Sports

Tyler Gabbert's Transfer Shows Family Ties

The Ballwin family's connections to a former offensive coordinator at the University of Nebraska may have been the linchpin behind Tyler Gabbert's decision to play football for Louisville.

Following the announcement in early May that Tyler Gabbert was transferring out of the University of Missouri, football pundits throughout the country said the University of Nebraska likely was just a few corn bushels away.

It was a logical guess on several fronts: In addition to being a historically powerhouse program, Gabbert also initially expressed interest in playing for Nebraska prior to officially committing to Mizzou. Like older brother Blaine Gabbert, who was by the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars this year, the allure of Nebraska was enough to put both brothers close to signing with the Cornhuskers before each eventually joined the Tigers.

Although the Cornhuskers still won't be taking on Tyler Gabbert, who like his brother, was raised in Ballwin and played at , a former member of the 'Husker community will be doing so as he moves on to the University of Louisville.

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NBC Sports Blog CollegeFootballTalk said that although schools such as Arizona, Iowa and Wake Forest had been in the running for Gabbert's next stop, it was ties to Shawn Watson that inevitably played a big role in Gabbert's final transfer decision to Louisville.

Gabbert was originally committed to Nebraska and was recruited by Watson, who at the time was the Cornhuskers’ offensive coordinator. Watson is now the quarterbacks coach at Louisville, and remains a long-time friend of the Gabbert family. The QB visited the school in mid-May, which apparently further planted the seeds of a transfer.

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Digging deeper into Gabbert's motivation behind the move, a writer for the Columbia Daily Tribune said competiton within the Tigers' camp also played a role. While Gabbert was actively involved in Mizzou's spring training, a lackluster performance coupled with James Franklin stepping up both surely contributed to the transfer:

Gabbert was taking the bulk of the first-team snaps at quarterback midway through spring practices, but a poor showing in the team's final two spring scrimmages dropped him to No. 2, though MU coaches insisted the competition for the starting job would ensue during preseason practices.

Columnists such as Rick Bozich at the Louisville-based Courier-Journal said it's hard to recall another time in history when a player would leave a Big 12 school in order to join a football program in Kentucky. Still, Bozich writes, transfers making a big splash in Louisville isn't totally unprecedented:

... [T]he vibe of getting a player such as Gabbert says Louisville remains an ambitious program that is working to get back to the top of the Big East β€” and beyond. Maybe this turns out the way things turned out two decades ago when Browning Nagle bolted from West Virginia to lead Louisville to the Fiesta Bowl.


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