With the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga already on its second quarterback in the regular-season finale last week at Alabama, head coach Rusty Wright watched (perhaps in horror) as redshirt freshman Luke Schomburg absorbed a hard hit from Crimson Tide linebacker Chris Braswell.
Wright then watched in relief as the 6-foot-3, 194-pounder from Huntsville got up and signaled he was fine.
"Luke came back and said, 'Well, he won't be in the game anymore," UTC offensive lineman Griffin McDowell recalled, and Braswell was indeed ejected for targeting on the play.
Later on, the Mocs were moving the ball downfield when Schomburg walked into the huddle, looked around and told the rest of the offense to "calm down."
"He showed us that he's not going to go out there and freak out," McDowell said. "He was very relaxed, very calm. We're moving the ball, and he's telling us to focus on the next play, and I'm thinking, 'I'm a sixth-year guy.' This is his first time playing (as a college starter) — against Alabama — and he's doing a great job."
With a passing line of 10-for-21 for 107 yards with no touchdowns and an interception in Tuscaloosa, nobody is about to suggest that Schomburg carved up the Tide by any means, although his 54-yard pass to sophomore Javin Whatley was the longest completion against Alabama this season. Schomburg commanded the huddle, though, and after a slow start, he played with the sort of confidence his team needed — and showed he could thrive in the opportunity he had been waiting on since choosing the Mocs over Georgia State as a prep standout at Alabama's Sparkman.
Schomburg had appeared in four games this season with a combined passing line of 3-for-6 for 67 yards and a touchdown before being thrust into the lineup against a Football Bowl Subdivision power when the Mocs held out regular starter Chase Artopoeus with an upper-body injury.
"We've got a really tight Q (quarterback) room," Schomburg said. "I love those guys in there, and we come in and we prepare the same way every week. I prepare like I'm going to play, just in case, because you never know, just like what happened last week. If it happens, great, I'm going to go in, do my job and execute, and that's how it's been."
The 66-10 loss dropped the Mocs' record to 7-4, but less than 24 hours later, they learned the program was headed to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the first time since 2016.
Nothing has been or will be made official about the status of Artopoeus — a junior and UCLA transfer who in his first year at UTC has made 10 starts and passed for 2,672 yards and 20 touchdowns — prior to the Mocs' first-round game against Austin Peay (9-2) at 3 p.m. Eastern on Saturday in Clarksville, Tennessee.
This much seems certain, however: If Schomburg has to go, he'll be ready — and if Wright gets his wish, the young quarterback will also be a bit less excited.
"I hope he's a little calmer," Wright said this week. "I know he'll be excited because it's important, but you would think he's a little more settled in this one than he was at the start of that one last week, for sure."
The Mocs have kind of been in win-now mode since Schomburg got on campus, so he spent last season as the scout team quarterback and this season as a backup, all the while learning from everyone he's been around: Preston Hutchinson (the 2022 starter), Cole Copeland (the 2021 starter) and now Artopoeus, who won the starting job over Schomburg in the preseason.
He didn't complain about having to wait for a bigger role, instead choosing to try and implement parts of what he'd seen others execute into his own game.
"All of those guys were really good at like, one thing. Like really good at one thing or there was at least something I could learn from each one of those guys," Schomburg said.
"I want to be a leader. I've wanted to be a leader since I got here. I've wanted to lead this group, but you can't really lead the team until you play. You can be a locker room leader, I guess, but until you go out there and prove to those guys that I deserve to lead you, you can't really be that leader for them, so getting that experience and being able to show these guys that I can play at this level, I think that helps my confidence a lot and helps their confidence in me."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.