Winning, Duh — Why Steve Addazio only cares about one thing when recruiting a quarterback

FORT COLLINS, CO. — After back-to-back years without adding one, Colorado State football signed three different high school quarterbacks on Wednesday afternoon — two of which will be enrolling early and participating in spring ball. 

While most teams typically only add one or maybe two quarterbacks in a single recruiting cycle, in his virtual press conference with the media, Rams head football coach Steve Addazio explained that in order to be a winning program you have to be able to lock down the future of your offense.

“I’ve learned in my career that you should take as many quarterbacks as you can and hope that you get lucky and find that one guy that can be elite,” Addazio said. “How much success you have and how much you win is going to correlate heavily to that.”

The three scholarship QBs that will be joining the program for the 2021 cycle are Luke McAllister (Colorado), Chance Harris (New Mexico) and Evan Olaes (Las Vegas).

McAllister, a 6-foot-4, 190-pound gunslinger out of Palmer Ridge High School is definitely the most anticipated prospect of the bunch. In seven games this fall, McAllister completed 64 percent of his attempts, averaged 260 passing yards per game, and generally just put up massive numbers as he led Palmer Ridge to an appearance in the 4A State Championship Game. Alongside Harris, McAllister will now make the difficult jump from preps to Division 1 when he enrolls early this spring. 

“He’s got a great attitude and he’s a winner,” Addazio said of McAllister, before explaining that he loves the fact that the young QB’s upbeat attitude just seems to elevate everyone around him. “He’s fun to be around.”

Harris, on the other hand, is a 6-foot-0, 200-pound QB from Clovis, NM, who committed to CSU over an opportunity to stay in his home state and play for the Lobos. 

“I really love Chance Harris,” Addazio said. “He carries himself unbelievably on the field and he carries himself unbelievably on the phone or when you’re talking to him on Zoom. When you get to know him or listen to people talk about him, you start to see he’s just one of those special guys.”

Olaes is probably the least known of the three signees but the dual-threat athlete from Legacy High School (Las Vegas) had offers from Air Force, Army and New Mexico, in addition to the offer he picked up from Yale — so not only is there interest in his abilities but it’s clear that he’s a smart kid off of the field as well. 

“You’re always looking for a quarterback that has ‘it’. It comes in a lot of different sizes and a lot of different styles. Throwers, runners, a combination, I never worry about that,” Addazio said. “I’m trying to find a guy that has ‘it’ — a guy that has those characteristics and is a winner.”

Addazio continued, explaining that the types of quarterbacks he likes to recruit are highly competitive individuals. People that have consistently won throughout their careers and make their teammates around them want to compete. 

“They find a way to win,” Addazio said. “I can watch a game sometimes and feel the energy of a team — whether it be in our conference or just another conference on TV — when you watch that quarterback and say, ‘wow, look at this guy man.’ Look at his eyes, look at him on the sidelines between the series. You can feel it.”

According to Addazio, how pretty someone throws a football doesn’t dictate whether they will actually be a good quarterback or not. “That and a dime will get you a cup of coffee,” the second-year Rams coach said. He continued, explaining that some of the best pure throwers of the football are tremendous in 7-on-7 drills but can’t actually get it done when the game is on the line because they’re not true leaders. 

“It’s about winning and winning comes in all styles,” Addazio said. Drop-back quarterbacks, dual-threats — 5-foot-10 players, 6-foot-5 players — it really doesn’t matter to “Daz”. He doesn’t care what someone’s release looks like or how smooth they look in the pocket. At the end of the day, all the Rams head coach wants to know is: “can he win?” That’s why he loved coaching Tim Tebow so much at the University of Florida. It certainly wasn’t because of a beautiful throwing motion. Addazio loved Tebow because he was the fiercest player on the field at all times.

“Tebow would stare a bear down and deliver the ball on 3rd and medium,” Addazio said, before mocking the critics that could only see his unique throwing motion and nothing else. 

“Okay, well let me tell you something, if we play a pick-up game, I’m picking him,” Addazio said. “That’s all I can tell you. I don’t care about his throwing motion, I don’t care about all of that bullcrap. What I know is the guy is a flat winner… I’d never been around a guy like him before.”

In a game against the University of Tennessee, on 4th & 1 with the game on the line, Addazio recalled Tebow screaming at the sidelines to give him the ball. “I was like woah, Tim, settle down a little bit but what did we do? QB power. Let him run over them with the ball. Never got stopped one time.”

“I’m trying to find a guy that has “it”, Addazio said once again. 

The Ram faithful hope this staff has identified a player that has “it”. Whether it be the local stud or one of the dark horse options coming in from out of state, finding a leader to build around is going to be crucial to CSU’s success over the next couple of seasons. Of course it would be unfair to expect any of these players to have as memorable of careers as Tebow did in the swamp but if they can bring the same type of passion for the Green & Gold that No. 15 played every single snap with, they might just end up being as beloved in their respective communities. 

“If you find one of those guys, you’re going to win a lot of football games,” Addazio said. “That’s the way it is.”