Flacco found home, glory at Delaware

Joe Flacco was sick of it.

He was sick of sitting, sick of watching and sick of waiting. In… Joe Flacco was sick of it.

He was sick of sitting, sick of watching and sick of waiting. In the end, all he wanted to do was play football.

Flacco, a senior quarterback for the University of Delaware, originally came to Pit but transferred after his second season when he lost the battle for the starting quarterback position to Tyler Palko.

Two seasons, 41 touchdown passes and 7,046 yards later, the 6-foot-6, 230-pound gunslinger from Audubon, N.J., is being looked at as one of the nation’s top NFL prospects at the quarterback position.

“It was always kind of his [Palko’s] job, and I wish the coaches would have just told me that,” Flacco said.

“They told me I had a chance to compete for the job, and I never really got that chance. I wanted to go somewhere I could play football.”

And Delaware turned out to be just that place.

Because of scholarship rules Flacco was ineligible to play in games his first year as a Blue Hen, so he only practiced. The next year, though, in 2006, he immediately became the team’s starting quarterback.

But injuries put a damper on the Blue Hens’ campaign that year, and the team finished with a disappointing 5-6 record.

Although Flacco had a good season, he knew he only had one more shot to make a big name for himself.

And it was then, his senior year, that he made the leap from an unknown kid in the shadows of Division I-AA to the top-tier of elite college signal-callers.

The Blue Hens rode Flacco’s arm to an 11-4 record and a trip to the Division I-FCS national championship game against Appalachian State. He completed 63.5 percent of his passes for 4,263 yards and 23 touchdowns next to just five interceptions and threw for more than 300 yards seven different times. In a game against Navy in late October, he completed 30 of 41 passes for 434 yards and four touchdowns.

Mike Byrne, a senior offensive lineman for the Blue Hens who is also planning on trying out at the NFL combine later this year, said Flacco has something different about him compared to other quarterbacks he’s played with.

“Joe could get rid of the ball while he was getting hit or when he was on the run,” Byrne said. “[The team] could always lean on him, and I knew he was going to get it done.”

Others recognized it, too, and when the season came to an end, Flacco was honored as the Colonial Athletic Association’s Co-Offensive Player of the Year and was the Eastern College Athletic Conference’s Player of the Year.

His numbers and awards may have surprised some people but not him.

Since he was a kid, Flacco dreamt of playing on the big stage, first in college and then on Sundays in the NFL. But after riding the bench at Pitt, he realized in order to prove the depth of his talent he had to actually get out on the field.

“I definitely have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder,” Flacco said. “I never held a grudge, but I’m trying to prove that I can play.”

Flacco has indeed proven he can play at the collegiate level and will get a chance to compete against the most elite of college players in the prestigious Senior Bowl on Jan. 26.

Already rated the third-best senior quarterback in the upcoming NFL draft by ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr., Flacco, with a good performance in the Senior Bowl, will almost guarantee himself a spot on an NFL roster next year.

Byrne said he can’t wait to see what Flacco’s pro career will be like.

“He’s got an unbelievable arm on him,” Byrne said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And although Delaware isn’t nearly on the same level as USC or Michigan when producing pro talent, Flacco isn’t the first quarterback to come out of UDel and hope to make an impact. Rich Gannon, a four-time NFL Pro Bowl selection and the 2002 NFL most valuable player, was drafted in 1987 by the New England Patriots after his career as a Blue Hen came to a close.

But even with all the draft predictions and analysis, Flacco isn’t getting ahead of himself.

“I’m not going to listen to any of that until somebody’s actually calling me up and I get picked [in the draft],” he said. “But I know I can compete.”

If Flacco has it his way, he’ll be competing again next year – tormenting defensive secondaries the same way he has his whole life.

But from now on, he’ll be doing it on Sundays.