Dominique Davis Takes Twisted Path From Boston College to East Carolina

GREENVILLE, N.C. - An hour and a half south of Kansas City, straight down state highway 69, there's a dot on the map called Fort Scott. It was big back in the 1800s, when the Kansas fort was an outpost on the great American frontier.

It's still an outpost today.

"The middle of nowhere, pretty much,'' said Dominique Davis, who banished himself to that oblivion a year ago to prepare for one last shot at making it in college football.

Remember Davis? Back in 2008, he was thrust into the starting quarterback job as a redshirt freshman at Boston College and helped the Eagles reach the ACC Championship game. Two years later, Davis is back, quietly battling for a starting job at East Carolina. It's not the high profile BCS-eligible program he once starred in.

But as Davis found out in a semester at Fort Scott Community College, location is only what you make of it.

"I just went in there and basically started all over,'' he said.

Davis needed a new beginning after a rocky end to his time at Boston College. He had redshirted the season Eagles quarterback Matt Ryan won the 2007 ACC Player of the Year award before heading off to stardom in the NFL. Davis competed with senior Chris Crane for the starting job in 2008. Although Crane won, Davis saw playing time as well.

When Crane went down with a broken collarbone against Wake Forest late in the season, Davis took over. He struggled at first, nearly costing his team the game, but led the Eagles on a fourth-quarter drive that culminated in a 1-yard touchdown run by Davis with 1:12 to go that completed the 24-21 comeback victory.

Davis started the rest of the season, including a 28-21 win over Maryland in the regular-season finale that clinched a spot in the ACC championship. Boston College lost to Virginia Tech in the title game, missing out on a BCS bowl game, and the Eagles fell to Vanderbilt in the Music City Bowl.

Still, Davis had seemingly established himself as a starter. He thought he was being groomed for greatness.

"(Offensive coordinator) Steve Logan and (head coach) Jeff Jagodzinski, they always put that in my head: Just do what they tell me to do and I would be listed as a Matt Ryan or Doug Flutie or Matt Hasselbeck,'' Davis said. "I'd be listed as one of the great QB's to ever come out of BC.''

He never played another down for the Eagles. Jagodzinski was fired shortly after the 2008 season when he interviewed for the head coaching job with the New York Jets without permission from Boston College. He was replaced by Frank Spaziani and the quarterback competition the following spring was wide open.

Davis might not have been the starting quarterback the next season. When he was suspended for academic reasons in June of 2009, Davis opted to transfer.

"Just made some bad mistakes and had to pay for those mistakes by leaving and starting a new career somewhere else,'' said Davis, who declined to discuss his academic problems at Boston College.

The plan was to play one level down at an FCS school. But Davis also was recruited by Jeff Sims, the head coach at Fort Scott Community College.

The sales pitch worked.

"He was telling me I have another opportunity to get my grades back up,'' Davis said. "He was like, this is what I need. I need to be somewhere with no distractions and that really caught my eye. I took the challenge.''

Asked how living in Fort Scott changed him, Davis said, "Maturity. That's it. Realize that you do the wrong things, you get everything taken away from you. This is what happens.''

You wind up, as he said, in the middle of nowhere.

Davis stayed long enough to lead Fort Scott to an 11-1 record, a No. 2 ranking in the National Junior College Athletic Association and a conference title.

After the season, Davis committed to East Carolina and planned to enroll in the spring semester. That changed when Pirates coach Skip Holtz left in early January to take the head coaching job at South Florida. Davis hesitated until new head coach Ruffin McNeill and his offensive coordinator, Lincoln Riley, quickly arranged a visit with Davis and his family at their home in Lakeland, Fla.

"We knew quarterback was an important part of the success in this offense -- on any football team, not just this offense,'' McNeill said. "Dom being a quarterback, we knew we had to get down to his home to meet his parents, let him meet myself and Lincoln, let him understand what we wanted here as a program, what we expected here as a program and also what demands we were gonna ask of him as a person. After we met, it was done, just reaffirmed he was ready to go.''

Davis, sold on the pass-happy spread offense McNeill planned to install at East Carolina, paid his own way to travel to Greenville and watch spring practice. He enrolled in May, intent on making the most of what is likely his last opportunity.

"You could tell he was all about business and that's what I liked,'' Riley said. "He's been somewhere, had it taken away from him and now he knows this is his shot. I could sense that in him that this is business for him.''

Make that unfinished business.

"I kind of feel like a lot of people forgot about me and, when they see me again, it's going to be a lot different person,'' Davis said. "A more mature guy and a leader out there."