Byrum Brown knew it was on him. His South Florida Bulls had struggled most of the first half, but so had highly favored Florida. Both teams had won their season openers, and both were now trying to maintain momentum as they slugged it out in Gainesville.
And it had been a slugfest. Neither team had mounted much of an offense; somebody had to do something. So Brown did. With Florida holding a tenuous 9-6 lead in the third, Brown put the South Florida offense on his back.
Starting from the USF 14, Brown completed a 15-yard pass to the 29 and after a two-yard gain, he ran for three more. Then he hit the kill shot, firing a 66-yard pass to Keyshaun Singleton that gave USF a 13-9 lead.
But it wasn’t over yet. Florida would fight back and was up 16-15 with 2:04 to play, USF in possession at its own 39. Once again, Brown rose to the occasion. He completed a 29-yard pass to the Florida 32, and then a 12-yarder to the Gator 20.
As the final seconds ticked away, USF gained six to the 14 and Brown took it from there. He ran for six to the eight, four to the four and two to the two, setting up Nico Gramatica’s game-winning field goal as time ran out.
And that’s the kind of play you need from your quarterback if you are to win in today’s game. The days of a quarterback being simply a game manager, a guy who just does his part, are pretty much over although Brian Hartline, South Florida’s new coach, wouldn’t agree.
With fast paced, up tempo offenses and the spread formation now in vogue, a quarterback has to do much more than manage the game. He has to run it, and he has to be a playmaker, a game breaker.
The introduction of the spread offense and the RPO (run-pass option) has changed the position. Lined up in the shotgun with receivers on both sides and a back next to him, the quarterback can now do different things depending on the defense.
If the defense is playing off the ball, he can hand off to the running back. If the defense is close to the line of scrimmage, he can keep the ball and throw. If the defense begins shifting, he might run himself.
The quarterback is now the determining factor in whether or not the offense is successful. It’s his show. He’s expected to make the plays that win the game, has a lot more responsibility then just managing the offense.
South Florida’s Brown is proof of this. Brown missed most of 2024 with a leg injury and the Bulls were basically a .500 team without him. With Brown back last year, they went 9-4. USF had 117 explosive plays of 15 yards or more and Brown was involved in 88 of them.
And if you look at the best teams in college football, most of them have playmakers, guys who simply take over the game, at quarterback. Vanderbilt was irrelevant in the SEC until Diego Pavia came along. Indiana won the national championship because of Fernando Mendoza.
On the flip side, Florida’s decline in the SEC can largely be attributed to the failure on DJ Lagway. Lagway never lived up to the potential that made him the No. 1 prep quarterback in 2024 according to a number of sites.
“I think that always works, I don’t know how it doesn’t work,” Hartline said of having a game manager at quarterback. And you have to respect his opinion because he has the credentials to back it up.
Hartline believes you win when everybody does his job, that no one player can carry the team. “The one that ends up with the most points wins,” he said. “You want to score, you want to play complimentary football.
“Obviously, the quarterback is touching the ball on every single play,” Hartline continued. “So you want a guy you can trust, a guy that can be a good problem solver, a guy that can be a good fixer and really provide value to everyone around him, just doing their own thing.
“Some people will see that as being a playmaker,” Hartline went on, “but if you look, if you miss an obvious read and you don’t throw the ball but you run for six yards, yeah, that’s good but it can be better.
“It’s not about his (the quarterback’s) production per se, it’s about the execution. So you know, and I think the NFL will show you that all day, you know there are probably guys that everyone wants to call game managers; well, they win championships.
“I don’t know where that comes from (that game managers can’t win big). That’s like the main thing, the No.1 aspect for our quarterback is to manage the game, manage the team, manage the offense.
“We want a guy we trust, we want a guy who provides a lot of value to his teammates, is consistent emotionally and production-wise day in and day out,” Hartline said.
Whether that will get you where you want to go in college football is debatable. It works in the NFL because it’s a different game. Generally, NFL teams try to protect their quarterbacks. They don’t want them running because they might get hurt and they don’t use RPO offenses.
College football seems to have turned the corner on this, though, with up tempo and spread offenses seemingly demanding more from a quarterback than just managing the game. But for his part, Hartline doesn’t agree, and he and USF will try and prove that this fall.
