Through thick and thin, the senior quarterback has been willing to do whatever is necessary to help the team.
BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 7:00 pm
The whole thing was already obscene to any Husker fan, a game spiraling toward embarrassment even before the head coach turned to the skinny true freshman and told him to get in there.
Beau Davis hadn’t played in a college football game and he wouldn’t play in another one until two years later. But when Bill Callahan called his number that night in Lubbock, Texas, almost four years ago and told him to lead the offense, Davis jogged to the huddle with hopes that this might be the start of something big.
He was Nebraska’s backup quarterback behind Joe Dailey in 2004. He was also fresh off throwing 40 touchdowns and for more than 3,000 yards as a high school senior, leading Venice High to its greatest football season and a championship game showdown in the L.A. Coliseum.
But this was different. Not only had Davis not been getting many reps in practice, his first shot at proving himself in college was coming in a game that had already snowballed out of control. Texas Tech was rolling, the stadium was shaking, Nebraska was prepared to be buried.
About nine touchdowns from ideal. That is how Husker fans got to know Davis.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he says now. “I was really nervous.”
And four years later, there are some who might simply remember Davis’ career at Nebraska by what happened next: Four interceptions. A lost fumble. A game that ended in a 60-point loss.
But he’s still here, and that right there says quite a lot about Beau Davis. Plenty of other players would have left the program by now. Plenty of others have left.
“I had a lot of opportunities to take a different route,” Davis says. “I’m not a quitter, first of all. I don’t like quitting something once I started it. And playing with these guys on this team, I made a lot of friendships. I couldn’t bring myself to leave these guys I’ve been playing with two or three years and just move on. It didn’t feel right. And I do love this state, I love going to this school.”
About to enter his last fall camp — the first practice is Monday — the 6-foot-4, 180-pound senior was not listed among the top three quarterbacks (Joe Ganz, Patrick Witt and Zac Lee) on the most recent depth chart.
Yet sit in a room with Davis and it’s hard not to respect his resolve. He’s as anxious as anyone to have his senior year finish with a bang, to be part of Bo Pelini’s first team, helping however he can.
“All I can do is push guys like Joe, push the quarterbacks, make them compete,” Davis says. “The worst thing I can do is go in there and act like I don’t really care. Because me and Joe compete every day. I hope I’m pushing him to be a better quarterback just like he’s pushing me to become a better quarterback, a better person. We take that stuff seriously.”
There are plenty of players in the program like Davis — guys on the roster who work as hard as any starter, not knowing if they’ll even ever see the field for a play. Of course, Davis is different than others in that he’s been in the very important position as Nebraska’s backup quarterback. In fact, the year he backed up Dailey, Ganz was redshirting.
Ganz would have to wait until 2007 to get his chance, and when he did, few were happier to see him succeed than Davis.
“Joe’s no slacker,” Davis says. “He works hard in the weight room, when we’re running, and coaches see it. It was time for him to get his opportunity and when he got his opportunity he took advantage of it. And you can’t blame a guy for that, because that’s what he’s working for.”
Davis doesn’t shy away from conversation about the Tech game, knowing it had a huge impact on his career. Certainly that game will be rehashed this fall when Nebraska visits Lubbock for the first time since suffering its worst loss in school history.
It was 35-10 when Davis entered late in the third quarter. He couldn’t get a handle on his third snap and Tech scored a play later. Nothing good happened after that.
After the game was over, he didn’t play again the rest of 2004 and redshirted in 2005. That was the toughest — waiting to play again. Imagine sitting with that bad taste for two years.
“It hurts your confidence,” Davis says. “You want to get back on the field and do it the way you know you can do it.”
By anyone’s standards, Tech was a tough situation for a freshman to see his first action, a setting “where he had very little chance to succeed,” says his high school coach, Angelo Gasca. “No question that had an effect on Beau for a long time.”
Veteran teammates came up to Davis after the game and consoled him, told him he had been put in a bad spot. Callahan didn’t address the outing with Davis after the game, but as the quarterback said of the former Husker head coach: “He doesn’t really express much emotion.”
Former offensive coordinator Jay Norvell went over the game with Davis the next day, also preparing him for the media attention that might come with it.
Some were critical of Callahan for having Davis continually throw the ball with the game so far out of hand. Davis threw eight times, completing one pass. Some said it was a coach trying to instill the mind-set in his team that it’s not going to ever give up. That debate doesn’t really matter anymore.
But strangers still come up to Davis in stores and bring up that night.
“I don’t think they mean any harm by it,” Davis says. “Most of the time people bring it up, they express that it was a really bad situation you were put in. They should have never done that to you. It’s more sympathy kind of.”
Though Davis is unsure about why he didn’t get a chance to come back in some of the later games in the 2004 season — especially those that got lopsided — he says he has no hard feelings about the Tech game.
“I was grateful for the opportunity,” he says. “There’s not too many times in life where you’re given an opportunity like that. I kind of look back to this day like, ‘That was my opportunity.’ Some guys take advantage of the opportunity. Unfortunately, mine was really early in my career. I just wasn’t ready and didn’t really capitalize on it. I think that’s kind of something I’m mad about.”
He played in two games in 2006 but had no statistics. He played against Kansas State last year and completed a pass. In all, he’s been in four games.
There’s disappointment there, yes, but he also knows this: “From a practice and workout level, I’m really satisfied, there’s nothing more I could have done. I busted (my butt) during the offseason.”
And soon he’ll graduate from college, having learned plenty about football and himself along the way.
“Beau’s a great kid and I love him and I’m proud of him,” Gasca says. “I do definitely respect his perseverance and I know he’s very happy for a chance to play for Bo Pelini. He’s a Husker through and through.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.