Nobody even had the chance to ask North Dakota State head football coach Chris Klieman if his senior quarterback was going to be healthy enough to play in Saturday’s Football Championship Subdivision title game, he just came out and said it.
“Excited to announce that Carson Wentz is going to start at quarterback tomorrow,” Klieman said in his opening remarks Friday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
Wentz, a potential future National Football League draft pick, hasn’t played since Oct. 17’s game against the University of South Dakota, A game that NDSU lost on a last second field goal. But at 11 a.m. Saturday against Jacksonville State, Wentz will be able to wear his Bison gear one last time.
Over two months without playing in an actual game, and Wentz said the “long frustrating process” is finally over, and his head coach isn’t worried about a rust factor.
“No, not at all. It’s Carson Wentz. He’ll be fine,” Klieman said.
Wentz has been practicing at a high level for just about two weeks. The computed technology (CT) scan that he had on Monday “revealed that (he) was fully cleared (to play),” Wentz said.
Klieman said that the decision to start Wentz for the 2015 season finale came just after Christmas.
With there being three weeks between NDSU’s semifinal game and the FCS title game, Wentz was able to use that time to take a bunch of snaps with NDSU’s first team offense.
Klieman understands that there is a chance that NDSU’s offense may lose rhythm, considering Stick has helped NDSU win its last eight games to get to its fifth straight national championship game but he is willing to take that chance with Wentz.
“I’ll take it back to the three-week layover,” Klieman said. “I worry about our defense tackling after three weeks. I worry about the contact, getting back crisp after three weeks. I would worry about our timing with our receivers and Easton or Carson after three weeks. So when you’re going into a first-game feel, you’re going to have some miss-timing, whether it be Carson or Easton. We just feel Carson is ready to go.”
Ready to go or not, Wentz hasn’t played in game speed action for a few months, but he said, “facing the speed of our defense a couple times” helped him tremendously.
And the biggest adjustment getting back to game speed compared to practices is going to be “getting hit right away.”
“For me it’s almost got that first-game feel,” Wentz said about starting his first game in months. “It feels like I’ve been out for a whole year and it’s kind of a short one-game season for me.”
This season Wentz has thrown for 1,454 passing yards, 16 touchdowns and two interceptions.
And JSU cornerback Jermaine Hough said it’s going to be a great opportunity to play Wentz on the biggest of stages.
“With him having the name he has, all the recognition he has gotten throughout the last couple years, it’s going to be a great opportunity for us to go against him,” Hough said about the change of starting quarterbacks for NDSU. “(But) when the ball kicks off, we just got to come together as a defense and play like we’ve always been playing all year.”