Geoff Robins/CFL.ca
Isaac Harker admits that he’s tightroping a very fine line.
The 23-year-old won the third-string quarterback job with the Saskatchewan Roughriders just a few weeks ago. Going into Week 2 of this season, he’s been promised some time on the field as his new team tries to find its way without Zach Collaros.
“I’m trying to ride the fine line of being able to sponge as much information from everyone as I can, because there are a lot of really smart and experienced people around me,” Harker said on the phone on Wednesday, shortly after the Riders landed in Ottawa.
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“Also at the same time you don’t want to annoy anybody. I’m sure Cody (Fajardo) has been annoyed a time or two and Zach has been annoyed a time or two but I’ve learned so much from them the last couple of weeks. I’m really thankful to be in that QB room.”
Talk with Harker long enough and you quickly get the impression that if he wasn’t playing football, if he’d gone into the real world this spring after he graduated with a masters degree in mineral and energy economics, he’d be that intern that’s the first one into work and the last one out. The one that makes you wonder if they just sleep at the office sometimes.
He was the valedictorian of his high school in Lebanon, Indiana and named the Indianapolis Star’s Sportsman of the Year in 2014. He was a three-sport athlete in his senior year (baseball, basketball and football) and graduated first in his class, with a 4.3 GPA. He walked on at Indiana State and when he lost his starting job after a coaching change, he followed an assistant to the Colorado School of Mines, a Div II program that’s dedicated to applied science and engineering. He spent the 2018 season there and threw for an incredible 39 touchdowns and 3,858 yards.
The secret to his success, whether it’s on the field or in the classroom? Get into sponge mode. Listen, learn and work.
“He was wearing our staff out as far as watching film, asking questions,” Colorado Mines head coach Gregg Brandon told the Indianapolis Star in April.
“He is one of those gym rat kids who loves to play the game. His persistence will give him a chance to potentially make it.”
Harker said he’d never been in a situation like the one his team waded into last week in Hamilton. Collaros was injured on the fourth play of the game and ended up on the six-game injured list. Cody Fajardo struggled against the Ticats in relief, got nicked himself and Harker was handed the keys to the green and white car. He made 8-14 passes for 128 yards in a loss, but threw two interceptions late when the Riders were in desperation mode.
Fajardo will get the start on Thursday night, but Riders head coach Craig Dickenson has said that Harker will get some time against the REDBLACKS.
Most third-stringers are lucky to see the field as holders. For a straight-from-college rookie to get this opportunity is rare.
“It’s definitely crazy,” Harker said of his situation.
“I’ve looked at it and tried to step back because making the team was one of my huge goals less than two weeks ago in training camp. Now your goal is to win games. It’s a quick, quick turnaround and quicker than I’m sure a lot of people anticipated. I’m just trying to be a guy that the team can rely on and produce wins.”
Cody Fajardo gets the start for the Riders this week in Ottawa (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
If he can turn his opportunity into something this week, it’d cap a whirlwind run for him. In the last two months he’s finished his Master’s, beat out six other CFL hopeful QBs at the Riders’ minicamp in Florida for a training camp invite and made the team. Lay it all out on paper in front of him and it seems like a stretch, but Harker just looked at it as a series of tasks to complete.
“As soon as I heard about the minicamp I started looking at Saskatchewan and Regina and I started looking at apartments,” he said, laughing at the audaciousness of the idea now.
“It was just a minicamp invite so you have a slim chance of even getting invited to (training) camp. And I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be a Roughrider. That’s something that you can kind of think and speak into existence. I’ve been really blessed. I’m really thankful.”
He dreams big but he’s still realistic. He’s a six-foot QB from a school that he knows you’ve probably never heard of. That’s where the prep comes in.
“Being prepared helps you play so much better. For a guy like me who maybe doesn’t have the strongest arm or the quickest legs, to be able to anticipate and have film study, I think that’s important,” he said.
“Especially for the quarterback position, you need to be so detail-oriented. That’s the only way as an offence that a team can succeed, is if the details are covered and you know what the defence is doing before they even know.”
