Terrance Broadway's Path to Greatness at UL Lafayette

Ask any college football fan about the great quarterbacks that have played over the last 10 years and you'll hear names like Johnny Manziel, Tim Tebow, Russell Wilson, Rakeem Cato, Tajh Boyd and so on. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone that will bring up the name Terrance Broadway, however.

Raised in Baton Rouge and recruited to play quarterback for Kevin Sumlin and the Houston Cougars, Broadway was a three-star dual threat recruit looking to make his name in Houston's traditional pass happy offense. During his freshman season (2010), he was expected to redshirt, but injuries thrust him onto the scene. When he was outdone by fellow freshman David Piland, it only made sense to part ways and start fresh again, but this time a little closer to home.

Broadway headed eastward on Interstate 10, transferring to UL Lafayette. The connection made too much sense. The Ragin' Cajuns were coming off a three-win season in 2009 and had not won more than six games in a season for almost 20 years (they won eight games in the Big West in 1993). Broadway was coming off a small sample size of great stats, but was still pushed to the side as a possible third or fourth stringer heading into the 2011 season. Both were looking to prove everyone around them wrong.

After sitting out the 2011 season due to transfer rules, Broadway was the backup at the start of the 2012 season. Blaine Gautier held the starting roll in the first three games of the season before Broadway took that role with what probably felt like the Jaws of Life. Acting as a backup to Gautier in the first three weeks of the 2012 season, Broadway would connect on 21 of his 36 pass attempts while rushing for 71 yards on 12 attempts.

While those numbers aren't mindblowing, it was his performance filling in for Gautier after a rib injury in the Troy game that helped convince Coach Hudspeth that Broadway was the guy. He connected on 10 of his 16 passes for 143 yards and one touchdown. He also showed off that dual threat ability rushing for 43 yards on eight carries. As the saying goes, the rest is history.

Broadway would go on to throw for 7,561 yards, while adding another 1,852 on the ground. He would score a total of 69 times with 52 of them coming through the air. The team would win 27 games and three R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl titles. And if you ask Broadway himself, his biggest accomplishment was something we always seem to forget about these kids. They are student athletes.

Graduating with a 3.3GPA https://t.co/qnVREwOn8i

— TB (@tbroadway8) April 22, 2016

His GPA had already put him in solid company, yet Terrance Broadway was just one of seven quarterbacks to throw for over 7,000 yards and rush for over 1,000 from 2012 to 2014. He was also among the most underrated quarterbacks in all of college football during those years. Who would have known that his name would be among this group of men that included Marcus Mariota, Johnny Manziel, Trevone Boykin, Brett Hundley, Taylor Kelly, and Cody Fajardo?

After a four-win season in 2015 that resulted in using three quarterbacks, the Ragin' Cajuns faithful are on their knees begging for Jordan Davis, Chris Weaver, or even Dion Ray to be the second coming of Mr. Broadway. Only time will tell us if one of these unproven players will be that guy for this program in need of a jolt of energy from the quarterback position. Until then, let's remember that greatness can come from anywhere, as we saw with Broadway in 2012.