Norton's departure a concern

Bulldogs football program isn't the place for politics

By Darrell Copeland III
The Collegian

It had the makings for a match made in heaven.

Sean Norton had, and still has, the talent that high-octane offenses dream of. Entering Fresno State, Bulldogs coach Pat Hill had declared him the most accurate quarterback he had ever recruited. As it stands now, Norton is still the most accurate quarterback Hill has recruited.

Norton was the guy from Hart High School in southern California, which produces one Division I quarterback after another. He beat Cal quarterback Nate Longshore and Arizona State quarterback Rudy Carpenter in head-to-head match-ups in high school.

You understand by now the point I am making. Norton is one of the best quarterbacks to ever come out of the state of California. The guy is a pure gamer, or winner as they call them.

He’s the kind of guy that turns a bad team an average team, and an average team into a good one, and so on. Oh yeah, and he’s 5feet, 11 inches tall. No problem here, that just means he comes with a chip on his shoulder (in typical Bulldogs fashion) and something to prove.

Now it’s time to talk about the ugly part. In his first couple of seasons, Norton suffered extensive injuries that ruled him out of competition. And then the 2006 season arrived, and a quarterback competition between Norton and eventual winner Tom Brandstater was announced.

Only something was missing. I had the luxury of attending each and every practice during summer camp, and like many Bulldogs fans, zeroed in on the quarterback battle, among other things.

Practice after practice went by, and Brandstater continued to receive all of the first string snaps.

I’ll interject at this point to tell you what I saw and have seen in practices this season. Brandstater is a very good quarterback — in drills. But put a defense in front of him and tell him them to go live and the true quarterback comes out. Norton on the other hand, was just as strong in the drills, only when live action came around, he got better.

There is a point to be made at this time, and that is that somewhere, at sometime, Sean Norton fell out of favor with the Fresno State coaching staff. Whatever events occurred behind the scenes were wiped up and swept under the rug for nobody to know about. At least that’s the way us outsiders are led to believe.

It’s about time for the truth to show its face, because as of now, it looks as though Norton was the poor victim of some unfortunate in house politics.

Well, there’s always Ryan Colburn.

Comment on this story in the Sports forum >>