QB has grabbed the spotlight at BYU

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

A year ago at this time, Brandon Doman didn't know if he'd finish his college career as a backup quarterback or a free safety.

Now he's simply the poster boy for BYU football.

The 6-foot-1, 205-pound senior from Salt Lake City, who rarely so much as threw a pass in practice at the start of the 2000 season while backing up Bret Engemann and Charlie Peterson, is now the object of a postseason awards campaign by the Cougars.

Meet The Domanator.

BYU is releasing a poster this week of Doman wearing his football uniform under the headline "Domanator." It is a takeoff of the poster for the Oscar-winning movie "Gladiator" and will be the centerfold in future BYU game programs. It also is featured prominently on the school's byucougars.com website.

The school is also going to send out postcards of the poster to members of the Football Writers Association of America, broadcasters and other key media with the idea of promoting Doman for the Davey O'Brien Award (best college quarterback), all-Mountain West honors and maybe even Heisman Trophy consideration.

It seems only fitting that the BYU media relations department should take the Hollywood angle to promote their star quarterback because his story is a true rags-to-riches comeback that seems better suited for Tinseltown.

"A year ago I wasn't even sure I'd be playing quarterback or free safety," Doman said. "It wasn't until two of our other quarterbacks got hurt that I really got a chance to play."

Doman started the final two games of the LaVell Edwards era at BYU last season and led the Cougars (6-6) to back-to-back wins over New Mexico and in-state rival Utah.

Against the Lobos, he passed for 349 yards and rushed for 51 more to become the first BYU quarterback since Steve Young in 1983 to pass for more than 300 yards and rush for more than 50 yards in a game.

The following week he sent Edwards into retirement with a dramatic last minute 34-27 victory over Utah, scrambling in from four yards out for the winning touchdown after keeping the drive alive with a 34-yard completion to Jonathan Pittman on fourth-and-13 with 1:04 left.

When Gary Crowton met with the Cougars before the press conference announcing he would replace the legendary Edwards as head coach in Provo, one of the first things he did was praise the gutty play of Doman.

"Where's Brandon Doman?" Crowton asked. "Way to get into the end zone."

"That was kind of wild," Doman said. "It was very nice of him to do that in front of the team like that."

Doman has picked right up where he left off in Crowton's offense, leading BYU to a 3-0 start and No. 20 national ranking while the Cougars have piled up an NCAA-leading 55.3 points per game.

In BYU's season-opening 70-35 win over Tulane, Doman completed 25 of 31 passes for 286 yards while also rushing for 115 more yards. The following week in a 52-7 victory over Nevada-Reno, Doman played in only six first half series but still passed for 222 yards and a touchdown.

Then in the Cougars' 44-16 win at Cal on Sept. 8, Doman rushed for three touchdowns and passed for three more while racking up 318 all-purpose yards.

In three games this season, he has completed 52 of 76 passes (68.4 percent) for 780 yards and seven touchdowns and also has rushed 27 times for 160 yards and four more touchdowns.

You have to go all the way back to Robbie Bosco in 1984 to find the last BYU quarterback to win his first five games as a starter. Doman was such a good option quarterback in high school that Nebraska recruited him hard.

"You can't help but believe in this guy," BYU center Jason Scukanec told the Provo Daily Herald this week.

"I think the thing that makes Doman good is you don't know (what makes him good). There's nothing he says. There's nothing he does. There's some guys that when they walk into a room, they kind of command a presence. You know you should listen to what they're doing. Plus, when he's leading you down the field to 60 points a game. ..."

Even Doman admits he has been surprised at least a little by the explosiveness of the BYU offense.

"I knew we'd have a good team and a good offense," he said, "but I didn't think we'd be scoring that many points."

Doman credits a lot of hard work in the off-season for helping get the Cougars off to such a quick start.

"We spent a lot of time in the off-season working out," he said. "We were kind of the underdog going into this season and we wanted to go out and prove ourselves."

So far, so good.

Because the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 caused a postponement of BYU's Sept. 15 game at Mississippi State, Saturday's game against UNLV at Sam Boyd Stadium will be the first in 21 days for the Cougars.

"We can't wait to play again," Doman said. "It's been hard sitting around the last couple of weeks. We seemed to have things rolling pretty good and then to sit around this long has been tough. We're looking forward to getting back on the field and playing UNLV this week."