Starting QB cram session for WSU's Lobbestael

It was 10:30 on Monday night and Paul Wulff was nearly cross-eyed from watching game film and studying scouting reports.

The Washington State football coach was tired. It was time to go home. Another hour in the office at Bohler Gym wasn’t going to offer any magical solutions to improve his team’s offensive execution or some great discovery about the tendencies of Saturday’s opponent – the Oregon Ducks.

But as Wulff and his staff packed up for the night, they noticed a flickering light from the film room.

Somebody was still there watching film? This late?

Wulff looked in and found freshman quarterback Marshall Lobbestael staring intently at the screen: watching, rewinding, watching in slow motion, rewinding and watching some more.

It was the same thing Lobbestael had been doing for most of the day, save for time spent in class.

“He’d been there all day,” Wulff said with a pride-filled chuckle. “We finally had to tell him to get the heck out of the office. He thinks he’s so far behind. Marshall is putting in too many hours.”

Call it a starting quarterback cram session for Lobbestael.

Because Saturday, with a homecoming crowd filling Martin Stadium and a wounded Ducks team in town and keen on proving last week’s embarrassing loss to Boise State was a fluke, Lobbestael will face the biggest test of his very brief college football career when he makes his first start for the Cougars.

With starting quarterback Kevin Lopina out indefinitely because of a fractured lumbar vertebrae and backup quarterback Gary Rogers’ season ended by a broken bone in his neck, Lobbestael has been forced into duty a little sooner than most expected.

“I’ve been getting a lot more text messages and calls this week,” Lobbestael said of the changes in his life. “Some of my friends have been giving me a hard time too. But other than that, nothing really.”

Lobbestael isn’t the type to let this go to his head. On most levels, he’s trying to treat this week the same as any other, with just some extra time to study film.

“I just try to do what I always do, which is get school right,” he said. “If I don’t, my parents will get on me. I’ll tell them right now, on the record, I’m doing my homework still.”

Of course Lobbestael, an honors student, has never been behind in school. But that’s not the case in football, at least not in college football. In terms of game repetitions, practice reps and overall experience, Lobbestael is way behind.

He knows it.

“I’m just trying to catch up on everything,” he said. “I knew the offense pretty good, I thought. Right now I’m just catching up and getting the game plan in my head and trying to get all my reads and checks down. The mental part is what I’m working on the most.”

Wulff knows it.

“Let’s all be realistic, he’s a redshirt freshman with little game experience being asked to step into the starting spot,” Wulff said.

His teammates know it.

“Obviously, he doesn’t have the game experience,” center Kenny Alfred said. “I’ve got no doubt in my mind that he’s preparing as hard as he can.”

And that’s something that Lobbestael has always done since his high school days at Oak Harbor. He put in the time and the effort. When he stepped on the field, he was going to be prepared.

“We would watch film every lunch session and he would watch film at home,” said Dave Ward, Lobbestael’s high school coach at Oak Harbor. “I don’t know even how many hours he spent watching at home. He was always ready to play. He’s driven to be ready.”

Ward, who now coaches at Everett’s Archbishop Murphy High School, remembers Lobbestael as a spindly, red-headed sophomore, trying to follow in his brother’s quarterbacking footsteps.

“What we first saw was the dead accuracy of his passes,” Ward said. “He had nice size and height (6-foot-3, 201 pounds today). But I didn’t know from that moment that he was going to be all-state, I didn’t know he would take us to a state championship. I didn’t know he would be a D-I player.”

Yet, he did all those things. Lobbestael became a three-year starter, who in his senior year led the Wildcats to the 4A state title, throwing for 2,776 yards and 34 touchdowns.

He inspired belief over time. He just kept getting better and pushing himself harder.

“He has a lot of natural ability, but it’s the other factors. … It’s the chemistry and his personality and things Marshall has chosen to become, to be a stand-up person, to care about other people, to not have a big ego,” Ward said. “He’s made himself into a leader and he’s maximized his God-given talent. He knows he has to work.”

Ward spent all summer telling anybody who would listen that all Lobbestael needed was a chance and he would succeed.

Coug fans got a taste of it last week when Lobbestael came in against Portland State and tossed touchdown passes on his first two attempts and threw for 149 yards.

“He has the ability to make others around him better and make them believe in him,” Ward said.

For now, Lobbestael just wants a few more practices with the first-team offense, since he had exactly zero reps before Saturday.

A couple of WSU freshmen quarterbacks in the recent past – Jason Gesser and Alex Brink – were rushed into starting because of injuries.

Can Lobbestael follow their path? He has at least one believer.

“My belief is that what Jake Locker does for the Huskies – come in and make his team better – Marshall can be that type of player for the Cougars,” Ward said. “Those kinds of players it doesn’t matter if they are a junior, a senior or a redshirt freshman.”

Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483