Zack Greenlee officially back in as Fresno State starting quarterback

Zack Greenlee is back as Fresno State’s quarterback.

Coach Tim DeRuyter on Monday officially named the sophomore the starter for Saturday’s Mountain West game at San Diego State. Greenlee did not play in the Bulldogs’ 49-23 loss to San Jose State this past Saturday while serving a one-game suspension following an arrest on suspicion of public drunkenness and drinking in public.

Brandon Hughes also is back after the junior linebacker was arrested and charged with obstructing a public officer at the same party as Greenlee. Hughes also did not play against the Spartans.

“I put myself in a bad situation,” Greenlee said. “I made a bad decision and that’s my fault. I need to move forward and learn from it, come out here and give it my all. I learned a lot from the situation and I just need to grow from it.”

Greenlee was all but assured a return to the starting role after what has been a difficult past two weeks for Bulldogs (1-3, 0-1 MW) quarterbacks.

First, Chason Virgil got the starting nod over Greenlee against Utah but suffered a season-ending broken clavicle in the game. Then, Ford Childress started against San Jose State but he’s also out for the season following surgery to repair an internal injury.

DeRuyter pointed out that Greenlee was in uniform and helping out teammates on the sideline at San Jose State and that he’s “grown from the situation.” Greenlee will be backed up by redshirt freshman Kilton Anderson at San Diego State (1-3) and freshman walk-on Jesse Hanckel is the third-string quarterback.

“Zack realizes he messed up, like a lot of young people who messed up. He had to own it, which I believe he did,” DeRuyter said. “He realizes he embarrassed our team, university and himself and he wanted to do something, whatever he could, to try to make up for it.”

Greenlee started the first two weeks of the season against Abilene Christian and Mississippi before backing up Virgil against Utah. After Virgil’s injury, Greenlee passed for three touchdowns against the Utes, hitting 6 of 10 passes for 144 yards.

For the season, he is 23 of 46 for 313 yards and six touchdowns.

“He’s got the most experience out of our quarterbacks,” DeRuyter said. “I like what he did at the end of the Utah game coming in off the bench.”

DeRuyter believes Greenlee will learn from his mistake.

“That’s what college is about: Guys understanding what those boundaries are and making good decisions and he made a bad one and hopefully he will learn from it,” he said. “When anytime you have something taken away from you, you have a little bit more of appreciation for it. ...

“He had a terrific week of practice last week. He’s had some bad weeks the last couple weeks; part of it was self-inflicted. But a week before, he finds out he’s not going to be the starter and Chason is going to be the starter. Some guys will hang their head. He didn’t. He went out and had the best week of practice that he’s had. We were kidding as coaches: ‘Now he does this in practice? Did we make the right decision?’

“But it showed in the Utah game, that preparation wasn’t in vain. He stood up to the call. We’re going to need him.”

Greenlee said San Diego State is big, with both teams losing three straight games.

“It’s a brand new week – brand new team and conference game,” he said. “Any time it’s a conference game it’s huge. We need to prepare this week as hard as we can ... and come out our best on Saturday.”

Injuries – Wide receiver Da’Mari Scott had an MRI on a shoulder injury suffered during the opening kickoff against San Jose State. DeRuyter said Scott is day to day and that linebacker Tobenna Okeke (lower body injury, also suffered on the opening kickoff) is out two to six weeks.

This story was originally published September 28, 2015 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Zack Greenlee officially back in as Fresno State starting quarterback."