Looking for a QB? Try the Dallas Metroplex

DALLAS — On a muggy Friday night in September at SMU’s Gerald J. Ford Stadium, TCU quarterback Kenny Hill, once a four-star recruit from Southlake, Texas, tossed for a season-high 452 yards and two touchdowns to pace the Horned Frogs’ 33-3 win.

Late in the second half, TCU’s coaching staff replaced Hill with sophomore Foster Sawyer, from All Saints Episcopal School in Fort Worth, who completed his only attempt in mop-up duty against the Mustangs. Behind Hill and Sawyer — if push came to shove — the Horned Frogs could’ve called on Grayson Muehlstein, a sophomore from Decatur, an hour northwest of Dallas.

In total, there were five quarterbacks listed on TCU’s roster; all but one attended high school inside the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, a collection of 12 counties that stands as the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the USA, behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

It might not seem unique, or it might seem even unsurprising, given the geography involved — it would be logical that these two programs, with matching recruiting efforts rooted inside this state, would stock their cupboards with quarterbacks from the heart of Texas.

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And it’s not unique, in the grand scheme of things. Quarterbacks who attended high schools in the Metroplex make up an inordinate number of players at the position across the Football Bowl Subdivision, and not just at nearby programs but from coast to coast, among Power Five and Group of Five conferences alike.

Counting any student-athlete listed on an FBS roster — including walk-on recruits — there were more than 600 quarterbacks playing college football at its highest level in 2016. Of that number, 97 attended high school in Texas at large, while 39 hailed from the Metroplex.

The list includes student-athletes who opted to play for local programs, such as Tulsa’s Dane Evans, Texas’ Shane Buechele, Baylor’s Seth Russell or Texas Tech’s Nic Shimonek; it also features those who drifted across the map to play college football, from Virginia Tech’s Jerod Evans and West Virginia’s Skyler Howard to California’s Davis Webb.

“Coaches want successful programs,” SMU coach Chad Morris said. “They know when you can pull a kid out of a program with the magnitude of Allen (High School) or those guys, they’ve won and they’ve won at a high level. And’s that what you want and what you need.”

Location plays the greatest role, but only to a point: While the Metroplex covers more square mileage than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, for example, it’s not just a surplus of talent that draws college coaches in droves — it’s a culture that leans toward the offensive side of the ball, and to quarterback play in particular.

“Texas football is just different,” Kenny Hill said.

The culture is defined by spread-based schemes, an offensive revolution that began here, in Flower Mound and Southlake, and has trickled up to the highest levels of college football.

“Texas, probably more than any other state, was a lot earlier” in embracing this offensive style, said first-year Texas coach Tom Herman, formerly of Houston. “A lot of the spread, up-tempo offenses that you’re seeing in college really had their roots in Texas high school football.”

It’s seen in the proliferation of 7-on-7 camps — those that pit quarterback and wide receivers against defenders without a pass rush — and in how offseason tournaments have allowed quarterbacks to develop timing, footwork and chemistry outside of the traditional season.

The booming cottage industry of individualized quarterback coaching has likewise led to an uptick in advanced development, as more and more quarterbacks support their growth with personalized instruction. In total, the learning curve has been trimmed; quarterbacks with this background, such as Buechele, are more prepared than ever to step directly into starting roles within a short time frame of arriving on campus.

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“Not to toot our own horn,” said Guyer High School coach John Walsh, “but there’s just some quality quarterback coaching and programs being run down here that gets these kids pretty close to college-ready.”

More than anything, the abundance of college quarterbacks from the Metroplex is a reflection of the area’s year-round commitment to football. “Football in Texas is king, obviously,” said Richard Bartel, the offensive coordinator and QBs coach at Lafayette College who played high school, college and pro football in Texas and coached high school football there.

Unlike most areas of the country, Texas high schools hold drills in the spring, mirroring the same practice schedule held on the college level. Many schools have full-time coaching staffs, from the head coach through a complete roster of assistants; these coaches play a hands-on role in the development of future student-athletes as early as middle school.

At Guyer, for example, Walsh and his coaching staff will identify future quarterbacks as early as sixth grade, at camps broken down by position — allowing the staff to sketch a plan, essentially, for how the program will approach the position for the ensuing half-decade.

“We’re streamlining those kids early,” he said. “Most good programs know who their incoming kids are that want to be quarterbacks. I think it’s just the daily attention paid to our craft down here that we take a lot of pride in.”

The commitment to player development is seen most clearly in the accommodations: There are more than 60 indoor practice facilities in the Metroplex area alone.

“The resources and the culture that surrounds Texas high school football are second to none,” Bartel said. “That’s a fact.”

Combined, it’s enough to make the Metroplex a must-stop destination for recruiters scanning for quarterbacks capable of quickly grasping their offensive system — the spread, more often than not — and prepared, both physically and mentally, for the rigors of the college game.

To the FBS programs inside the state, on the other hand, this is nothing new: At his six stops at Texas colleges before joining the Longhorns, Herman was part of coaching staffs that signed just one quarterback from outside the state — a prospect from Arkansas who inked with Rice in the class of 2005.

As for going looking outside the area for a quarterback at Texas, he added, “I don’t think we’ll ever need to.”

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