ANALYSIS These quarterbacks must carry the load to fulfill their teams' high expectations

Missouri will rely heavily on Chaney grad Brad Smith this season.
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Just call them the "On-the-Spot Six-Pack."
They are the six quarterbacks who must play well for -- cue the old U.S. Army commercials here -- their teams to be all they can be.
A look at the six alphabetically:
*Brock Berlin, Miami: This guy was All-World out of high school in 1999, but unless he plays a heck of a lot better than he did Thursday night against hapless Louisiana Tech, he'll become All-Ron Powlus. There's no question Berlin has a cannon. But he threw a lot of bad passes against a porous Bulldogs defense Thursday. Maybe it was first-game nerves. And he doesn't go against a top-notch defense until Oct. 11, when the Hurricanes play at Florida State, so there's time for him to come around. He certainly has a lot of skill-position weapons.
*Casey Clausen, Tennessee: Like most quarterbacks, Clausen is better when he has a solid running game behind him. But there are a lot of questions about Clausen after his uneven play last season. Good news for the Vols: Cedric Houston looks like a legit SEC tailback and the offensive line should be good. But the Vols' receiving corps looks week, and if we were an opposing defensive coordinator, we'd sell out to stop the run and take our chances with Clausen and the passing game.
*Chance Mock, Texas: Critics don't have Chris Simms to knock around anymore, so Mock becomes the easy target for critics. (The target should be Mack "Coach February" Brown.) Mock beat out acclaimed redshirt freshman Vincent Young--the consensus No. 1 quarterback in 2001 -- for the starting job. Mock has a strong arm and is a tough guy. He also has a tremendous receiving corps to work with. But if Texas loses to Oklahoma on Oct. 11 in Dallas, none of that will matter. He'll just be the new guy who can't beat OU.
*John Navarre, Michigan: A lot of folks are touting the Wolverines as the leading Big Ten contender, mainly because they host Purdue and Ohio State and don't play Wisconsin. We're not one of those folks. Navarre must show more consistency. In Michigan's three losses last season, he completed 46.2 percent of his passes, with one TD and two picks. And more than half his TD passes (11 of his 21) came in wins over three teams that combined for 13 victories. Like Clausen, Navarre is much better when his team runs effectively.
*Brad Smith, Missouri: The Big 12 North is wide open behind Kansas State. There are big questions about Colorado and Nebraska, and Smith is the headline talent on an offense that returns 10 starters. The Youngstown native and Chaney graduate is only a sophomore, but he already is one of the best dual-threat QBs in the nation. If he plays as well as he did last season, the Tigers win seven games. If he improves as much as we think he will, they'll win nine.
*Jim Sorgi, Wisconsin: He saw action behind Brooks Bollinger in each of the past three seasons, but the job is all his now. He has some excellent skill-position talent around him, most notably TB Anthony Davis and WR Lee Evans. Sorgi is a much better passer than Bollinger. A 20-TD season is a legit goal, and if reaches that goal, the Badgers should win at least nine games.
Slow motion
The season is 14 games old and there already has been a "major" upset: Northern Illinois' overtime win Thursday over No. 15 Maryland.
Truthfully, we thought the game would be close, a touchdown or so difference, but we were confident Maryland would win because of its defense.
That defense played well until the last quarter. But the Terps' offense was nothing short of brutal. Maryland drove 58 yards for a touchdown on its first possession, then managed just 164 yards the rest of the way. Maryland missed injured TB Bruce Perry. His replacement, Josh Allen, just doesn't have Perry's burst. And as a whole, Maryland's offense looked slow.
The Terps held NIU TB Michael "The Burner" Turner--the nation's leading rusher--to 90 yards on 30 carries, but they let the Huskies drive 84 yards on 18 plays to set up the game-tying field goal with 1:14 left.
NIU scored first in OT on a touchdown pass, then picked off QB Scott McBrien on the second play of Maryland's possession to seal it.
"I thought we did a lot of foolish things that really hurt us. We didn't make the plays that we needed to make," said Maryland Coach Ralph Friedgen whose team started 1-2 last season before finishing with 10 wins in its final 11 games. "We had opportunities, we just didn't make them."