Staff Writer

Official kickoff for the 2002 football season may not be until Aug. 31, but the preseason magazines are hot off the presses. Junior quarterback Luke McCown is receiving a great deal of hype.

The Sporting News has named McCown as the best quarterback and Offensive Player of the Year for the WAC. The magazine also rated McCown as the 14th best quarterback in the entire nation.

"All the preseason honors don't mean much," Jack Bicknell, the Bulldog head coach, said.

"If he gets them after the season, that's great. Luke is such a great kid, I don't think it will affect him. I hope it gives him confidence, but his play last year should have done that."

McCown was also one of three Bulldogs to be selected to the All-WAC preseason squad by Athlon Sports. Senior offensive tackle Damian Lavergne and junior wide receiver D.J. Curry were also named to the squad.

"I'd like to congratulate the team," Binni Keleta, a junior computer information systems major who drove with some friends to the Humanitarian Bowl last year, said.

"I'm looking forward to the upcoming year after all Luke's done in his first two years here. Things can only get better for the next two years as he keeps improving."

Athlon rated McCown and the rest of the Tech quarterbacks (Maxie Causey, Matt Kubik, Patrick McMahon, and others) as the 10th best quarterbacking unit in the country.

"The only way to deal with expectations is to keep everything on an even keel," McCown said.

"We know we are a good team with big time players. We just have to work like a championship team. Every day, we have to put forth the effort like a championship team. That handles the expectations."

According to Athlon, McCown is the best quarterback in the WAC. "With David Carr having departed Fresno State for the NFL, (Tech) now possesses the conference's top quarterback in (Luke) McCown," said the publication.

"It's an honor and a privilege to be mentioned in the same sentence as David Carr," McCown said. "He and my brother are good friends. They played against each other and went through the draft camps together. He is a great football player."

Keleta said he expected McCown to take over the reigns from Carr as the poster boy for the WAC in 2002. "Now that Carr has proven a WAC quarterback can compete for the Heisman, it's time for Luke to step up and prove it wasn't a fluke and the WAC can produce quality quarterbacks."

McCown admitted he did not expect to see playing time so early in his career.

"I intended to red shirt my freshman year and not play until this year," McCown said. "But God's given me the ability to play the game of football, and I'm going to use that ability for his glory."

Bicknell noted the consistent improvement made by McCown. "It's been a gradual process," Bicknell said. "The second year he learned the offense better. This year he is concentrating on the little things to make him a better QB, like pulling the ball down and running and his footwork."

McCown enters the 2002 season in third place among active players in career passing yards and in a tie for third place in career passing touchdowns. He has thrown for 6,209 yards and 50 touchdowns in his two seasons as a Bulldog.

The Bulldogs were picked to finish in the top 50 in the nation by both publications (47th by The Sporting News and 50th by Athlon). Tech was also picked to finish in the top two in the WAC by both magazines, with Athlon predicting the Bulldogs to repeat as WAC champs.

"(The expectations) are an issue for us mainly because everyone is gunning for us, which was not the case last year," Bicknell said.