Nebraska Football: Remembering Tommie Frazier

What he should be remembered for is not his touchdown specifically, but the precision and intelligence with which he ran the option, an offense that relies almost exclusively on the decision-making skills of the quarterback.

He was the quintessential option quarterback, the epitome of balance, a statement evidenced by his 47 touchdown passes and 36 touchdown runs in his career.

He is a throwback Tim Tebow, a bruising runner, and an accurate and clutch passer.  Frazier never eclipsed 40 combined touchdowns like Tebow did, but Frazier also had Lawrence Phillips and Ahman Green in his backfield instead of Mon Williams and Kestahn Moore.

He is the only man to win three MVPs of a national championship game, and he is credited as putting Nebraska football back on the map—with help from Osborne of course.

He is in my mind, the best big game performer, the best dual threat quarterback, the fiercest competitor, and one of the toughest players to ever grace the field.

An interesting (or maybe not) note:

I had always known about the legal trouble that had followed Lawrence Phillips around, dogging him throughout his acclaimed college career and short NFL career.  But when I initially started out to do a story on Frazier, I was under the impression that he had never played in the NFL because of drugs and drug abuse.

For whatever reason, I remembered Frazier sitting out the majority of that 2004 season because of a drug-related suspension and arrest.  Little did I know that Frazier was not out of control at all.

Instead he was sidelined that year for terrible blood clots in his legs, something that kept him out of the NFL, and was later discovered to be a side effect of Crohn's disease, something Frazier learned he had long after his playing career was over.

Shame on me for thinking that Frazier was a drug-addled party boy who couldn't cut it in the pros.  Instead he went on to serve as an assistant coach with Baylor and the head coach of Doane College (albeit a bad one—his record with Doane was 3-17).

Look through the annals of history.  Michael Vick, Steve Young, Randall Cunningham, and Daunte Culpepper are at the head of a very small list of successful running quarterbacks.  But look even further, and you will see that no option quarterback has ever been a successful pro.

I firmly believe Tommie Frazier would have been the first and only successful option quarterback in the pros.  Now I guess we will have to see the modified version when Tebow goes pro.

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