Alcorn State quarterback Donald Carrie, who has passed for more than 10,000 yards in his four-year career, will play his final game for the Braves today against Jackson State in the Capital City Classic. (FileThe Vicksburg Post)

[11/20/04]LORMAN On Wednesday evening, Donald Carrie stood on a dimly-lit practice field at Alcorn State taking snaps in preparation for today’s Capital City Classic game against Jackson State.

As Carrie focused his attention on his end of the field, the scout team offense was working hard behind him. As they practiced play after play, watching the two squads work was like looking into a mirror. And with Carrie at the helm, it was an appropriate reflection of his time with the Braves.

Four years earlier, he was a part of that scout team as a tight end. Today, he’ll end his career at Alcorn as the second-best quarterback in school history. It’s been a career marked with highs and lows, and one in which he has led Alcorn’s charge from the depths of an 0-11 season to perennial contender in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

“Overall, it’s been a pretty good four years. The coaches have treated me well, and the teammates have been great,” Carrie said. “I just want to leave them by going out a winner against Jackson, and leave them something for next year.”

Anything Carrie leaves would be more than he inherited.

In 2000, Alcorn suffered through its first winless season in 42 years. The Braves were in the middle of a 17-game losing streak and supporters were calling for a coaching change.

The following year, head coach Johnny Thomas entrusted his offense to a redshirt freshman from New Orleans who had walked on the previous year. Carrie spent the 2000 season doing grunt work with the scout team, using his 6-foot-1, 220-pound frame to simulate opponents’ tight ends.

After quarterbacks Surhaver Fair and Damion Ford finished their careers, Carrie was ready for a new role. He won the job he wanted, quarterback, in spring drills and cemented it with an outstanding freshman season.

He was the SWAC Newcomer of the Year after throwing for 2,743 yards and 23 touchdowns in 2001. With new offensive coordinator John McKenzie calling the plays and Carrie running them, the Braves made a dramatic turnaround from the dreadful 2000 season to finish 6-5 in 2001. Alcorn won five of its last seven games after starting 1-3.

“He was nervous in the beginning,” McKenzie said. “He got in that first game against Grambling and took a shot, and came back to the sideline. Then he went back in and went on a tear. He threw for 324 yards. It’s been all downhill from there.”

After Carrie’s stellar freshman season, he began drawing comparisons to Alcorn legend Steve McNair. The stats of the two quarterbacks were eerily similar at that point in their careers, and 2001 was Alcorn’s first winning campaign since McNair’s senior season of 1994.

Carrie struggled in his sophomore season, completing just 46 percent of his passes. He threw 19 touchdowns, but also had 17 interceptions. He had some disciplinary issues, and was benched for the first half of a game against Mississippi Valley State.

“Donald didn’t have the quarterback mentality. That’s something he had to grow into,” McKenzie said. “That was a lot of pressure for him. His freshman year, everywhere he goes he’s being compared to McNair.”

Carrie learned from his mistakes. He came back in 2003 to set career-highs in passing yards (2,803), touchdowns (24) and completion percentage (53.8). He led Alcorn to its first win over Jackson State since 1994.

In short, Carrie looked more like the young phenom who had rallied the Braves from obscurity two years earlier than the star who nearly flamed out in 2002.

“He knew the mistakes he made,” McKenzie said. “He knew that was taking away from football and he fixed it.”

This season, Carrie has taken on more of a leadership role. With a young offensive line and receiver corps two freshmen will start on the line against Jackson State, and leading receivers Nate Hughes and Charlie Spiller are both sophomores Carrie has had to be as much teacher as teammate.

“He really helped us a lot. He’s taught us everything we know since we’ve been here,” said Spiller, who had 233 yards and two touchdowns in a 27-21 loss to Alabama A&M last week, and has 1,103 yards receiving for the season. “In the offseason he was showing us how to run routes. On the field and off the field he’s a leader.”

He’ll also have the label of second-best. Behind McNair. Behind the rest of the SWAC.

Carrie has thrown for 10,246 yards and 81 touchdowns in his career at Alcorn. At most schools, those numbers would allow him to go down as the best ever.

At Alcorn, though, any quarterback who steps on the field is stuck in McNair’s shadow. Memories of the man who finished third in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1994 are still fresh in fans’ minds, even though a decade has passed since he last played in Jack Spinks Stadium.

Carrie has come closer than any other Alcorn quarterback to McNair’s numbers. By the end of today’s game, he should have twice as many passing yards and 25 more touchdown passes than the No. 3 man in both categories and still be a 4,000-yard, 30-TD season behind McNair.

“We always thought McNair was out of reach,” McKenzie said. “Now we realize that McNair was within reach. (Carrie) knows if he would have kept his head straight he could have gotten to him.”

Another number will also haunt Carrie’s legacy zero. That’s how many SWAC championships the Braves have been able to bring back to the reservation during his tenure.

“I would say I have,” Carrie said when asked if he achieved all of his individual goals, “but No. 1 is winning a championship. Anytime you don’t win a championship, you feel like you missed something.”

Despite the lack of trophies from the last few years, Carrie hopes fans remember him as a winner. Alcorn has had four straight winning seasons on his watch, the first time that has happened since 1991-94.

A win today would give the Braves (6-4, 3-3 SWAC) their second straight against archrival JSU (4-6, 3-3), and they have established themselves as contenders in the SWAC East.

“Hopefully they talk about some of the good things we’ve done,” Carrie said. “We turned the program around from an 0-11 team to a winning record four consecutive years. I want to be remembered as a winner.”