Virginia picks up new QB

When Virginia coach Al Groh analyzed film of quarterback prospect Tyler Brosius, the first thing that came to mind was Ben Roethlisberger.

Big (6-foot-3 1/2 inches, 239 pounds), strong, and could make every throw in the book, could move well in the pocket.

Don’t get me wrong. Groh wasn’t saying that Brosius, a rising senior at Tuscola High School in Waynesville, N.C., is another Roethlisberger, but the intangibles are there, some of the same qualities.

UVa assistant coach Wayne Lineburg had been to see Brosius throw before and so Groh sent new offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon to verify in person what Groh had viewed on tape. According to Tuscola High coach Donnie Keefer, Brandon told him that Groh’s assumptions were spot on.

Once the courtship between the North Carolina prospect and UVa started, there was no slowing down. Brosius came up to investigate what the Cavaliers were all about, fell head over heels for the program and the area and committed to Virginia over the weekend. He liked it so much that he’s coming back to spend the day Friday to see everything he missed the first trip.

A solid work ethic
Brosius is a country boy, the strong, silent type, kind of like former Wahoo (and Roethlisberger’s teammate) Heath Miller and just-graduated John Phillips. He’s more at home hunting, fishing, baling hay and riding four-wheelers than sipping tea and wondering what’s up with Jon and Kate.

Talk about a team leader and a guy with work ethic, when Brosius finishes football practice, and extra throwing drills, he hops in his truck, drives over to his buddy’s farm and helps bale hay.

“I’m full bore all the time ... I don’t like sittin’ at home on my rear watching TV,” he said during a break from his workout Monday afternoon. “Carrying two or three bales of hay and throwing them into a truck is a pain in the neck. But it’s nice to have some extra money.”

That extracurricular farm activity didn’t exactly hurt former Wahoo Cedric Peerman’s strength.

“Tyler is a blue collar guy,” Keefer said. “I like a quarterback that’s going to get down and dirty, who likes to do all the gritty things that lots of quarterbacks don’t like to do. That’s the kind of quarterback you win with.”

Keefer won with Brosius last season, going 11-2 before being knocked off in the second round of the playoffs.

It was a good year for the junior quarterback. He threw for 2,700 yards by Keefer’s statistics, along with 27 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He threw for about 1,900 yards as a sophomore, with 20 TDs.

That’s the first year Keefer had come onto the scene to rebuild an ailing program deep in the Carolina mountains (about 20 miles due west of Asheville). Brosius’ arm strength had preceded the actual meeting.

“I had heard about all that, but the knock on him was that he didn’t have good feet and wasn’t very quick, that he was only a passer,” Keefer said.

The new coach investigated and found that the previous staff had done nothing to develop the quarterback in terms of linear speed training, change of direction, agility, speed, quickness, or in reading coverages. That changed quickly and dramatically. Well, most of it did.

“I ain’t going to outrun anybody, I can tell you that,” Brosius deadpanned. “I’m not Michael Vick (Virginia fans can insert a big Hallelujah Chorus right here). I’m not fast (4.9), but I can move quick enough to get out of pressure or get the ball out or get a first down.”

Hey, last time we looked Brett Favre

didn’t win any sprinting medals either.

“First thing I told coaches who called in and asked about Tyler was, ‘He’s not Pat White (West Virginia’s super-fast former quarterback), but he’s got quick enough feet to move around in the pocket and to find an opening throwing lane,’” Keefer said. “He’s got a Tim Tebow personality where he likes to run the football and he’s big enough to do so.”

As UVa’s Brandon found out, according to Keefer, the young quarterback has good enough speed to get what’s there, to pick up the first down with his feet.

But it’s his arm that drew raves from coaches who visited.

“He can throw any kind of ball you want,” Keefer said. “He can throw the deep ball, he can throw a rope, he can put touch on the ball,” Keefer said. “I have not yet come up with a throw that he can’t make.”

Brosius drew seven offers: UVa, Central Florida, East Carolina, Pittsburgh, Maryland, and some smaller schools because he was completely wide open in his recruiting process. However, some other big boys were knocking: North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Tennessee and others.

“A lot of schools don’t pull the trigger on a quarterback until they have seem them throw in their camps,” Keefer said. “The interest was growing on him.”

Groh, Brandon, and Lineburg beat ‘em to the punch.

“I had kind of narrowed things at this point to UCF and Virginia until I visited the two places,” Brosius said. “It was really hot at UCF and it was a 180-degree flip from where I am now.

“After coming to Charlottesville, it was an easy choice.  I wanted a place where it was a lot like home, kind of a small town, but still loved football. Charlottesville feels like home, felt like I never left home and I figured I wouldn’t find anywhere better than Virginia.”

Keefer said all those footwork issues and the lot have been corrected and for what he lacks in speed, he makes up for in throwing ability and leadership.

“Sometimes it looks like he’s throwing off balance, that there’s nothing there, he’s going to his left and has to throw back to his right, those kinds of things, but he’s such a strong-armed kid that his feet do not have to be set for him to make the difficult throw,” Keefer said. “Some quarterbacks have to have their feet perfect for them to make that kind of throw, but he doesn’t. He can throw it from any position.”

Rivals ranks Brosius as the No. 24 pro-style quarterback in the country, but fits the mold that Groh and Brandon are looking for in Virginia’s new spread offense. The rest of that Roethlisberger stuff is up to him.