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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Armed and ready


Former Washington State Cougars quarterback Josh Swogger has led the Montana Grizzlies to a No. 4 ranking this season.
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review

The situation: second down, 21 yards to go – a mere flick for a quarterback with Josh Swogger’s arm, which apparently is exactly what the other team was thinking.

“Actually, I was just trying to put us in a third-and-manageable situation,” he said. “We had four vertical routes going and the defense dropped off, so I just took off. I made a couple of guys miss and ended up getting 38 yards out of it.”

Ran over a cornerback at the end of it, too. Vince Young, eat your heart out.

“Sometimes things happen,” he laughed, “that you just can’t explain.”

Now there’s a working subtitle for the Josh Swogger Story. Not that Swogger himself invests much energy trying to divine answers to old gnawing questions. He has become, out of necessity, a lemons-into-lemonade guy, and at the moment it couldn’t be much sweeter. A year removed from a quarterback soap opera at Washington State, Swogger has reinvented himself at the University of Montana, where the Grizzlies are in familiar surroundings – atop the Big Sky Conference and ranked fourth in NCAA Division I-AA with a date Saturday at Woodward Field against Eastern Washington.

Not that the reinvention is complete.

For example, upon transferring to UM, he almost immediately unseated incumbent Cole Bergquist. But it was minor drama.

“If you asked our young quarterbacks,” said UM coach Bobby Hauck, “I’m sure they’d tell you, ‘I should have played better and they wouldn’t have felt the need to bring in a transfer.’ “

He’s already had some injury down time – a broken left pinky keeping him out of the home opener against South Dakota State.

And – the big run against Portland State last week notwithstanding – the golden arm he uncoiled at WSU continues to impress.

After Swogger strafed Sacramento State for 221 yards and three touchdowns in just one half, Hornets coach Steve Mooshagian – who coached receivers for the Cincinnati Bengals for four years – told the Missoulian, “That was NFL accuracy. He didn’t have guys wide open.”

And UM quarterbacks coach Steve Axman confided to Hauck after a couple passes in practice last week that he hadn’t seen anything like them in 18 years – or back when Axman tutored Troy Aikman at UCLA.

“He’s coached a lot of great quarterbacks,” Swogger allowed. “Even being mentioned with any of those guys is an honor.”

But it’s just talk.

More than anyone, Swogger understands that performance – and not just statistical performance – is necessary to get him where he wants to go, and that the clock is ticking.

“It’s my last go-round,” he said. “I want to have some fun, but I have to play well – and we have to win.”

Naturally, he had envisioned this quest playing out at Washington State, where he inherited the quarterback job as a sophomore in 2004. But after a 3-3 start, Swogger broke a bone in his left foot, leaving freshman Alex Brink to take over – and when the 2005 season convened, the Cougar coaching staff decided Brink was still the man.

“I just had a hard time with it – first coming back from the injury and then having Alex beat me out,” Swogger said. “It was a hard time in my life.”

For others, too. When the Cougars went into a death spiral in midseason, debate got heated – and not just peripheral to the program. The issue wasn’t starting Brink ahead of Swogger, necessarily – Swogger’s practice performance had to contribute to that – but the staff’s refusal to even consider substitution at times when Wazzu so obviously needed a change of pace.

“Instead of worrying about the team and people taking care of their responsibilities, they were questioning the coaching and the decisions and who should be playing,” Swogger said. “That’s fan stuff. They follow the team and put their two cents in – they want their guy to be the quarterback.

“But when it comes down to it, the coaches are the ones getting paid to make the decisions. And I felt for the coaching staff that way – they knew whatever they decided was going to affect other people’s lives.”

So Swogger did what he could not to stir up more controversy – and he did more. Coach Bill Doba revealed last summer – with gratitude – that Swogger came to him with a month left in the season to suggest that No. 3 quarterback Gary Rogers get whatever playing time there might be for a backup.

“I wasn’t in their plans, so that made sense,” Swogger said. “I didn’t want to be selfish.”

Now there’s a different imperative.

“You never know when it’s going to be your last day of practice so you need to take advantage of every opportunity to learn,” he said. “I learned that at WSU. I didn’t really understand it when I was younger. I thought practice was kind of a monotonous thing, something you had to do. Now it’s something I get to do.”

And sometimes things happen, that you just can’t explain.