A Mature, Grateful Quinten Dormady Finds His Way

Quinten Dormady talks with an assistant coach during a CMU practice last week. Dormady, a grad transfer, will be the Chippewas' starting quarterback when they open the season on Thursday, Aug. 29, at home against Albany.

Photo by: Andy Sneddon

8/23/2019 8:46:00 AM | Football

CMU gives QB 'another opportunity to play ball'

By: Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Quinten Dormady has been a lot of things in his life and in his football career.

Well-traveled is one of them. He's also been a starter, a backup, a redshirt, a highly sought-after recruit, a patient, and a husband, among other things.

Now, he's grateful and, perhaps, humbled just a bit.

At the end of the day, he just wants to play football.

Dormady is the quarterback of the Central Michigan football team, joining the program and enrolling in graduate school in January, shortly after Jim McElwain was named the Chippewas' head coach.

McElwain has handed Dormady the keys to the offense as the former has rolled up his sleeves and dug in, rebuilding a proud program that is looking to rebound from a one-win season.

"I'm grateful, really, for this coaching staff to give me another chance," Dormady said on Thursday as the Chippewas prepare for their Aug. 29 opener against Albany at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.

"I still have the dream to play in the NFL," he added. "The odds are stacked against you from the start, you put on top of that some injuries ... It definitely takes a toll on you mentally. So being able to come here, have a chance to play football with these guys …

"I've been around seven or eight months now and this is the most fun team that I've been around. Best group of guys as a whole that I've been around. They come ready to work every day and it's made it a lot of fun. Forever grateful, for sure."

WELL TRAVELED
Dormady was born in Iowa, moved with his family to Missouri when he was 2, and then to Texas when he was 10. The moves were necessitated by the profession of his father, Mike, a high school football coach.

In 2012, the Dormadys moved from Coppell, a Dallas suburb, to Boerne, just outside San Antonio. Quinten played quarterback for his dad at Boerne High School, establishing himself among the best signal-callers in a state that has long been the nation's hotbed of high school football.

If you're good in Texas – and make no mistake, Quinten Dormady was very good – you're among the elite. Dormady was ranked the No. 5 quarterback in the country in the Class of 2015 by 24/7 Sports, one of the more respected raters of prep talent. He was recruited by Tennessee, Alabama, TCU, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Indiana, among others.

He chose Tennessee over 'Bama, and spent 2015-16 as an understudy with the Volunteers before starting the first five games of his junior year. But then an older shoulder injury – he had suffered a torn labrum as a sophomore in high school – flared up, requiring surgery and ending his season. By the end of 2017, his coach at Tennessee, former CMU head coach Butch Jones, was fired and Dormady was ready to move on.

"It was just frustrating," he said. "I needed a fresh start."

He found it back in Texas, the state in which he had made his name, enrolling at Houston. He was No. 2 on the Cougars' depth chart and when an injury to the starter opened the door, the coaching staff opted to play another quarterback, Dormady said.

With his chances of being a starter – the NFL is a longshot for even the best college players, and said player's chances are nil if he isn't even starting on his college team – looking ever dimmer and his college-eligibility clock ticking, Dormady left Houston with a bachelor's degree and one year of college football left in his deck of playing cards.

ONE THINGS LEADS TO ANOTHER
Dormady knew of McElwain when the latter was the head coach at Colorado State from 2012-14, when the quarterback was back at Boerne High School, honing his skills under the watchful eye of his dad.

By the time Dormady was wearing Tennessee orange, McElwain was at Florida, leading the Gators to SEC East titles. Their respective teams met annually, and when McElwain was named the Chippewas' coach, Dormady took note.

There was an established relationship between Dormady's dad, who is now coaching in the Dallas area, and McElwain's assistant head coach/wide receivers coach Kevin Barbay, who has deep football ties in Texas.

"That's Texas football," Dormady said. "Everybody knows everybody."

Soon, Dormady was a Chippewa and he will operate under offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Charlie Frye, who played for five years in the NFL.

"We've got great offensive coaches that really know what they're doing, been a lot of places," Dormady said of the Chippewa staff. "Just smart dudes. And on top of that, great people, which is a hard combination to come by. It's such a business. It's hard to find good people that genuinely care. I feel like coach Mac definitely cares about his players."

MATURATION
Central Michigan and the Mid-American Conference ain't Tennessee and the Southeastern Conference. Certainly, football is important in Mount Pleasant and in places such as Kalamazoo and Toledo, but in Knoxville and in the SEC, the game is sacrosanct, and Saturday afternoons/evening are treated as the Sabbath.

Dormady's decision to enroll at CMU didn't make national waves and it wasn't celebrated as it might have been half a decade ago when he was coming out of Boerne and signing with Tennessee.

Signing Day is now treated like a combined Christmas morning/4^th of July, and programs are rated on the potential of hotshot recruits, many of whom are the center of signing-day ceremonies at their respective high schools. Some, particularly quarterbacks, may be household names before they ever arrive on their respective campuses.

With that comes a level of pressure, as does playing quarterback in high school when your dad is the coach and the school happens to be in the state of Texas.

Dormady is 23 years old, has been married for more than a year, already holds a degree, and is a semester from earning his master's in administration with a concentration in leadership (his wife Julie, a Nashville native, is enrolled in the same program at CMU).

He has a beard – "no grey in there yet," he quipped – and he brings a unique perspective, a maturity if you will, that one gains only from enduring the inevitable ups and downs.

In 2019, he won't be taking snaps against, say, Georgia in front of 100,000 plus at Tennessee's Neyland Stadium. He'll just be playing football, doing his best with his new-found buddies who have welcomed him with open arms, and an expectation that he has the ability to deliver on the field.

"Yes," Dormady said, falling, momentarily, into a reflective mood, "the SEC is different than the MAC. It's definitely humbling and I think it goes back to getting another opportunity … It's another opportunity to play ball, which is just what I wanted."