If you're waiting for Brad Otton to tell you how happy he is to be away from Weber State, you've got a long wait.
Otton may be the current starter at quarterback for the USC Trojans, who are very much alive in the race for the Rose Bowl, and he may have reporters hovering over him like they used to hover over Lana Turner, and he may be wearing shorts and a T-shirt at the end of October. But as far as he's concerned, you can take the quarterback out of Ogden, but you can't take Ogden out of the quarterback.He misses Utah. He misses the seasons. He misses his teammates and the Big Sky Conference. He misses his girl friend. He stops short of saying he's homesick, because this right here, this isn't bad either. But just because he's holding the Trojans together while Rob Johnson, their senior quarterback who started the season as a serious Heisman Trophy possibility, pays some serious attention to his right ankle, just because the present is pretty good, that doesn't mean the past is bad.
Moving on was a business decision. It was as pure and simple as that. Otton's business is playing football. Last January, it appeared Weber's wasn't. The school he had helped to a 7-4 1993 record - after taking over as the starting quarterback five games into the year - dropped an offseason bomb when the board of regents said they were considering dropping the sport. On account of insufficient funds - in this case more than $500,000 in lost revenue because on any given Saturday night an average of just 5,000 seats had bodies in them in Wildcat Stadium. The school didn't know if it wanted to turn the lights on for that, let alone field a football team.
Even as it became obvious that Weber would get at least one more year of football, rumors persisted that the school, in concert with the Big Sky Conference, would drastically cut back scholarships, perhaps to as few as 25 per school by the 1995 season.
So the boy wonder Otton, who set a Div. I-AA freshman single game record last season with 540 yards passing against Northern Arizona, decided to go long. In late January he shopped himself around to see if there was any interest. He found there was plenty. He visited Fresno State, Washington State, BYU and USC. If he'd been operating on emotion only he would have chosen BYU, the place he wanted to go when he was growing up in Tumwater, Wash. "I was a little Mormon boy who played quarterback," Otton says. "BYU was a dream."
But he wasn't operating on only emotion. He was operating on reality, and the reality was that BYU had a quarterback, John Walsh, who was only entering his junior year. If Walsh didn't leave early for the pros, that would leave Otton only one year, maximum, to start. He told the Cougars thanks but no thanks. At Fresno, Trent Dilfer was already on his way to the pros, so there was a possibility of moving right in as a starter, and the situation was similar at Washington State, where half a dozen quarterbacks were lining up for a fierce spring battle for the starting job. Otton flipped a coin and decided on Washington State, but as soon as coach Mike Price released the news about Otton joining the free-for-all his office was blitzed by - you guessed it - those half a dozen quarterbacks. They were not happy.
Otton heard about that scene and reconsidered, which is when he settled on USC. The Trojans had Johnson, the best quarterback in the Pac-10 and arguably the nation, coming back for his senior season. That would give Otton a year's apprenticeship, after which he could battle fair and square for the job without ticking off the world.
As is the case with most game plans . . . it hasn't worked out that way. It's worked out better. Otton's apprenticeship has so far included two starts and two major relief appearances for Johnson, who hurt his ankle in the fourth game against Oregon.
Behind Otton, the Trojans have barely missed a beat. Otton was 15 of 20 for 196 yards in just slightly more than a half Saturday as USC crushed Cal, 61-0.
"He's done what a backup quarterback is supposed to do," says USC head coach John Robinson. "He's stepped right in and created a sense of ease. He's made everybody feel like things are still OK. He's done a marvelous job."
Over time, Otton's feeling more at ease himself. "At first I was constantly questioning what I'd done," he says of the transfer from Weber. "After the Washington game (USC's opener) I called my mom and I said I shouldn't have left. I felt like I betrayed them (Weber State) a little bit. The more I play the less I think about that. And it looks like things are working out for them. They've got a good quarterback and attendance is up. I keep track of them. That's the only reason I buy a Sunday newspaper, to check on the Big Sky scores."
"The thing is," says the pride of USC, addressing a group of reporters last week who couldn't have found Weber State with a topographical map and a mule, "I was worrying about who I was going to throw to up there by my senior season, if they cut out all those scholarships."
"The thing I was most worried about was how my teammates would react (at Weber)," he adds. "And when I've talked to them they've seemed OK with it, they've seemed happy for me."
He hopes they're still rooting for him - because he's still rooting for them.