CARDINALS

Petrino: QB Gardner has to show he can start

Jeff Greer
@jeffgreer_cj

GREENSBORO, N.C. – There's a phrase in college football recruiting that might apply to new University of Louisville quarterback Will Gardner's offseason.

"Derecruiting" is the process by which a big-time high school prospect goes from a hotly pursued player to the bottom of the totem pole on a college roster, a talented but inexperienced youngster who must earn his way onto the field.

It's a painful and sometimes harsh process for young players who are accustomed to loads of attention and high praise from the coaches who recruit them and writers who fawn over them.

Gardner was widely presumed as the likely replacement for Teddy Bridgewater as the Cardinals' starting quarterback this year and was clearly No. 1 after spring practice. But new coach Bobby Petrino has walked back that certainty in recent months.

Petrino still very much likes Gardner, a 6-foot-5 redshirt sophomore from southern Georgia, though the preseason camp that starts in two weeks won't be a quarterback coronation by any means.

"He has to go out and perform and show it," Petrino said. "I do that with every position. We have a group of guys we list at No. 1. We think they're going to be No. 1, but it's their job to keep that spot and the No. 2 guys' job to take their jobs."

In the early days after Petrino took over the program, the new coaching staff wasn't sure which quarterback would emerge as the successor to Bridgewater, a three-year starter who became an instant star at U of L and a first-round draft pick in May.

Gardner was considered the most likely option, but redshirt freshman Kyle Bolin was a big-name prospect out of high school and senior Brett Nelson had a chance to impress the new coaches after failing to gain the attention of the previous staff.

So instead of calling out the No. 1, 2 and 3 quarterbacks, Petrino and his staff just addressed them as a group, studying which player ran to the front of the line and took control.

Gardner, his coach and teammates say, beelined to the front and never looked like anything but the starter, running a 4.6-second 40-yard dash in workouts and wowing teammates and coaches alike with his arm strength and new-found leadership skills.

"He's got a nice arm on him," senior receiver DeVante Parker said. "He comes ready to work every day."

Linebacker Lorenzo Mauldin said Gardner changed from a quiet, soft-spoken backup to a football chatterbox, regularly calling out the defense this spring when it was struggling in practice.

"You can tell he wants to step up and be the leader of the offense and of the team as a whole," Mauldin said.

Media at this week's Atlantic Coast Conference Football Kickoff event asked only about Gardner, and Mauldin and Parker spoke of him as the starter.

Petrino did, too, though he continued using hedges such as "if the season started today" or "likely" starter.

Yet with Nelson struggling through spring practice and Bolin undergoing meniscus surgery that kept him out of conditioning workouts this summer, Gardner's main competition for playing time appears to be incoming freshman Reggie Bonnafon and junior-college transfer Pat Thomas.

Bonnafon, a former Trinity High School star, enrolled this summer and is playing catch-up on a complex and rather beefy playbook. Thomas is coming off an injury and appears to be more of a depth signing than anything else.

In plain terms, the situations around Gardner make it hard to believe the starting job is anyone's but his.

Yet that won't stop Petrino and his staff from pushing him, insisting he still must improve his accuracy and consistently step into his throws.

"I like him a lot," Petrino said. "He'd be our starter if the season started today.

"We just want (preseason camp) to be as competitive as possible."

Reach Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter @jeffgreer_CJ.