow him Saturday. After all, a guy who was 31-1 as a starter in high school would love nothing more than to be the first Mizzou quarterback since Phil Bradley to steer the Tigers to victory in Lincoln.
Bradley did it in 1978, and since then, 11 other Missouri starting quarterbacks have come up short, as the Huskers have beaten Missouri 14 straight times in Lincoln.
“What is it — 25 years, or something? Oh, yeah, I’m aware,” Daniel said. “It’d be huge for us.
“It’s going to be tough playing on the road. It may be snowing, like it was the Texas game. That’s just distraction control. We’ve got to keep it under wraps and try to play our ‘A’ game.”
It figures Daniel would bring up something about the Longhorns — even though there’s no question he now bleeds Mizzou gold.
“I don’t have any complaints about what we’re doing here at all,” Daniel said. “We’re 7-2, and we’re 7-2 for a reason. We put ourselves in a good position earlier in the year to go in there and (be in a crucial game).”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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