2005's Second-Best Quarterback Comes Home

While Vince Young was celebrating his first pro start by spitting out the grass the Dallas Cowboys' defense had shoved into his craw, last year's second-best Texas college quarterback was all but forgotten.

If you don't know the name Barrick Nealy, you missed out on – next to Vince's win (yes, he did it himself) over USC in the Rose Bowl – the most exciting football in these parts, circa 2005. About now you're saying to yourself, "Sure, that's easy in I-AA ball." Don't tell that to the Texas A&M Aggies who should have lost to Barrick's Texas State Bobcats. And don't forget that I-AA has a playoff system Texas State almost blew through thanks to Nealy's pyrotechnics.

Almost. That should be the catchphrase for this Vince Young doppelganger.

Almost beat A&M. Almost won the national championship. Almost turned a Hula Bowl appearance into being drafted by the pros. Almost didn't matter because he was picked up as a wide receiver by the Minnesota Vikings as a free agent before being cut. Almost a quarterback in the Canadian Football League until he packed up his cleats and came home recently.

Comparisons to Vince are apt. Barrick, who blew his knee out while playing for the University of Houston and then landed in San Marcos, had the magic, the juju. He won games by sheer will. I was there when he raced down the field for a total 153 yards to spearhead a 26-23 overtime win that clinched a Southland Conference championship and a trip to the playoffs. Fans spontaneously rushed to the end zone and surrounded the quarterback. They wanted to touch him, to get a closer look at the man who could.

He was the god that brought football dreams back to San Marcos much as Vince did to Austin. The Bobcats had won back-to-back national football titles in the early Eighties. Then nothing. Every year was a sputter of hope followed by a rush of mediocrity. Not with Barrick there. His team rushed headlong into the playoffs, falling way behind against Georgia Southern. But Barrick grinned and starting moving. Five unanswered touchdowns in the second half. Passing for 400 yards. Running for another 126. The fans again rushed the field. This was real.

Next came Cal Poly and a hard-fought 14-7 victory. The championship was in sight. All that stood in Nealy's path was a tough Northern Illinois team. Texas State was up by 11 in the fourth when their able opponent somehow fashioned a touchdown, a two-point conversion, and a field goal into a tie. With little time on the clock, Barrick did what his coach told him and took a knee. And everything changed. His team lost by a field goal in overtime, and the second best college quarterback in Texas was robbed of his Vince-esque shot at last-minute heroics. He took a knee and the dream was over.

Cut to 2006. Nealy watches his old team lose 14-13 to Northern Colorado, a team that has just made national headlines when its Tonya Harding-wannabe kicker stabbed his competition in the leg. Nealy is newly married, with Canada and the NFL far, far away. Surely sweet memories of tossing for 2,875 yards and 21 touchdowns last season and running for 1,057 yards and 13 more scores dance through his mind. Perhaps he rubs that knee, the one that brought him to San Marcos in the first place, the one that touched the turf too soon, and wonders "what if."