Price Needs To Try Something, So Now He’Ll Try The Dh

Mike Price has been known to try anything.

But now we’ve heard everything.

Not only is Washington State’s football coach planning to alternate quarterbacks Saturday afternoon - not play-to-play, but possibly seriesto-series - but he may alternate centers at the same time, as well, in the hope of limiting bad exchanges.

That’s right. Designated hutters.

Hey, if Greg Maddux will only pitch to Eddie Perez, Lincoln Walden-Schultz can hike it exclusively to Paul Mencke, right?

Beg pardon?

Oh, right. Whatever.

Something in Price’s voice Tuesday made it sound as if he’s thinking the same thing, but it’s his job to try to salvage a football season gone south.

What he did say regarding this latest reconsideration of how to best deploy Steve Birnbaum and Paul Mencke was almost as telling:

“I’ve got to try something.”

In the end, isn’t that the only rationale for flip-flopping quarterbacks, whatever the circumstances?

At Arizona, Dick Tomey has two terrific athletes. Both deserve to play - and if one wasn’t playing, he probably would have transferred. So Tomey had to try something and, to his relief, it’s worked splendidly.

At Oregon a year ago, Mike Bellotti had a gifted transfer either too raw or too skittish to clearly beat out a less gifted letterman. Bellotti had to try something, so he kept auditions open until the kid with the better tools played himself into the job.

At WSU, Mike Price has, well, a mess.

OK, not fair. He has two good soldiers who are not, given the evidence, good quarterbacks. He has a rig running on four bald recaps in a foot of gumbo after a week of hard rain. He has: A) gone the distance with Birnbaum, B) spotted them, C) rejected that, D) gone back to Birnbaum, E) spotted them again, F) rejected that, G) gone with Mencke, and H) rejected that.

He’s tried everything. Still, he has to try something.

So the Cougars are back to a little of Birnbaum and a little of Mencke, and the fans are back to a lot of head-scratching.

“I think our quarterbacks have accepted the situation for what it is right now,” Price said, “though I haven’t asked them what they think about it.”

They took turns crumpling fenders on the family sedan and here’s Dad tossing them the keys again. What are they going to say? No mas?

Kerry Collins, maybe. Not these guys.

With an extra week to prepare for Arizona State, possibly Price feels more confident in concocting a plan to, as he put it, “get the very best out of both.”

But the extra week has given the rest of us ample opportunity to recall the other times Price opted for quarterbacks with multiple heads.

1989: Brad Gossen’s thumb is healed. Aaron Garcia’s played well in relief. A cautious Price divvies their time equally. In two quarters, Gossen throws for 334 yards and 32 points. The Cougs lose the other two quarters and the game to ASU, 44-39.

1990: Gossen, Garcia and Drew Bledsoe play musical quarterbacks and the Cougs drop the Dissension Bowl to USC, 30-17.

1993: This deserves an asterisk, because starter Chad DeGrenier goes out with an injured foot. Price turns to Shawn Deeds, then Derek Chapman, then Deeds again. Bad and ugly. No good. UCLA, 40-27.

Sure, there are long-ago instances of two-quarterback success. Clete Casper and Ricky Turner took the Cougs to the Holiday Bowl in 1981.

They also took the Cougs to 3-7-1 in 1982.

The right answer? No such thing. Declare for Mencke and you’ll be reminded of the six interceptions he threw against USC. Declare for Birnbaum and you’ll hear that Mencke wouldn’t have thrown six picks if he’d been given the benefit of all those minutes Birnbaum spent wheel-spinning in September. On that note, if the worst that can be said of Price is that he was extra loyal to a player whose dues were paid up, then you’re groping for gripes.

And the young slinger - Jason Gesser - waiting in the wings? Even he doesn’t think he’s ready.

Only Price’s vote counts. Sadly, he’s not unanimous.

“It’s something I don’t want to do,” he said. “But I’ve got to try something and this is part of the solution.”

If you say so, Mike. But about this center thing…