All-American. Heisman candidate. Possibly the best quarterback in the nation. Omar Jacobs has heard it all.
“I can’t even walk down the street or take a ride down in my car,” Jacobs said.
Simply the latest ultra-talented signal-caller to hail from the Mid-American Conference, Jacobs burst onto the national scene with a season that even Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich or Ben Roethlisberger would envy.
In his first year as a starter directing the Bowling Green attack, Jacobs tossed a conference record 41 touchdown passes, but even more mind boggling was his interception total (or, more appropriately, lack thereof). Jacobs threw just four picks, establishing an NCAA record for touchdown-to-interception ratio.
“He had one of the best years in the country last year — best years possibly ever by a quarterback by his stats last year,” Wisconsin linebacker Mark Zalewski said. “It’s going to be a huge challenge for us and we’re just going to have to be ready for them to spread us out.”
Amazingly, Jacobs rewrote the Bowling Green record books while nursing a pair of midseason foot injuries. Despite the setbacks, the Falcon signal-caller managed to rush for 300 yards and four touchdowns for the season.
“Certain things, like certain runs they wanted me to do … I didn’t really have that burst or that get-up that I needed to turn the corner or get that extra three yards,” Jacobs said. “So [the injuries] kind of altered my running ability a little bit, but I still could throw the ball.”
The revamped Wisconsin defense will face perhaps its most difficult challenge of the season in trying to stop Jacobs and Bowling Green’s pass-happy attack in Saturday’s season-opener. Despite his lofty passing numbers and play-making ability, Jacobs operates the Falcon attack with a cerebral quality, meaning UW will be hard-pressed to force him into silly mistakes or turnovers.
“He makes the right decision,” Wisconsin cornerback Brett Bell said. “He always has four or five different choices to make, but he always makes the right decision. If his first check isn’t there, he’ll go to his [next] check. If the second check isn’t there, he’ll go to his third check. He never takes chances.”
In addition to making smart choices, Jacobs plainly and simply does not take sacks. Bowling Green yielded just 13 sacks a season ago, tops in the MAC. And while a huge part of that stat was the play of the underrated Falcon offensive line, Jacobs’ quick release and head coach Gregg Brandon’s offensive scheme also play large roles.
“[Jacobs is] in the shotgun. A lot of it is quick releases. A lot of it is sprint-outs, where it’s hard to get to him anyhow and the ball can come out if you do get pressure,” UW head coach Barry Alvarez said. “So they’ve devised a scheme where it’s difficult. You can put pressure on him, he can release it quickly, but you’re really not going to get many sacks against him.”
Regardless of Jacobs’ penchant for getting rid of the football decisively and, most of the time, effectively, as evidenced by his 66.9 completion percentage, the Wisconsin defensive line will go about its job with a business-as-usual approach.
“I don’t think we can treat him any different than we treat any other quarterback that comes in here,” UW defensive line coach John Palermo said. “We’ve got to put good pressure on him when he drops back. He’s the kind of quarterback that’s not going to take a sack. He’s going to get rid of the football. We’re going to have to do some things to change up, to try to get him off a rhythm. But we can’t control who Omar Jacobs is; we can just control how we play.”
After falling short in last season’s opener at Oklahoma 40-24, Jacobs relishes a second chance to play the role of underdog in another raucous environment.
“Just going into that type of atmosphere to play a football game, start a season on national TV … I think it’s going to be fun,” Jacobs said. “I heard Wisconsin is one of the top football schools. I think just to see that atmosphere for the first game … it’s going to be fun.”
