Adams: Schaeffer saw light after suspension

"Where do you plan on going?" the Tennessee offensive coordinator asked the Tennessee quarterback right after the hellos.

"I think it shocked him," Sanders said.

All along, the freshman quarterback had insisted he wouldn't transfer. All along, his coaches seemed to believe him.

Things changed in the last two weeks, Sanders said.

"After he got suspended (following a misdemeanor assault charge), his attitude changed," Sanders said. "He was different than before.

"Not that he was ever perfect. But suddenly, he didn't seem concerned about class or study hall."

And here's the kicker: He didn't return calls to his position coach.

Sanders picked up on the not-so-subtle hints and ventured where skeptics had already gone. He assumed Schaeffer had reserved a seat on the same UT quarterback bus that Branndon Stewart, John Rattay and A. J. Suggs had taken years before.

His assumption was confirmed Friday. UT announced that Schaeffer would transfer to another school after this semester.

Two-quarterback stories usually end with good-byes. Stewart transferred when he was second to Peyton Manning; Rattay and Suggs transferred after Casey Clausen beat them out.

Sanders knows the history.

"I thought it would be very, very hard to keep both (Schaeffer and fellow freshman Erik Ainge) even when we signed them," he said. "You sign the best ones and do all you can to keep them. At the worst, you end up with the best one of them playing.

"That being said, I really believed Brent would be with us this coming year. If I wouldn't have believed it, I wouldn't have split the reps (in spring practice)."

Maybe that was wishful thinking. And maybe the quarterback was playing the same game.

It shouldn't have taken a suspension to convince him he had a better chance of starting at quarterback somewhere else. He only needed to numb his competitive instincts and review the facts of the competition.

Ainge won the starting job from him last fall. Not only was Ainge more effective on the field, he convinced the coaches that he was more comfortable in the high-profile role as UT's starting quarterback.

It would have been hard enough to beat out Ainge on a level field. But after losing the competition in the fall, Schaeffer had to play catch-up.

"I think he felt he was making some progress (in the spring)," Sanders said. "When he got suspended for the reason he got suspended -- despite whatever ground he had made up -- he probably thought it was going to be too much to overcome."

Some programs would be devastated by the loss of a quarterback who was talented enough to start the season opener of his freshman season. But UT has two proven quarterbacks in Ainge and Rick Clausen, and a promising signee in Jonathan Crompton. It's in far better shape at the position than when Stewart or Suggs transferred.

If you're worried about whether Sanders and head coach Phillip Fulmer made the right decision last fall, remember UT's track record with quarterbacks. They were right in taking Manning over Stewart in 1994 and right again in taking Clausen over Rattay and Suggs in 2000.

Nonetheless, you can't help but wonder how Schaeffer will do somewhere else, or how he might have fared at another position with UT.

"I think he can be a tremendous quarterback," Sanders said. "He was tremendously athletic, probably the hardest guy on our team to tackle. He was a good quarterback and could have brought some things to our offense as a receiver. No question in my mind, he was our best punt returner."

But he wasn't their best quarterback.