LEGWOLD: Cutler is Vanderbilt's poster boy

By Jeff Legwold, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 2, 2008 at 3:03 p.m.

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Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

Then-Vanderbilt quarterback Jay Cutler carries the ball against the Tennessee on November 19, 2005.

With a smile born in his own trek through the college football desert, Broncos linebacker Jamie Winborn was making the rounds among some of his co-workers recently.

"Hey, where'd you go to school?" he'd say, the answer already known before the question was asked.

"Are they undefeated?"

And before the first target could answer, Winborn had moved to another: "Hey, where'd you go to school?"

These are heady days for Winborn and a few others around the league, a group of former Vanderbilt University lettermen who are certainly enjoying the spoils of the Commodores' 4-0 start and No. 19 ranking.

This Sunday alone, playing at Invesco Field at Mile High, there will be three alums - Winborn, Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler and Buccaneers defensive tackle Jovan Haye - of the small, private, academically centered university that does its athletic business in the powerhouse Southeastern Conference.

But it is Cutler who believes he can be a recruiting poster of sorts for a football program always in need of recruits to compete in the shark tank.

With every touchdown, with every highlight-worthy completion or each AFC Offensive Player of the Month award, like the one he earned for September, he can give the Commodores a little ride.

Every time he's on a national prime-time broadcast, when the lineups are introduced with Cutler turning to the camera saying, "Jay Cutler, Vanderbilt University," maybe a teenage runner, a thrower or a tackler takes pause and perhaps gives the school another look.

"I try to do what I can," said Cutler as he sported a Vanderbilt strength program T-shirt this week. "Playing well, flashing me up there with Vanderbilt next to my name, that could help. We're starting to get more guys in the league - maybe we can bring a little more attention to the program.

"It just takes some time to build it all up, and the coaches are doing a great job getting more and more guys who can compete and are talented enough to compete in the SEC."

Cutler already has three 300-yard passing games, the Broncos have made one appearance on Monday Night Football this season - the opener in Oakland - and have two additional prime-time games ahead.

They will face New England on Monday Night Football Oct. 20 and will play at Cleveland in a Thursday night game Nov. 6.

"I would hope maybe a guy is considering where to go and they see some of us playing, so it's a totally different program than maybe they thought it was," Cutler said. "It's like night and day from when I got there. Big game this week (No. 13 Auburn). It's exciting."

Quarterly report

Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey has seen more than his share of quarterbacks throw plenty of passes over the years, and he looked at this season's early going and said, "Everybody's throwing for 350 yards this year."

With the first quarter of the season in the books for most teams, there have been some eye-opening passing performan- ces as several teams have opened up the formation looking for offensive pop.

Kurt Warner's 472-yard effort on Sept. 28 - he was 40-of-57 passing with two touchdowns - and Brett Favre's six-touchdown day in the same game lead the way so far. Drew Brees and Brian Griese, who the Broncos will face Sunday, have also topped the 400-yard mark.

Overall, there have been 19 games in which a quarterback threw for at least 300 yards this season. But after four weeks last season, there had been 22 300-yard games, and two of those were 400-yard passing games.

Hurricane Ike trimmed this year's schedule a bit, with Houston and Baltimore having a game postponed until later in the season, but the passers are still slightly behind last year's pace. The runners also are behind last year's pace. Last season, there had been 34 100-yard rushing games after four weeks, compared with 27 this year.

The Broncos had three 100-yard rushing games over the first four weeks in 2007 - all from the embattled Travis Henry - but none this season.

As far as receivers go, there were 46 100-yard receiving games after four weeks last season compared with 40 this year, four of those from Broncos - two by Eddie Royal and two by Brandon Marshall.

What's it all mean? That's just it, it means folks may have been too quick to say things are a little more wide open this season, since at least some of the major numbers don't quite bear that out yet.

But there are five quarterbacks with passer ratings of at least 100, with the Cowboys' Tony Romo at 99.0 and Cutler at 98.6. But those top-seven-rated quarterbacks have thrown for 61 touchdowns already this season, so they are likely driving the perception that the league is ahead of last season's pace.

"There are a lot of good quarterbacks out there," Cutler said. "And teams are letting them make plays. I think that's what you're seeing."

• October 3, 2008

  7:24 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  R8R_H8R writes:

  espn Outside the Lines did a feature on Jay Cutler yesterday. It was disappointing that the moronic reporter extremely over-played the diabetes, while severe, they made it out like he was in a coma on his death-bed.

  Jay has done an outstanding job working with kids with diabetes, and they made NO mention of that.

  the feature ended up being like a political commercial, a whole lot of spin, and no depth.

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