The impressive debut of true freshman Spencer Keith has clouded the future of Kent State’s quarterback position.
If Keith keeps playing well, sophomore Giorgio Morgan may find himself back in a competition to reclaim his starting job once his injured left ankle heals.
That time may still be a week or two away.
KSU head coach Doug Martin said he didn’t like the way Morgan looked during practice on Sunday.
“He didn’t move well. He is still limping,” said Martin. “The good news is the quarterback who is playing, you can with him. So it won’t take too much longer before Spencer Keith will be the No. 1 quarterback here.”
Some coaches believe a player shouldn’t lose his starting job because he was injured. That apparently won’t be the case for Morgan.
“Depending on how Spencer is playing, Giorgio is going to have to come back and compete to even get on the field,” said Martin. “Right now, I’m planning on Spencer being the starting quarterback this week until I see something different. The great news about that is we will have two guys who will be competing against each other very hard. That will make both of them better and make us better as a team.
“But I haven’t put a whole lot of thought about when (Morgan) is going to come back and what the circumstances are going to be.”
Keith was sharp in his first career start Saturday, completing 21-of-32 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns in a 34-14 loss to Iowa State. He was one of the Golden Flashes’ few bright spots in an ugly loss. Martin called Keith the “only player on the team who didn’t play like a freshman.”
“I was pretty pleased with my first start,” Keith said Saturday night. “I missed a couple passes I should have had, but I made some good passes and good plays ... I felt really comfortable the whole game. I felt good out there with my teammates around me helping me out.”
Add in almost a half of action against Boston College the week before, and Keith has completed 65 percent of his first 46 college pass attempts. Three of those have gone for touchdowns.
Morgan has completed 58.8 percent of his throws this season, going 30-for-51 for 239 yards in six quarters. He played more than four of those quarters after injuring the ankle in the first half of the season opener with Coastal Carolina.
Kent State can win with a healthy Morgan. He earned the starting job in preseason camp and captured the faith of his teammates when he was voted a team captain going into a redshirt sophomore season.
The best case scenario for KSU may be for Morgan to come back and reclaim the starting spot while Keith plays two or three series a game to gain experience.
That would allow the Flashes to go back to the plan they devised once they learned fifth-year senior backup Anthony Magazu would be slowed by an elbow injury this season. The plan was to use Keith as a backup, allow him to redshirt as a sophomore when he could continue to watch, learn and get stronger. In 2011, he could return to challenge Morgan again for playing time and still have three years of eligibility remaining.
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LAINHART HONORED — It’s not exactly true that Keith was the only Kent State player who didn’t play like a freshman.
Safety Brian Lainhart may have made a freshman mistake by jumping offsides on the game’s opening kickoff, but he spent the rest of the evening more than making up for the error. He finished with a team-high 11 tackles while forcing a pair of fumbles and intercepting his ninth pass in 10 games dating back to last season.
“Brian Lainhart is one of the best safeties in the conference, and not because of the weight room or the 40-yard dash,” said Martin. “If you just go and test Brian Lainhart, he’s not spectacular in those type of things. What he is a great football player because he shows up the same every week. He gets an interception every week. Well, that’s because he prepares. He watches film and studies on his own during the week. He practices his tail off and he shows up for the game and is as excited as he can be ... We need more guys like him.”
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LOOKING FOR LEADERS — Lainhart is one of the players Martin identified as earning the right to get after his teammates for their lackluster performances and poor preparation for gameday.
“Brian Lainhart is the leader of this football team, there is no question about it,” said Martin. “And he is doing a great job of it, too.”
Other players identified by Martin as leaders who can take their teammates to task include linebacker Cobrani Mixon and defensive lineman Sam Frist.
“We have leaders,” said Martin. “The problem is we don’t have enough of them on the offensive side of the ball. Right now, our two offensive captains (Morgan and injured running back Eugene Jarvis) are not on the field. And that’s a problem. Those are the two guys the team voted as captains and they are missing. You can overcome their play on the field, but that leadership is harder to overcome. That’s where we are a little bit lost right now.”
Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads noticed how much KSU missed Jarvis’ leadership Saturday night. Jarvis, of course, has been lost for the season with a lacerated kidney.
“I watched enough film of him in high school to know how much they missed a player not only of his physical abilities, but I’m sure his leadership with this football team,” said Rhoads. “They took a 7-3 lead (in the first quarter), and a guy like that keeps everybody grounded and keeps them moving forward. I’m sure they missed him a number of ways.”
Martin said it would be difficult for Spencer Keith to expect older teammates to follow him as a leader in his true freshman season. For now, the coaches are pressuring veterans on the offensive side of the football to step into the leadership void. He pointed out sophomore center Chris Anzevino, sophomore left guard Michael Fay and Junior tight end Jon Simpson as candidates.
“It’s probably going to have to come from someone on the offensive line,” said Martin. “Everybody else you look at on offense, other than Andre Flowers, is a pretty young guy. We have a lot of first-year players at wide receiver, other than Jameson (Konz, a fifth-year senior).”
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THIRD-DOWN NIGHTMARE — Kent State has converted a miserable 15 percent of its third downs (6-for-41) through the first three games of the 2009 season. That ranks dead last in the entire nation.
The Flashes were 0-for-11 on third down Saturday night until Keith tossed an 8-yard touchdown pass to Derek McBryde on third-and-goal with 6:43 to play in the game.
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David Carducci can be reached at dcarducci@recordpub.com