Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has a little brother who also plays quarterback. Tom Flacco, a sophomore at Western Michigan University, is the WMU Broncos QB2. Senior Zach Terrell is ahead of him, and he’s really good. In fact, Athlon rated Terrell the 24th best QB in the nation this season.
Tom Flacco is more of a “change of pace quarterback;” you know like a “change of pace back.” He’s a run first quarterback, unlike Terrell, and unlike his brother.
He’s inserted into the game to provide more of a dual-threat/wildcat like option. At it’s against the Wildcats, of Northwestern, in which he’ll get his first opportunity to make some noise this season.
“They did a nice job last year with what you could call a wildcat package, from a layman’s formation standpoint,” said Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald.
“They did a lot of quarterback run, formation variation and of course, play action off of all of that, so they built a whole package with that and did a great job with it.”
“Had a great game against Toledo, talented young man.”
Flacco’s little brother, or “Baby Flacco,” as most people call him saw plenty of time in most of Western Michigan’s most important games. That’s a pretty big deal for a freshman, and that experience should serve him well this year, as the Broncos are the consensus favorite to win the MAC West Division.
If Tom Flacco can be elite, it’ll keep opposing defenses honest. He’ll keep on coming in for a series here and there meaning opposing defenses need to game plan around WMU’s option packages, in addition to the more conventional run and pass threats out of the Terrell series.
If done properly, and executed well, it could make P.J. Fleck look like a mastermind. Then we could get the “is Tom Flacco elite?” narrative going just like we have the “Is Joe Flacco Elite? narrative in effect. (Yes, by now you’ve figured out the tongue-in-cheek but here with the headline, and so forth in the article)
P.J. Fleck on Tom Flacco:
“We have to do some things to run with our quarterback, and take some hits off of Zach, we’ve got to be able to do that or people can key in on our zone read stuff” (Plenty of “Fl”s in these sentences here)
Western Michigan runs a very pass happy offense with a very dangerous, NFL bound someday wide receiver in Cory Davis. So Flacco gives them balance. Said Northwestern linebacker Anthony Walker of prepping against him
“Definitely match up problems, he can pull it down, he’s very aggressive with running the ball, so we have to be ready for that as well.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.