Clean it up. Coach Rod Sandberg's message to his Whitworth football team this week doesn't get much clearer than that as the Pirates prepare to host Eastern Oregon in a nonconference football game on Saturday. The game kicks off at 1 p.m. at the Pine Bowl.
Cameron Ward will start at Washington State. Michael Penix Jr. will do so at Washington. Gunner Talkington is now the starter at Eastern Washington. All three are out to prove this fall that they are the next frontman to lead his team to great seasons. Because at these programs, through exhaustive recruiting and rigorous development and retention, excellent quarterback play has become the standard.
It's pretty much a given that the Golden Age of College Quarterbacking in our neck of the gridiron extends from the early 1980s to today. In that span, the college programs of the Inland Northwest have produced 10 NFL draft picks, five Walter Payton Award winners and 26 of the 30 winningest quarterbacks in the schools' collective histories. So 40 pretty good years. Let's see if we can come up with the best quarterbacks, from 1 to 40.
As disappointing as last year’s 7-3 record was to the Whitworth Pirates, with nine returning starters each on defense and offense, they are getting a rare chance to redeem it with almost entirely the same roster.
The saying suggests that records are meant to be broken, but the circumstances of these records – all of them the best in their respective program and some also records at their respective level of college football – make these marks particularly unique and difficult to surpass.
As a freshman, Jaedyn Prewitt saw only a little game action as quarterback for the Whitworth Pirates, attempting and completing just three passes in his first season.