Fresno State has struggled recruiting prep quarterbacks. Are things finally turning around?

Fresno State has not recruited a high school quarterback who has made it from signing day to his senior year since Derek Carr in 2009, a head-scratching run for a program built largely on homegrown talent at the position with a long line of four-, three- and two-year starters.

But as Fresno State finishes up its 15 spring practices this week, the Bulldogs are dropping serious hints that in a coronavirus-impacted recruiting season with no on-campus official visits and no face-to-face time they have hit a home run with Chaminade-West Hills quarterback Jaylen Henderson.

The Bulldogs moved redshirt freshman quarterback Jalen Early to tight end, are in no rush to fill an open scholarship in their quarterbacks room and essentially have set up Henderson to compete with redshirt freshman Logan Fife for the No. 2 spot behind starter Jake Haener when Henderson hits campus this summer.

“We really like what Jaylen brings, both the physical aspect and also the mental aspect,” coach Kalen DeBoer said. “He’s just so mature. He’s a great leader and he just has a desire to be great in every way. We’re fired up, and we’re counting on him to have a fast learning curve and understand our offense and make that next step from high school to college in a hurry.”

Henderson, who finished an abbreviated senior season at Chaminade a week ago having hit on 67.5% of his passes with 15 touchdown passes to just one interception and averaging 279.8 passing yards over five games, said that he is ready for that challenge.

“Once I get the plays down if anything happens to Jake I feel I’ll be ready to fill right in,” he said. “When I get there I want to learn as much as I can from him and just compete and join that quarterback room as soon as possible.

“I have a lot of college friends and also my cousin (linebacker Chris Carter), who went to Fresno State, they said the toughest transition is the speed factor. I think that’s going to be the biggest thing – learning the speed of the college game. But training with that good defense, I think that’s going to prepare me for the Mountain West.”

The Bulldogs’ run of prep QB recruits

It would not take much to top the Fresno State careers of its prep quarterbacks, its successes due to some junior college or Division I transfers, most notably Marcus McMaryion and, last season, Haener.

Following Derek Carr, the Bulldogs’ prep quarterback signees:

Marcus McDade (signed in 2011) and played in just two games without attempting a pass before transferring to Sacramento State.

Myles Carr (2012) played in five games, throwing an interception on his only pass attempt, before transferring to Texas A&M-Kingsville.

Zack Greenlee (2013) played in 10 games with six starts, including a 2015 victory at Hawaii in which he threw six touchdown passes. But he completed only 46.7% of his passes before transferring to Texas-El Paso.

Kilton Anderson (2014) played in eight games with five stars and also failed to hit even 50% of his passes, completing 78 of 158 with two touchdowns and five interceptions before transferring to Coastal Carolina.

Chason Virgil (2015) played in 16 games over three seasons, hitting 53.1% of his pass attempts with 18 touchdowns and 15 interceptions before transferring to Southeastern Louisiana.

James Quentin Davis (2016) was at Fresno State for just one season before leaving the program.

Ben Wooldridge (2018) played in five games last season, but stuck behind Haener transferred to Louisiana. The Bulldogs also recruited Steven Comstock in 2018, but he was moved to safety before the 2020 season.

Henderson comes off spring season

When the 6-foot-3 Henderson lands in Fresno in June he will be a season and a half behind Fife, who has taken his reps with the No. 2 offense this spring, and there will be some growing pains. But the left-hander will hit the ground hot, after getting in those five games in a COVID-19 truncated spring season after initially opting out.

“There was a lot of debate in Southern California, a lot of people saying there’s nothing to be gained by opting in and playing. What if you get hurt, blah, blah, blah,” said Greg Biggins, a national recruiting analyst for 247Sports. “But I was on the other side of that. I think there’s a ton to be gained. I think players make the biggest jump between their junior and senior year and especially for a quarterback, just watching over the years D.J. Uiagalelei (Clemson) and Bryce Young (Alabama) and how much better those guys got.

“With Jaylen, I think playing those five games you could just see the game really slowing down and how far he progressed, just being able to go through progressions and not just take off and run at the first sign of pressure. He matured as a quarterback. The decisiveness in his throws and his reads, talking to his coaches, he’s just a different guy, a different quarterback.”

Henderson also has an intriguing skill set for a quarterback-driven offense that has generated 30 or more points a game the past three seasons, with an ability to expand the run game and run-pass options.

“He can flat-out scoot,” said running backs coach Lee Marks, who played for Chaminade coach Ed Croson in an All-Star game 20 years ago when in high school and used that connection in recruiting Henderson.

McMaryion scored eight rushing touchdowns in 2018, but all of them came with Fresno State in the red zone. Henderson can force defenses to play 11 on 11 everywhere on the football field.

“He’s not just a guy who is going to move the chains, he’s a guy who can hit the home run,” DeBoer said. “That fires us up. That adds other elements to the offense that we can plan around and also adds elements to the offense that the defense is really going to have to focus on stopping when they’re getting ready to play us.

“He is certainly a great passer and that’s what we need in our offense, first, a distributor of the football, a guy that can make plays with his arm. But anything a guy can do with his feet is just going to be the icing on the cake and he’s that and then some.”

Fife, too, has displayed an ability to make plays with his feet this spring. But the Bulldogs are intrigued by the skill set Henderson will bring to an offense that is well-stocked and with good balance at running back and wideout.

“We feel like he’s a little bit ahead for a high school kid,” offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said. “Now, all that verbiage and terminology changes when you go to a new place. For Jalen it’s really going to be about his ability to process the offense and how fast he can pick it up.

“I really don’t believe there are any physical limitations for him. It’s just going to be, ‘How fast can he do it?’ But he’s a really bright kid – he had multiple Ivy League offers – and it’s not just book smart. He’s football smart. He lives to play ball, is a very focused kid. He’s just really driven.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 2:11 PM.