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He didn't throw many touchdown passes in his career. He barely completed more than 50 percent of his attempts. And his team didn't win as many as it lost.
Still, there's something about Stanford quarterback T.C. Ostrander that makes him an intriguing draft possibility. Er, make that someone ... someone like Trent Edwards.
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| Ostrander says his game against Oregon showed 'I can play at a high level.' (Getty Images) |
Like Edwards, Ostrander was a highly rated high-school recruit. Like Edwards, he was supposed to excel at the next level. And, like Edwards, he was treated like a piñata in college -- struggling through injuries, sacks and losing performances.
"It was definitely frustrating," Ostrander said, "especially the losing. That was something I was not used to."
Now he awaits the next step in his development as a quarterback, and welcome to the NFL Draft. Ostrander won't be chosen the first day, but so what? He should be drafted, largely because someone might find in T. C. Ostrander what Buffalo did in Trent Edwards.
That's the message Ostrander has been passing on to NFL teams, and it should resonate with someone on Sunday.
"I never doubted my physical talent," he said. "It's an advantage coming from Stanford. I had three different head coaches, which made it difficult, but because of that I got a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge. The hard part was not winning games, but I never lost my confidence."
Ostrander has the size (6-feet-2, 227 pounds) that interests pro teams. He has the arm. The poise. The smarts. The confidence. And those 31 touchdowns and one interception the final eight games of his senior season in high school tell you he has the accuracy.
What he didn't have at Stanford was the support. In one game last year he was sacked seven times, later bowing out when he had a seizure -- presumably from medication he was taking to reduce the pain from the experience.
Ironically, he suffered the seizure at a Palo Alto restaurant while watching -- who else? -- Edwards on TV. He missed four of the final eight games because of the incident and didn't run at the scouting combine or Stanford's pro day because of a hamstring injury.
But don't let that fool you: The guy could make someone a solid pro.
"I don't pay attention to what people say," he said. "I don't let myself get rattled by things that are not in your control. One of the biggest things I've been able to do is focus on what I can do to do a better job. And I think if you look at when I played -- and we played a pretty tough schedule -- I got the job done."
