Carson Strong cried after every Will C. Wood High School football game in 2017. His tears were born of frustration more than sorrow. After the five victories, Strong did not feel as if he deserved to celebrate with his teammates. After the five losses, he could only wonder if he could have changed the outcome in any of those games.
A knee injury and the subsequent surgery reduced Strong to a sideline spectator as a senior. The quarterback was denied an encore after passing for 2,732 yards and 26 touchdowns with just four interceptions in 2016. His only comfort was those numbers leading the University of Nevada to offer him a scholarship.
Strong was also robbed of a last hurrah in basketball at Wood because his right knee refused to cooperate. To this day, Strong likes to think he could have stopped Vacaville’s Zach Perlstein from sinking two last-second shots to give the Bulldogs a sweep of the Wildcats. No one needs to remind Strong that Vacaville ended Wood’s two-year reign as the Monticello Empire League champion by going 10-0 in 2018.
“It was a dark time for me. It was definitely tough,” Strong said. “I didn’t feel like I was a part of it.”
At least Strong was spared the agony of witnessing those two defeats. He was attending classes at Nevada after leaving Wood, his family and friends at the winter break to get a head start on his college career. There is little chance he would be where he is today if he had stayed at Wood for all the senior frolic.
Behind center is where Strong will be Friday night when he becomes the first freshman to start at quarterback for Nevada in a season opener since 1998. Strong is a redshirt freshman after playing in one game last year. Purdue will be a far tougher test for Strong on Friday than Portland State was last season.
Sacrificing the second half of his senior year now seems as if it was not a sacrifice at all. And with three semesters and two summer sessions under his academic belt, he plans to earn his business degree with two years of athletic eligibility remaining. That will give him ample time on scholarship for a master’s.
From the day he left Wood, Strong realized his world would be much more demanding. He had to get serious. “I was going to 5 a.m. workouts instead of having a cakewalk senior year,” he said. “I missed all the fun stuff (at Wood), but I know what’s best for me. It was the right decision to come here early.”
Practices and scrimmages have prepared Strong for his leading role, but he knows better than to kid himself. He has not thrown a pass or taken a hit in a game since a 38-15 loss to Vacaville in the 2016 Black and Blue Bowl. He has not taken a snap in a game with his right knee in the brace he now has to wear.
None of that can shake Strong’s confidence, however. All those long days of rehabilitating his knee and dragging tackling dummies to the practice field in the chill of a Reno night to use them as targets to improve his accuracy are in the past. The future is knocking and the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Strong is at the door.
“When I get hit for the first time and get up, it’ll be like ‘I’m good. I’m rocking.’ That will knock the butterflies away,” he said. “I couldn’t be better physically, mentally and emotionally. I’m right where I want to be. I’m ready for this.”