Jared Goff might be facing the next Jared Goff when Cal visits Washington
When Washington coach Chris Petersen and his freshman starting quarterback, Jake Browning, look across the Husky Stadium turf at Cal's starter on Saturday, they will see a player in Jared Goff who is considered the No. 1 pro quarterback prospect in college football and one who as a junior might be the best Heisman candidate in the Pac-12 Conference.
They will see a player who, like Browning, has started every game of his college career.
They will see a player who tied for 14th in FBS in yards per attempt, just ahead of Browning, who is 16th.
They will see a player who has a frame like Browning, albeit 2 inches taller and 9 pounds heavier.
They also will see a player who, in some ways, didn't get off to as good a start as Browning has. Though Goff two seasons ago passed for more yards and touchdowns in the first three games of his career than Browning has with the Huskies, Browning has a significant advantage in completion percentage and overall rating. And wins — Washington already has doubled Cal's win total of Goff's freshman season of 2013.
Petersen's track record with quarterbacks is such that he can be confident his methods will help turn Browning into a star. But it doesn't hurt to see his freshman quarterback performing at or above the level that a now elite player did as a freshman. Just as Goff's play as a campus newcomer won him the Bears' job in the 2013 preseason, so did Browning's in August.
"They all did some very good things," Petersen said of the Huskies' quarterbacks, "and Jake was probably behind the furthest, but the last week or so, he probably performed the best.
"We really thought in the long term he would be ready for this, that he could handle it emotionally and he was going to be able to put the work in and school wouldn't overwhelm him and all those types of things."
Both quarterbacks have written their names in the record books, albeit at different levels. Goff broke Troy Taylor's all-time Cal passing record last week vs. Texas. Browning owns the national high school record for touchdowns, a mark he set playing for the same Troy Taylor, now the co-coach at Folsom (Calif.) High School.
"I think they're similar guys," Cal coach Sonny Dykes said. "Both of them were very well coached in high school. That's where it starts, and they both had a lot of success and won a lot of football games. I think that's why they both had an opportunity to play so early, because of the reps and the coaching they got in high school."
Petersen's choice of Browning as Washington's starter over K.J. Carta-Samuels and Jeff Lindquist could have been interpreted as playing for next year or the year after. But just as Dykes found with Goff in 2013, it was the quite the opposite. Not only did Goff and Browning project as their teams' best prospects in the future, they also were their teams' best quarterbacks in the present.
"We gotta live in the here and now, what gives the team the chance to succeed right away," Petersen said. "And I think that's what we've done at all positions."
Goff remembers Cal offensive coordinator Tony Franklin expressing a similar philosophy in the spring of 2013, when he, Dykes and Goff were newcomers to Berkeley, having arrived within one week of each other. In one of his first meetings with Cal's offense, Franklin opened up every starting position to every player, no matter their year in school.
"He made it clear that no one has a job," Goff said. "If you want a job, you're going to have to earn it. They didn't care, and that's the best way to do it, I think."
Dykes said the experience Goff earned in such a high-pressure situation is part of the reason he's become so effective and highly regarded as a quarterback.
"I think just going through that at a young age really helped him develop and gave him that mental toughness that a quarterback has to have," Dykes said. "It was a hard year for him, but as I said, I think those reps and those experiences paid dividends for him."
Cal is 3-0, off to its best start since 2011, and is 10th among unranked teams receiving votes in the Amway Coaches Poll. Washington enters Pac-12 play at 2-1, having split games against Mountain West opponents and shutting out Sacramento State from the Big Sky, an FCS conference.
Browning's completion percentage and touchdown totals have improved each game, and his passer rating hovers at a more than respectable 158.23. Whether he and Goff actually get to commiserate after Saturday's game in Seattle, Goff endorses the idea behind Washington's quarterback decision and what Browning is doing with the opportunity.
"Film can only do so much," Goff said. "It's easy to see what you did wrong when you're hitting play and pause, but when you're in the line off fire playing a real game, you can't replace that experience. That's why I think playing as a freshman and sophomore is so valuable."
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