Nick Stevens knows what at stake when he and the rest of the Colorado State football team take the field at Hughes Stadium Saturday.
A months-long quarterback competition will hit its final major test when Stevens, graduate transfer Faton Bauta and true freshman Collin Hill lead the Rams' offense. Yet Stevens insists he can't let the idea that this is his prime shot to cement himself as the team's starter enter his mind.
"For our position, it's definitely a big day," Stevens said of the competition on Friday. "But you've just got to treat it like another day and come out and prepare the day before like you know how to. If you stress about it too much, it'll take away from your performance and ultimately you want to perform the best you can. I think that's kind of what you look for out of everybody on the team, whether they are competing for a starting spot or just trying to get a spot on the travel bus."
The battle between Stevens, Bauta and Hill has been well-publicized even before the team started practice this spring. Coming off a season in which he was named second-team All-Mountain West and set a CSU record for touchdown passes by a sophomore, Stevens wasn't exactly sure what to expect from a competition standpoint heading into the offseason. Backup Coleman Key subsequently transferred to Oklahoma State and speculation began about who head coach Mike Bobo would bring in as Stevens' competition.
CSU reached out to top junior college prospect Richard Lagow, who ultimately chose Indiana over the Rams, and Kentucky graduate transfer Patrick Towles, who opted to play his final season at Boston College. Virginia transfer Greyson Lambert was also reportedly in contact with CSU, but chose to transfer to Georgia.
Ultimately, Bobo reconnected with Bauta, who he had recruited to Georgia and coached for three years, while also getting prep standout Hill to join the Rams in the early signing period so he could be on campus during spring practice.
Through it all, Stevens remained absolute in his commitment to Bobo and the Rams, something the head coach lauded him for recently.
"From day one after the season ended, we were bringing guys (on visits) during Christmas break, during bowl practice, to Faton and Collin coming here in the spring, and he hasn't batted an eye," Bobo said. "He's been a great, great competitor and a great teammate. He helps those guys and he works his tail off, and he has improved. I'm really proud of Nick and the way he's playing, and he's playing his butt off because he wants to be the starting quarterback.
After an up-and-down spring session for his quarterbacks, Bobo said that the competition would continue as long as it needed to for him to find a consistent quarterback who could lead his offense, not just manage it. The trio has shared the reps equally through the preseason, with the depth chart being changed daily at the position.
Bauta, who many thought would be a shoo-in for the starting job because of his previous experience at Georgia, admits that he has struggled at times throughout fall camp, noting that even on his best days, he still isn't satisfied with his performances. After a handful of quarterback competitions at UGA, Bauta understands what to expect from them.
Whether or not Bobo elects to name a starting quarterback after the scrimmage or plays a combination of QBs in the season opener against Colorado on Sept. 2, Bauta insists his approach won't change.
"The way I go about practices every day and my preparation and film study, none of that can change," Bauta said. "I can tell you I've been through some pretty awful times through my career, you know just constant failures, and so the only thing I've learned from that is that you have to constantly keep going because they are going to reappear. Obviously, I want (the scrimmage) to go well for me, I'm picturing and imagining it's going to go well tomorrow, and there's no reason it shouldn't unless I'm trying to do something out of the ordinary. I've played football for a long time, and I've been practicing and preparing for a long time, and as much as that might build some pressure, it shouldn't. You can let that cloud things up. You know you've prepared, so you just kind of let it all take care of itself.
GoldandGreenNews.com Digital Producer Keegan Pope can be reached at keegan.pope21@gmail.com and on Twitter @ByKeeganPope.
