This article was first published in the Ute Insiders newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.
Sam Huard’s star couldn’t have shone much brighter than it did in high school.
He broke the Washington state record for career passing yards (13,214) and touchdowns (153) while garnering national attention for his play and receiving a coveted five-star rating by both 247Sports and Rivals.
He chose to further his football career at Washington, the school where his dad, Damon, was a star quarterback and held the all-time Huskies passing record before Sam’s uncle, Brock Huard, broke it.
Both Damon and Brock went on to have NFL careers and provided mentorship to Sam as he prepared to play at their alma mater.
But Sam didn’t have the storybook experience his father and uncle had in Seattle.
Incumbent quarterback Dylan Morris kept the job in Huard’s freshman year at Washington in 2021, with Huard playing sparingly in mop-up duty for three games before being tapped to start the Huskies’ Apple Cup rivalry game against Washington State after Morris had led Washington to just four wins that season.
The circumstances were stacked against Huard entering his first-ever collegiate start, with head coach Jimmy Lake fired two weeks prior and a team that was limping to the finish line. Instead of a monumental moment in his debut that would have provided a springboard for him to become next year’s starter, it turned into a nightmare from the beginning.
Huard threw for 190 yards and a touchdown on 55% accuracy but threw four interceptions as Washington State rolled over Washington 40-14, snapping the Huskies’ seven-game rivalry win streak.
The next year, Kalen DeBoer was hired as Washington’s new head coach, and Indiana transfer quarterback Michael Penix Jr. was named the new starter, leading the Huskies to an 11-2 record in his first season, and then announced his return to Seattle for the 2023 season.
Huard saw the writing on the wall and knew if he wanted playing time, he’d have to transfer.
“I definitely wanted to stick it out there and hopefully get an opportunity down the road, but I need to go play. I didn’t really get a senior year of high school because of COVID, hadn’t played for two years (in college). When Mike announced he was coming back, I knew I wasn’t going to play and that would’ve been a fourth year. That’s pretty tough as a quarterback, so I kind of had to make that move and go play,” Huard said.
As he looked to reboot his football career at FCS Cal Poly, there were moments where he struggled with doubts.
“Part of you is like, can I still do this?” Huard said.
He found that he still could, starting for the Mustangs while throwing for 2,205 yards on a 60.9% completion rate with 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, and also reconnected with his high school coach, Sheldon Cross, who was the offensive coordinator at Cal Poly.
Though overmatched Cal Poly, which hasn’t had a winning season since 2016 and was in its first year under new head coach Paul Wulff, didn’t see a lot of team success in a 3-8 finish, it reignited Huard’s belief in his abilities as a quarterback and gave him valuable college football experience.
“Just being able to go back out there and be the leader of the team and to go out and just compete and go through some losses, some adversity and fight through it out there on the field was the best thing I could have done. And I’m thankful for it,” Huard said.
Huard had transfer offers when he entered the portal for a second time, but chose Utah due to the stability of the program, which he called “one of the best programs in the country,” and offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig’s pro-style offense.
He knew coming in that not only would he take a backseat to starting quarterback Cam Rising, but he would also be in a three-way battle with Isaac Wilson and Brandon Rose to be Rising’s backup.
That’s fine with Huard.
“At the end of the day, you just got to keep pushing and keep working, and that’s what I love about it,” he said. “It’s not easy and it’s hard, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love to compete, and I love to just push myself every single day.”
Adversity has been the theme of Huard’s college career thus far, but he has learned and grown from it.
“Just looking back on that whole experience at UDub, going to Cal Poly, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It’s allowed me to be in this positionnow knowing that this is a great opportunity,” Huard said. “It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be hard, but I feel like all those things that I’ve gone through these past few years have prepared me to come in here and just compete every day and know that this thing is a process and know that when I get an opportunity that I’ll be ready to go.”
Being a post-spring transfer, Huard is behind the eight ball in terms of learning Utah’s offense — Rose is in his third year at Utah and Wilson participated in spring practices — but has done well in taking in the information, according to Utah coach Kyle Whittingham.
“Playing catch up in his assimilation of the offense,” Whittingham said. “He’s done a good job. He’s a really bright kid, has made up lot of ground and was executing pretty darn good given the situation, not being able to be here in spring ball, but that was the biggest deficit that he faced was just the lack of knowledge of the offense.”
Whittingham said Huard needs to put on more weight but praised his arm strength, his mechanics and the ways he’s been schooled at the position. At Big 12 media days, he also touched on the fact that Huard has game experience at the college level.
A Thursday scrimmage will be key in Utah’s quarterback evaluation process, and Whittingham hopes to have the backup quarterback depth chart “pretty well determined” by next week.
There has been a little bit of separation, Whittingham said, but not enough to pick someone definitively at the moment, so the battle to back up Rising continues.
In case you missed it
Former BYU basketball player Caleb Lohner is now a tight end at Utah, playing football for the first time since eighth grade. Here’s why tight ends coach Freddie Whittingham says he “has all the traits that you look for in a tight end.”
From the archives
Extra points
- Utah diver Emilia Nilsson Garip advances to Olympic 3-meter springboard semifinals (Deseret News)
- The top high school football recruit in Utah has revealed his top 10 schools (Deseret News)
- Former Utes Michelle Plouffe, Paige Crozon fall short of Olympic medal (Deseret News)