Kragthorpe: Decade of Cade: SUU QB's long road nears end

Cedar City » He's already 27 and his college football career is just about over, but Southern Utah quarterback Cade Cooper almost feels as if it is just beginning.

The Decade of Cade will end Saturday night in San Diego, taking Cooper from his senior season at Timpview High School in 2000 to his senior season at SUU, from one job of quarterbacking the Thunderbirds to another.

In between, well, hold on tight: a mission, a junior college, a transfer to a four-year school, a major injury, a marriage, a transfer and yet another transfer, leading to the likely end of his life of football, just when it's getting good.

After detailing the ups and downs and twists and turns,

he concluded, "I just kind of went along with the ride."

Asked her husband's most admirable quality, Chelsy Cooper cited "how well he's adapted."

He's had enough practice, certainly.

In a state where college programs traditionally include older players, Cooper is believed to be the oldest quarterback ever. Teammates affectionately call him "Gramps" and, when he celebrated his birthday in late September, the common joke was, "Are you 30?"

Yet three days later, when SUU played Texas State, Cooper was the youngest starting QB. The Bobcats' Bradley George is four months older, having played five years of pro baseball before starting college.

Cooper's advanced age is accounted for by his delaying his

two-year LDS Church mission to Nicaragua until the January after he graduated from Timpview (after transferring from Lehi for his senior season), then not enrolling full-time at Snow College for another year after his return, beginning his eligibility clock in 2005.

His college plans actually dated to the Ron McBride Administration. Cooper intended to play for Utah after his mission. So his odyssey began when McBride was fired, launching a series of moves that have enabled Cooper to say, with the benefit of knowing the ending, "I wouldn't have changed anything."

That's saying something, considering the potential opportunities he missed along the way.

If not for suffering a severe foot injury while merely reaching for a shotgun snap in BYU's spring Blue-White Game, Cooper believes he could have beaten out Max Hall and started for two years.

Instead, realizing his 2007 season was lost to the injury and correctly figuring Hall would become entrenched through '09, Cooper transferred to Oregon and spent the fall redshirting.

Because a promised scholarship never materialized after a spring when he was among four quarterbacks competing for the vacant starting position, Cooper and his wife, who were married the previous summer, decided they could not afford to stay at Oregon.

He considered quitting football, but having kept in touch with SUU quarterback coach Paul Peterson, a former Snow assistant, Cooper moved to Cedar City.

So while he settled for quarterbacking SUU's scout team in practice, ineligible to play in 2008, Oregon went through so many quarterbacking injuries that the original fifth-stringer became the starter. Even so, Cooper said, "I have no regrets at all, just because it's been so good for both of us here."

The only trouble is the shortness of their stay. After one highly productive year together, the QB and his coaches wish they could extend their association. By halftime Saturday against the University of San Diego, Cooper should hold all of SUU's single-season passing records, and a victory would give SUU (4-6) its most wins since 2004. "He's definitely had an impact for us here," Peterson said.

With an academic transcript as long as his prized left arm, Cooper earned an economics degree from SUU in May and is working toward an MBA. He's not sure where business pursuits will take him or if there's any pro football in his future, but he will leave Cedar City with the confidence of someone whose travels ultimately have treated him well.

His brother Cole, a former Weber State quarterback, once told him, "Things seem to work out for you the way they're supposed to."

Cooper can only agree. "That's how my life's been," he said.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com