Lobster tale is a script waiting to be written

Cliff Stoudt, one-time backup to the stars, knew the secret of his station.

“The way to stay popular as a quarterback,” he said, “is never to play.”

In other words, Marshall Lobbestael, the honeymoon is over.

Sure, you’ve been all the rage for a few days. You lit up Portland State like Clark Griswold’s rooftop at Christmas. You were everybody’s instant pet, “the Lobster” – an intentional malapropism made all the more charming by the red hair under that helmet. You were even Pac-10 player of the week because somebody had to be, and the conference wasn’t exactly teeming with superstars last Saturday. Or the Saturday before. Or … well, you get the idea.

And now you’re the starting quarterback at Washington State.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Surely Lobbestael is all too aware of how he came by the job: the two guys ahead of him broke their backs. In the same game. This is a terrible circumstance all the way around, but it also has to give the next guy in line pause.

Almost as terrifying is the thought of what happens after he becomes The Guy, and not just The Guy Behind The Guy Behind The Guy.

The call-in critiques. The message-board megalomania. The endless objections, dissections and disaffections. How he should have looked off this receiver and thrown to that one. How he held the ball too long, or threw it too soon. How he’s not mobile enough, or has happy feet.

How he has too many Facebook friends, distracting him from the task at hand.

Of course, the great ones embrace this nonsense, reveling in the opportunity to deliver in the face of skeptics, doubters and doofuses. But it will be well beyond Saturday before we know anything about the potential greatness of Marshall Lobbestael, clouded as it is by his youth, to say nothing of the decided lack of greatness around him.

The Cougars are three-touchdown underdogs to a team that had to resort to its fourth-string quarterback last week. The Lobster could be Lobster Newburg by dinner time.

Or he could be flavor of the next four years.

His coaches speak favorably of his delivery (quick and accurate), studiousness, presence and moxie – tempered, as always, with caveats about his inexperience and whether he has the strength to withstand a season’s worth of beatings.

The evidence from the Saturday wipeout was impressive, if not definitive. Using the arcane NCAA math, Lobbestael’s quarterback rating for the night was 234.3 (Celsius, not meters). Though it technically wasn’t his debut (he threw two passes and had one picked in a cameo against Cal) nor a start, it stands up spectacularly against extended first appearances by other Cougar quarterbacks: Ryan Leaf (150.7), Drew Bledsoe (179.0), Brad Gossen (232.2) and even Jack Thompson (120.4), who watched from the sideline on Saturday.

Though, alas, they weren’t fortunate enough to have their coming out parties against Portland State.

And, yes, all sorts of who-dat quarterbacks around the Pac-10 emerged from the shadows a year ago to perform great feats, though the follow-ups have not been forthcoming this fall.

But currently, fan faith seems to be behind Lobbestael, which is not surprising considering the Cougar goings on of Weeks 1, 2 and 3. More concern seems to be directed toward his general safety and what happens if that isn’t maintained. As it stands, Lobbestael’s backups are Dan Wagner, who was pressed into unfortunate duty as a punter in Game 1, and J.T. Levenseller, the Pullman freshman who is supposed to be on a redshirt track.

Egad. Where’s Collin Henderson when you need him?

Such an emergency has, in fact, happened before – who can forget Derek Chapman’s 1-for-7 turn as a fourth-stringer against UCLA in 1993? But better to stay in the moment and recall the Cougs’ checkered past with third-stringers pressed into The Big Chance.

The won-lost record, predictably, isn’t so good – but sometimes the future was well served. This was surely true in 1995 when Chad Davis got the hook for insubordination, Shawn Deeds got the start but separated a shoulder and Ryan Leaf – really more of a No. 2 anyway – threw for 273 yards in a loss to Stanford to launch a career that would culminate in a Rose Bowl. In 1990, Bledsoe was leap-frogged over Gossen and Aaron Garcia and produced just one win, but it was the right call however clumsily it was handled.

And then there was the all-time third-stringer’s moment – Hank Grenda’s out-of-nowhere start in the 1968 Apple Cup against Washington. It’s impossible to say who was caught more off guard – Grenda, stuck behind Jerry Henderson and Rich Olsen, or coach Jim Sweeney, who dreamed up the scheme the night before.

Well, the Huskies were surprised, too. All Grenda did was throw for two touchdowns, run for another, kick a field goal and three extra points, accounting for all the scoring in a 24-0 blitz at Albi Stadium.

Grenda’s theory was simple: “You can’t play with fear.”

It’s a good place to start for Lobbestael. After all, it’s not a popularity contest anymore.