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Quick-Silver: Sophomore catches on for Mountaineers
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Appalachian State’s Brian Quick catches a pass over a Richmond defender.
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Published: October 23, 2009
Brian Quick arrived at Appalachian State as a project, a 6-5 basketball standout who had played just one season of high-school football.
The project seems to be nearing completion.
"I'm getting there," Quick said.
Quick's performance last Saturday was a bit of a showcase of what could come. He caught a career-high eight passes for 181 yards in a 44-34 victory over Wofford and scored on pass plays covering 27 and 58 yards.
On each touchdown, he took advantage of a smaller defender. At 6-5, 210 pounds, Quick isn't an ideal matchup for most defensive backs.
"There's a lot of field, and he's a big target who can run," Coach Jerry Moore of the Mountaineers said.
Quarterback Armanti Edwards said: "It's kind of hard to miss him. He's a good athlete. He's tall. You either have to double-team him and leave somebody else open or trust a one-on-one matchup."
Quick, a shooting guard at Ridge View High School in Columbia, S.C., said he had basketball offers from Miami and South Carolina. But he wanted to play football after a trial-run senior season that ended with 885 yards and 11 touchdowns receiving and an invitation to play in the Shrine Bowl.
He has proceeded slowly at Appalachian, redshirting in 2007 and making just one catch through the first five games last season.
Then, he had a breakthrough against Georgia Southern. Quick caught his first touchdown pass, going high over a defender in the end zone for crucial points in a 37-36 victory.
He finished last season with seven touchdown catches and was a primary target in the playoffs.
Quick, now a sophomore, said he's still learning, still seeking consistency and still has trouble sometimes deciphering coverages. And, he said, Edwards occasionally fusses at him. "I went up there the first couple of times and just lined up and he said, ‘Read the coverage the next time,'" Quick said after last week's game at Wofford.
"He said, ‘You're wide open, one-on-one back there.' I was like, ‘I didn't know.' He got on me. I said, ‘I'm sorry, Armanti.' He didn't want to talk."
It worked out fine. Quick continued a two-season run of dominance against the Terriers and now has 12 catches for 353 yards and five touchdowns in the two games.
"I wanted to show him I know how to play the game," Quick said. "He gave me the opportunity and the coaches gave me the opportunity to make plays."
Edwards, who rents a house with Quick, said: "He's made a complete turnaround. He was a basketball player coming out of high school so it took him a couple of years to understand the game.
"You never know everything. I'm still learning, too. I just feel like nobody can hold him one-on-one and I keep reminding him of that…. Now that he's understanding it, he's becoming unstoppable.
"He can be scary good. Everybody got a glimpse of it at Wofford."
tbowman@wsjournal.com.
727-7320
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