West Chester East's Schaub had 'star' written all over him early

Matt Schaub might not even be in the NFL if it weren't for hoagies.

As a star at West Chester East in the late 1990s, the current Houston Texans quarterback lacked nothing a major-college QB needed - except 20 to 30 pounds.

"He was smart and dedicated and talented," said Joe Carroll, his head coach at East. "But he was really thin. You knew he was going to play at a big school. All he needed was a little more weight."

Thanks to his consumption of the super-caloric sandwiches, supplemented by protein shakes and rigorous weightlifting, Schaub added 30 pounds between his junior and senior years. That and the nearly 4,000 yards he passed for at the Chester County school were enough to land him a scholarship to Virginia, where, at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, he became the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year.

Though Schaub, 29, has since added considerable heft to his frame (he's listed at 239) and his reputation, Carroll apparently still feels the need to feed him. After the Texans lost to the New York Jets at the New Meadowlands Stadium on Nov. 21, his old coach handed the defeated QB a big, fat hoagie.

"He stuffed it in his bag," Carroll said. "He said he was going to eat it on the flight back to Houston and make all the other guys jealous. Matt loves hoagies."

Schaub will get the chance to enjoy them again when he and the Texans - neither of whom is on a roll - return to hoagie heaven for Thursday night's matchup with the Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field.

Hoagies aside, when he's through with the NFL, Schaub may be viewed as the progenitor of a trend that has seen the Philadelphia area, and in particular Chester County, become a breeding ground for quarterbacks.

Besides Schaub, there's Exton's Matt Ryan, the icy signal caller who has guided the 9-2 Atlanta Falcons to the NFC's best record; Pat Devlin, the Downingtown native who transferred from Penn State to Delaware, and is called the best non-BCS quarterback available in this year's draft by NFLdraftscout.com; and West Chester's Ryan Nassib, a player Carroll described as "an awesome talent" who is the starting QB for bowl-bound Syracuse.

(While he didn't grow up in Chester County, South Jersey's Joe Flacco has made tremendous strides as the Baltimore Ravens' steady starting QB.) So what gives with Chester County and QBs? Is it something in the mushrooms?

"Football in Chester County has always been very good," said Carroll, who was born, raised, and still resides in Delaware County. "And now you've got this group of really good kids, really talented quarterbacks, coming up at roughly the same time. I don't think there's any one reason for it. It's just a cyclical thing." That also applies to the NFL, where Schaub and his 5-6 Texans are enduring letdown seasons.

In guiding Houston to its first winning record (9-7) in 2009, he led the league in passing yards (4,770), completions (396) and average yards per game (298). He not only earned his first Pro Bowl invite, he was the game's MVP.

Asked about his '09 success, Schaub was typically modest - and typically succinct.

"Our receivers," he said, "are the best in the game." That wasn't an unusually brief answer. At the postgame podium, Schaub is Houston's Andy Reid, saying little, revealing less.

"Matt Schaub," wrote Houston Chronicle columnist Richard Justice, "must be saving the good stuff for his book." This year, as the Texans have run the ball more and failed to stop anyone defensively, and as he's had to deal with a painful knee and an underperforming offensive line, Schaub's numbers have been clipped, too.

He is ninth in passing yardage, and his yards-per-game average has fallen to 250. He's thrown a relatively modest 15 TD passes but only seven interceptions.

His response, according to those around the team, has been to watch more film, lift more weights, work more hours.

"He has a great, great work ethic," said Carroll, who retired in 2007. "From what I hear, he's the first guy there every morning. He's made himself into a very good NFL quarterback. That's something he always wanted for himself. I remember when he was in 10th grade, his English teacher told me Matt had written an essay about playing quarterback in the NFL someday." Carroll first saw Schaub as a skinny eighth-grade QB at Fugett Middle School.

"You could see right then that he was going to be a good one. He was tall, talented, smart, and had a good arm," he said.

Schaub became East's starter as a sophomore. That's when the coach called on Ernie Forchetti to hone the youngster's skills. Forchetti played quarterback at West Chester University when Carroll was a defensive tackle there and went on to coach at Kutztown and Arizona.

"We worked mostly on his footwork," Forchetti recalled. "You could see this kid was going to be a big-time player, but his footwork was all over the place." Carroll and Forchetti also tried to harness Schaub's hyper-competitiveness. That was evident when, after throwing an interception against Coatesville in his junior season, he stormed to the sideline and wouldn't be consoled.

"Finally, I said, 'Listen, are you going to let this get to you?' " Forchetti said. " 'You're going to be playing major-college football pretty soon. If you can't handle this, what's going to happen when you're playing in front of 90,000 people at Florida State and you throw an interception?' He eventually learned to deal with those kinds of things."

As a senior, Schaub led East to the Ches-Mont League title and earned a spot in the Big 33 game. Though Carroll's teams were always run-oriented, he finished his career at East with 35 TD passes.

"I always used to kid Joe," Forchetti said. " 'How often are you going to get a quarterback like this? You should redo your whole playbook for the kid.' But he didn't."

At Virginia, in a pro-style offense, Schaub blossomed as a thrower, establishing dozens of school passing records.

"He's unflappable," said Al Groh, his head coach there. "He's the same guy every day in terms of his approach and his demeanor."

That newly mellowed outlook helped when, after the Atlanta Falcons made him their third-round pick in the 2004 draft, Schaub played sparingly, backing up current Eagles QB Michael Vick. In 2006, he threw just 27 passes.

He likely would have become the starter there after Vick's dogfighting troubles sent him to prison. But the Falcons had dealt him to Houston in March 2007, swapping first-round picks and getting a pair of second-round selections.

"One thing that helped Matt in Atlanta was that he got traded about month before all that stuff with Vick came up," Carroll said. "He didn't have to answer all the questions that were being asked of [Vick's] teammates."

Schaub's family has since moved from West Chester to an Atlanta suburb and he lives in Houston, where he's become an avid golfer. He still stays in touch with Carroll and Forchetti, both of whom visited him at the New Meadowlands Stadium earlier this month.

"I wasn't really ready when I started at East, but I had to learn fast," Schaub said. "But Coach [Carroll] taught me a lot. About the position, about football, about handling adversity." And, undoubtedly, about hoagies.