Totten finds the one to follow him at MVSU
ROSCOE NANCE
BCSP Correspondent
Mississippi Valley State coach Willie Totten has been waiting for the right quarterback ever since he took over the program at his alma mater four years ago.
Totten, a Hall of Fame quarterback for the Delta Devils in the
mid-1980s says his wait is over with the emergence of junior signal caller
Aries Nelson, a 6-3, 215-pound junior from
Cleveland, Miss.
"He's great,'' Totten says. "He's mobile, he has a good arm, and he manages the offense well. When Aries came on campus, I knew I had the quarterback to make this thing go like we wanted it to.''
Nelson, who transferred to Mississippi Valley last fall after two years at Mississippi State - one in which he was red-shirted - has led the Delta Devils to a 2-1 record. They opened the season with consecutive victories against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Southern University, marking it their first 2-0 start since 1993, before losing to Alabama A&M Saturday.
Nelson has been nothing less than spectacular. He has twice been named SWAC Offensive Player of the Week, the first time after throwing for 269 yards and three touchdowns in Week 1 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and again last week after passing for 318 yards and a touchdown against Alabama A&M.
Nelson passed for 353 yards and one touchdown against Southern in between those performances. He has passed for 940 yards and five touchdowns for the season, and he leads the SWAC in total offense with 340 yards a game. He has thrown just two interceptions in his first three games, both against Alabama A&M, after throwing three in his first game last season.
Nelson and the Devils host Jackson State Saturday in a key SWAC East Division matchup.
"He has matured a great deal since we played him last year,'' Southern coach Pete Richardson says. "He made big plays on us last year, we were just fortunate to beat him. He's a force. He has made a difference in their team.''
Totten says Nelson, the 2004 SWAC Newcomer of the Year, has grown by leaps and bounds since last season. He arrived on campus just two weeks before the season began after transferring from Mississippi State. Totten, who coached Nelson for two seasons at Eastside High, had planned to ease him into the Delta Devils' system. But that plan went by the boards as the other quarterback failed to take command of the offense.
Having seen first-hand what Nelson was capable of doing, Totten didn't hesitate to start him in the Delta Devils' season opener. The circumstances were similar to what the two had been through together at Eastside, where Nelson started for Totten as a freshman and led the team to a 2-8 record. Nelson's sophomore season, Eastside was 7-2-1.
"He turned the program around as a sophomore,'' Totten says. "His second year, he knew what I was trying to do. It's the same here. He did OK (last season). He knew 50%-60% of the system. It's amazing how he has picked up the system and run with it.''
Mississippi Valley was 3-8 last year. After Week 2 of this season, they were ranked nationally (Sheridan poll) for the first time since 1984, when Totten was guiding the Delta Devils' "Satellite Express" offense which featured wide receiver Jerry Rice.
"He's using people around him to make him better, and he's reading coverages better," said Totten. "You would have seen this out of him a long time ago if I had gotten him as a freshman right out of high school.''
It wasn't for lack of effort that Totten didn't get Nelson to come to Mississippi Valley. Nelson was No.1 on the Delta Devils' recruiting list, just as he was No. 1 on several Division IA schools' lists before he signed with Mississippi State.
"I knew if he really wanted to go Division IA, we wouldn't be able to get him,'' Totten says, adding that he thought that Nelson was good enough to play in the SEC coming out of high school. "But we had that relationship. I wasn't upset (at not signing him). I would have been upset if we lost him to a I-AA school. I knew that if he was unhappy, he could transfer.''
Nelson was red-shirted his freshman season. He competed for the starting position his sophomore season but didn't win it. When Sylvester Croom replaced Jackie Sherrill as coach following Nelson's sophomore season, he decided it was time to move on.
"If Jackie Sherrill had stayed, he wouldn't have transferred,'' Totten says. "Them getting a new coach made it better for me. I'm just glad he didn't like it at Mississippi State.''
Totten compares Nelson favorably to Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair, a former SWAC star from Alcorn State, because his size and mobility.
"It's up to him how good he can be,'' Totten says. "If he comes to practice and prepares, the sky can be the limit. He gives excitement like McNair. He moves well. He scrambles. He has a strong arm, and he's accurate.''
© 2005 Azeez Communications, Inc.