JC Smith’s new QB contender once played at UCLA

UCLA ATHLETICS

Former New Haven quarterback Parker McQuarrie, a four-star recruit who spent two seasons at UCLA, has transferred to Johnson C. Smith, where he’ll compete against Josh Jackson for the starting job. Jackson is a transfer from Central Connecticut State, an FCS program.

Johnson C. Smith’s starting quarterback derby is now a two-man race.

Parker McQuarrie, a transfer from New Haven (Conn.) who spent two years at UCLA, has signed with the Golden Bulls, where he’ll compete with Josh Jackson for the starting spot. Jackson, a transfer from Central Connecticut State who finished spring drills as the incumbent, was the lone quarterback on the roster after Andrew Attmore and Trooper Floyd transferred. 

McQuarrie, a four-star recruit at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, before signing with UCLA, will get his chance in summer camp with a program that posted a school-best 10- record, won the CIAA title and earned the school’s first Division II playoff berth.

“He was really about just really wanting to get opportunity to compete and to win,” coach Maurice Flowers said. “That was something that came out in a lot in our conversations – he just wanted to have an opportunity to compete and that goes right down our alley. He wasn’t looking to be promised anything about the starting job. He just wanted to be able to come in and compete and help us win some games by whatever means necessary.”

McQuarrie and Jackson are similar in several respects. Both are physically imposing – McQuarrie is 6-foot-7, 235 pounds; Jackson 6-5, 215. Both have two years of eligibility. They also lack collegiate game experience, but Flowers believes he can maximize their potential in an offense that averaged 33.6 points per game last year.

“In any position, and especially the quarterback position, you’d love to have a guy that's played a lot,” he said. “But if you look at the programs where these guys have come from, they’re coming from programs that have done very have done well. Josh is coming from Central Connecticut State. They just won their conference championship and went to the (FCS) playoffs. They’ve got established quarterbacks already on the roster. …

“And now you have Parker, who was at UCLA when Chip Kelly was there (as coach), so you know they’re going to have an influx of top-rated quarterbacks. He was a four-star [recruit] coming out of high school. …  So those people don't just throw around offers.”

“The quarterback position is unlike any in sports and to be able to walk into a situation and simply just start and say, ‘OK, let’s go win’ those situations don't happen very much most of the time,” he said. “They happen at a rebuilding place. Now for us to have two those guys not having game experience, does it bother me or concern me? It does a little in just that is it going to catch them off guard. But heck, if you look at these guys, there shouldn’t be too much that surprises them, because they’ve been practicing against FCS, FBS caliber competition every single day. You would think that they should not get surprised by much that they're going to see with us.”

Flowers is leaving open the possibility of signing another quarterback, recalling his first two seasons when injuries forced him to start a fourth-string freshman at one point. He doesn’t want a repeat. 

“The way that we do business, we say we’ve got to have at least two for sure, because we know what it’s like to be without a trigger man,” he said. “For two years after we lost our starting quarterback, we were reduced to 3 yards and a cloud of dust, which is far from the way that we want to play football. 

“We have outstanding running backs – yes, we want to run the football. Our receiving corps is very good. We have good tight ends but when you’re able to spread the ball out and make a defense honest, that creates more problems. It’s very important to us that we have quarterbacks that can enable us to play football, play offense the way that we want to play offense, and that is to be aggressive.”

Jackson has a head start on McQuarrie in learning the offense, but Flowers is eager to see if that’ll be the case on Aug. 29 when JCSU opens the season at Benedict. Either way, the goal is to give both a chance to break through.

“I would say Josh is the leader, because he has been there and learned and went through a spring, but both of these guys are hungry, and so for me, that really covers up some of the lack of actual playing experience on a team,” he said. “When you’ve got guys hungry to prove themselves, they’ve been at places where they did not crack the starting lineup for whatever reason, now they’ve got an opportunity with us, and that’s all you really want in life, is an opportunity to show what you’ve got.”

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