Carson Coffman Wants An Opportunity to Compete

By By Jonah Rosenblum

Before Carson Coffman arrived in Utah to commence his Arena Football League career, he consulted with a former teammate from Kansas State as to the quarterback situation in Salt Lake City. Told that the Blaze were bringing back “a guy that started for us last year”, Coffman eagerly packed his bags and went to Utah with dreams of standing behind center. Those dreams would be dashed the moment he laid eyes on Tommy Grady.

"I had no idea," Coffman said. "I had never really watched Arena Football or anything and I didn't know who the good players were. Tommy Grady was there and I was like, ‘Holy cow, this guy is pretty good.’”

What his teammate, wide receiver Ernie Pierce, had neglected to tell him was that Grady was coming off of an unbelievable 2011 campaign in which he completed 65.9 percent of his passes for 107 touchdowns against just 11 interceptions. Coffman might as well have been entering a quarterback competition with Tom Brady.

Sure enough, Coffman made the team but never cracked the starting lineup. He finished the season with just 10 pass attempts, completing three of them for 29 yards.

"I was expecting to at least be able to compete for a starting job and that wasn't really the case," Coffman said. "I mean well-deserved to Tommy. He's a great quarterback and he deserves to start over me."

That being said, Coffman was hungry to play, and realizing that he was unlikely to get that opportunity in Salt Lake City, he once again packed his bags, this time for the Windy City, where he said that the Chicago Rush had assured him of at least a chance to fight for the starting job.

"I just felt like they wanted me there," Coffman said. "It was good to feel wanted, and I felt like that was the case with them."

Coffman was assigned on November 13.

Naturally, the Rush weren't about to just hand the starting quarterback job to a player with just 10 career pass attempts in the League. So, Chicago brought in a trusty veteran six days later in Gino Guidugli, a 29-year-old signal-caller who tossed 86 touchdowns as Milwaukee's starting quarterback last year.

Coffman wasn't upset. He said that the Rush had been honest with him and had told him that they would be bringing in another quarterback. He's not likely to be rattled by Guidugli's presence either, not after a career in which he has already fought for starting jobs with the likes of Tommy Grady, Josh Freeman and Collin Klein.

"I've competed against Josh Freeman and Heisman Trophy finalist Collin Klein," Coffman said, referring back to his college days at Kansas State. "I feel like I can compete to win a starting job. It's not like it's anything new to me. All I wanted was just a fair chance to compete and that's what they told me I'd get."

Competition has always been a prime motivator for Coffman. All you have to do is go back to his days at Kansas State, when Josh Freeman – who has already tossed 25 touchdowns against just eight interceptions this season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – and Coffman arrived in Manhattan, Kansas, in the same year. To some extent, Coffman was just grateful to be there, since he said that then-coach Bill Snyder hadn't recruited either Freeman or Coffman, preferring a more mobile quarterback behind center. But Snyder stepped down after 17 years at the Wildcats' helm, paving Freeman and Coffman's way to Manhattan.

While both quarterbacks arrived in Manhattan at the same time, Freeman quickly got the upper hand, attempting 270 passes in his freshman season at Kansas State. His debut didn't go all that well, as he completed just 51.9 percent of his passes, throwing 15 interceptions against just six touchdowns. Still, it was preferable to sitting on the bench.

"It's definitely a grind being the backup quarterback," Coffman said. "Putting in all the work and not being able to get out there on gameday and do what you want to do, it's definitely a grind. It takes a lot to keep pushing through."

Coffman would have to push through for a couple more years, before finally getting his chance to start in 2009, when Freeman had already pushed his way into the National Football League. Unfortunately, Coffman's first season behind center didn't go so well, and Grant Gregory, a transfer who had previously attended Indiana and South Florida, quickly began taking many of Coffman's snaps. Ultimately, Gregory won the job, while Coffman failed to attempt a single pass in the Wildcats' final five games of the season, finishing his junior campaign with four interceptions against just two touchdowns.

"I've been through a lot of struggles, a lot of ups and downs in my career," Coffman said. "I just wanted to go out and finish on a strong note."

Heading into his senior season, Coffman had just 163 pass attempts in four years in Manhattan. In comparison, Freeman reached that total 10 games into his collegiate career. Coffman would toss precisely 100 more, 263 pass attempts, in 2010. Even then, he had to keep Collin Klein, this year's Heisman Trophy finalist who excelled the few times he did take the field in 2010, at bay. In some ways, the competiton only made him stronger.

"Collin is one of the best people and one of my best friends and just being able to compete with him pushed us both to levels that we hadn't seen before," Coffman said. "Just going into the film room and seeing Collin already there, I'm thinking, 'Ah shoot, the next day, I got to get in a little earlier.'"

Rather than losing friends through competition, Coffman said that he gained knowledge through competition.

"If you get a good room of guys, a good room of quarterbacks, you're all going to be good," Coffman said. "We all have that desire to be good. All of them want to start. If there are people better than you, then you're going to push yourself to better performances."

With that positive attitude, Coffman didn't leave Manhattan empty-handed. He waited in the wings until 2010, when he finally got the chance to show what he could do. And at the conclusion of an up-and-down season, Coffman had led his team to its first bowl game since 2006. Coffman relished the opportunity, completing 17-of-23 passes for 228 yards and two touchdowns at Yankee Stadium in Kansas State's Pinstripe Bowl loss to Syracuse.

"That was a pretty awesome experience," Coffman said. "It was a pretty iconic stadium. Being able to play my final game there was really special. It feels good to see them succeed now. We didn't do all of that hard work for my senior year, for my seven-win season. There's a period of time that you have to get through to get to where they're at now."

Just like he left Manhattan with plenty of lessons learned from working with a coaching great like Bill Snyder, who returned for his final two seasons, and quarterback greats like Freeman and Klein, Coffman will hardly leave Utah empty-handed. He couldn't have picked a better quarterback to study under and learn from than Grady, who has quickly become one of the top signal-callers in the AFL. Yet, for all of the fine numbers that Grady has put up, Coffman took something more intangible away.

"It was a great experience sitting behind Tommy," Coffman said. "Tommy's calm demeanor is one of the best things I took away from that. He doesn't get rattled at all. He just has this confidence that we're going to score on every drive, and that's one of the big things I appreciated from Tommy and that's what I'm going to add more of to my game."

Coffman is ready to rejoin the fray. He hopes that he can pull off the unlikely journey from Yankee Stadium to Allstate Arena. Yet, even if he isn't under center to start the season for the Chicago Rush, he'll just be grateful for the opportunity to compete.

"They told me the job isn't yours but you're going to get a fair opportunity to compete," Coffman said. "That's all I was really looking for."