On a sweltering July afternoon, Omar Jacobs stands shirtless near the Bowling Green practice field. His dreadlocks, tied in a loose bale above his neck, resemble a lion's mane. His skin is damp with sweat. Receivers zig and zag through smack-talking cornerbacks, all sharp elbows and high forearms, as Jacobs fires spiral after spiral. On deep routes, the ball glides tantalizingly past the outstretched fingers of defenders before sinking gently into the hands of his target. Each timing pattern ends with the thump of leather against palms. Jacobs throws for the better part of an hour and doesn't miss a single pass. "Every quarterback has his strengths," says the redshirt junior. "Mine is accuracy."
Last season, his first as a starter, Jacobs led the nation in touchdown passes (41), was third in passing yards (4,002) and fourth in passing efficiency (167.20). His 41 TDs to-wait for it-four interceptions is the best ratio in Division I-A history. "I have seen some good quarterbacks," says Falcons coach Gregg Brandon, who has watched a parade of MAC stars-Marshall's Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich, Miami of Ohio's Ben Roethlisberger-go on to flourish as NFL quarterbacks. "Omar is the whole package."
Jacobs' spectacular play and double-take stats do raise one question, though: how on earth did the major programs miss the kid who can't miss?
IT'S NOT like Jacobs dropped from heaven onto the rolling hills of Ohio. He was delivered from South Florida by a coach on the rise with a lastminute scholarship.
Jacobs was raised by his mother, Barbara Bean, in a mostly black section of Delray Beach. Soon after Omar was born, his father, Frank Jacobs, returned to his native St. Croix. Barbara cooked, cleaned, taught business at local Atlantic Community High School and still found time to play with her son.
When Omar was 3, she took him to a high school football game. He was mesmerized by the sights and sounds in the grandstand, and even more by the action on the field and the plastic footballs the cheerleaders tossed into the crowd. Back home, Mom watched as her pint-size son launched passes from one side of the yard to the other.
It wasn't long before Jacobs graduated to a regulation ball. In front of their modest single-story house, he made his mom run slants and curls and buttonhooks. As the color drained from the sky, he worked her until she retreated to an Epsom salt bath. While she soothed her tired limbs, Jacobs remained on the lawn, flipping the ball to himself. On days when he was without his primary receiver, he wandered to nearby Pompey Park to sling passes at lampposts and trash cans.
As he grew into an oversize grade schooler, trash cans and Mom gave way to best friends A.J. Bennett and Jamoga Ramsey. The three boys were fiercely competitive and always went at full speed. Their first love was football, but Delray's youth league had a weight limit, so Jacobs was forced to watch his pals from the sideline. He pleaded with his mom to let him sweat off the few extra pounds in a rubber suit. "Not a chance," she told him.
But when Omar entered Atlantic Community, it was his mom who suggested he try out at quarterback. She knew the team's quarterback was undersized, and knew her son threw a nice ball-mercy, she had the sore hands to prove it. Jacobs started the first game of his freshman year. Sure, playing quarterback was Bean's idea, but watching her son play was still tough. At film sessions it never took long to notice the woman screaming whenever Jacobs got hit. "Hey, Omar, that's your mom," his teammates would needlessly announce.
Jacobs transformed Atlantic from pushover to playoff regular, in large part by chucking the ball to his playground mates. Bennett earned a scholarship to Eastern Michigan, Ramsey to Auburn. And it seemed Jacobs, a second-team all-state selection, was headed to Kansas State. To this day, no one is sure why the Wildcats pulled their offer. Maybe they wavered when Jim Gush, the coach who'd recruited him, left for SMU. Maybe the sprained knee Jacobs suffered in an all-star game made them nervous. Or maybe it was that sidearm delivery.
"I recruit Florida," says Bowling Green's receivers coach, Zach Azzanni. "I can't count the coaches who told me how Omar beat them. But colleges were scared off by his mechanics." One day his mailbox was full, the next his phone had stopped ringing. Somehow, one of the most talented players in the most talent-rich state had fallen off the grid. "Omar wondered if someone had put out word that he was an ax murderer," his mom says.
Jacobs had dreamed of starring for a national power and playing on TV. Now he wondered if he had a future at all. He was reduced to considering Florida Atlantic (too near) and Buffalo (too far). Then, one of his coaches told him a guy from Bowling Green was coming down. "We lost a commitment with two weeks left," says former Falcons coach Urban Meyer, who is now at Florida. "We needed a quarterback. I made some calls and Kansas State told me about him, so I flew in to see him."
Jacobs took a seat across from Meyer. He'd never seen anyone so serious. "I kept smiling," says Jacobs. "I thought, are you gonna smile back or what?" Meyer's congeniality, or lack of it, became a lot less important after he offered a full ride. During Jacobs' visit to the school a few days later, he felt right at home. The pregame meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn-the same dinner his mom had made before sending him onto the field.
On a trip home during his freshman year at Bowling Green (a season in which he studied behind future Cleveland Brown Josh Harris), Jacobs decided to take care of some unfinished business. He wanted a tattoo. With some prodding, his mom agreed to get one too. But at Tattoo Wearhouse in West Palm Beach, as they examined the choicesskulls, barbed wire, arrowheads-his mom's heart began to race. She just knew it was going to hurt. "Awww, you chicken," said Jacobs when she bailed.
Jacobs wanted something to capture his best qualities: strength, composure, grace. He settled on a colossal lion's head, which nearly obscures the biceps on his throwing arm. "Lions are cool, quiet," he says. "But they can be aggressive-like me on the football field."
THEY RESEMBLE downed alien spaceships or capsized dirigibles, all those silver propane tanks rising from the Ohio prairie. When he's not lifting weights or running, Jacobs works a summer job at Pearl Gas. Ten bucks for every canister he paints.
As the sun beats down, Jacobs uses a roller for the curves, a brush for the tight edges. The labor is humbling. "I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life," he says. The job gives him plenty of time to think. Some days he runs through his plans for the evening, some days he imagines playing in the NFL. Even his dreams are bound by sensible restraint. "One thing I know," he says. "If I sign a pro contract, I'm not gonna blow my money on some crazy Batmobile." As the season draws near, he beats back the monotony by thinking about the playbook.
Despite his magical year-Jacobs was named the MAC's top offensive player while leading the Falcons to a 9—3 record-he is driven to higher places. It's the same obsession that led him to fix his throwing motion after he heard the recruiters whisper. "He held the ball below his ear," says quarterbacks coach Mick McCall. "His hand was underneath. I just moved his hand on top. Now it's like he's tossing darts."
Jacobs couldn't have found a tougher place to road test that new delivery: his first start last fall was in Norman against second-ranked Oklahoma. "It took me a couple of plays to get used to the speed of the game," he says. "Then I realized I could play with them." McCall predicted Jacobs would have a "pretty solid" game, but he didn't expect him to complete 24 of 41 passes for 218 yards and two scores in a closer-than-expected 40-24 loss. Jacobs pitched a shutout in all the right categories: no interceptions, sacks or fumbles. "No matter what the defenses throw at him," says tackle Drew Nystrom, "he doesn't get rattled."
Jacobs keeps the rest of the Falcons loose, as well. In one huddle last season, he sensed a seldomused lineman, Pat Watson, was anxious. As he stared Watson down, Jacobs said, "Mess this up, I'll kill you." After a pause, the quarterback broke into a smile and Watson knew he was going to be fine.
But that won't stop Watson and Nystrom from trying to punk their passer. The pair spent the past months begging Jacobs for his cell number. "We finally got it," whispers Nystrom. "From an outside source." The plan is for Watson to disguise his voice, pretending to be from a newspaper, to test Jacobs' humility. They want to see how many of his own statistics they can get him to recite.
The joke is bound to be on them.
IN THE bowels of Perry Stadium, Jacobs sits at the head of a long table. He has a few minutes to kill and, not wanting to waste them, he asks a coach to help him cue up some film. As he watches himself limp to the sideline, he discloses a small revelation: he played all of last season with two broken big toes. The injuries limited his mobility, but they taught him to be patient in the pocket.
Leaning back in his chair, Jacobs turns playful when 9-year-old Josh Pennington, son of the team chaplain, enters the room. He presses the youngster about his burgeoning baseball career. When it is clear Pennington is having a torrid summer, Jacobs grips an imaginary bat. Waving his fists in a lean arc, he says, "I may have to come down there, show you a thing or two." The kid's face is aglow.
After Falcons games, Pennington carries Jacobs' duffel, a job he also did for the previous two quarterbacks. "Omar is the slowest getting dressed," he says. "He's always the last one out." Jacobs insists he's just making sure all the media's questions get answered. (But he's also really a slow dresser.)
Delaying the team bus is a small flaw for an otherwise faultless quarterback. "We have high expectations for him," says senior wide receiver Steve Sanders. "If we do our jobs, we think he can finish in the top five of the Heisman voting. We want to savor the opportunity of playing with him." Can you imagine? The guy with the funky delivery, the guy all the majors missed, sitting in New York, on national TV?
For now, he still wanders his small-town campus without turning many heads. But only a few weeks ago, he and Bennett were shopping in a Michigan mall. As he waited for an elevator, a stranger approached. "He said, 'You're that guy from BG,' " says Jacobs. "It was kind of weird getting recognized." He pauses, fingering a loose coil of hair. "It made me realize I've got to be aware even when I'm not playing football." He folds his arms across his chest, causing the sleeve of his T-shirt to rise. A steely eyed lion stares back.
You can't miss it.