Cole Ramsey still has the list. Varsity, sophomore year, Lincoln High School: three quarterbacks made the team. His name was not on it. The sheet of paper, folded into quarters and taped inside a cheap plastic frame, now sits on a shelf in his apartment, a short drive from the stadium where on Sunday he led the biggest comeback in Pioneers history. He was the third-string quarterback at 16. At 23, he is the hottest rookie in the league.
The numbers from Sunday will be replayed for years. Down 24 points to Denver early in the third quarter, the Pioneers scored on five straight possessions. Ramsey completed 19 of his final 22 passes, threw three touchdowns and ran for another, and then calmly led a two-minute drive to set up the winning field goal as time expired. The final was 38–35. Fans who had left for the parking lot at halftime were turning around and running back toward the gates.
The long way up
Ramsey spent two years at a junior college, transferred to a small school in Idaho and was the 211th pick of the draft. Four games into his career, he has nine touchdown passes. Each step on that path came with a reason to quit, and the people closest to him say he never seriously considered it.
After being cut as a sophomore, Ramsey played junior varsity, then spent his junior season as the varsity backup. He started only six games as a senior, and Lincoln finished 5–5. He received no scholarship offers from four-year programs. A coach at a junior college two hours away saw a highlight tape his father had burned onto a DVD and offered him a roster spot, though not a starting job.
“He was not the most talented kid I ever had,” said Rich Delgado, his junior college coach. “He was the most prepared. He would come into my office on Monday morning with notes on our next opponent before I had finished my coffee. You do not see that very often from an eighteen-year-old.”
Idaho and the draft
After two productive seasons, Ramsey transferred to a small college program in Idaho, where he started for two years and set school records for completion percentage and touchdown passes. Scouts noticed, but cautiously. He was listed at 6-foot-1, a little short by league standards, and his arm strength graded as average. Most draft analysts projected him as an undrafted free agent.
The Pioneers took him in the seventh round, with the 211th pick. He was the ninth quarterback selected. At the time, the team’s general manager described him as a developmental prospect who would likely spend his first year on the practice squad.
A family that kept the tape rolling
Ramsey’s father, Doug, a high school shop teacher, filmed nearly every snap his son took from junior varsity onward, standing on a stepladder behind the end zone with a secondhand camcorder. He edited the highlight reels at the kitchen table and mailed them, by hand, to more than forty college programs. Only one called back. His mother, Linda, kept a binder of every rejection letter. On Sunday, both of them sat in the upper deck in matching jerseys, and Doug said he did not film a single play. “For once,” he said, “I just wanted to watch.”
From practice squad to starter
That plan lasted three weeks. Ramsey earned the backup job in training camp after the team’s veteran reserve was injured, and he took over in the second quarter of the season opener when the starter went down with a knee injury. He has not come off the field since.
His first four games have produced numbers few rookies reach so quickly:
- Nine touchdown passes and two interceptions
- A completion rate just under 68 percent
- Three wins in four starts, including Sunday’s comeback
- Two fourth-quarter game-winning drives
Teammates say the change in the locker room has been obvious. “Rookies usually come in quiet,” said veteran left tackle Marcus Holt. “Cole came in quiet too, but he was quiet like a guy who already knew where everybody was supposed to line up. By week two, he was correcting veterans on their routes, and he was usually right.”
What the Pioneers saw
Coaches point to his footwork and his calm. On the game-tying drive against Denver, his heart rate monitor barely moved. The team uses wearable sensors during games to track fatigue, and staff members said Ramsey’s readings during the final drive looked closer to a routine Wednesday practice than a tie game in the final minute.
Offensive coordinator Jim Kessler said the footwork is what first caught his eye on film. Ramsey’s drops are short and precise, which lets him release the ball quickly and makes up for a lack of elite arm strength. He also reads defenses fast. Kessler said the rookie has picked up the playbook faster than any quarterback he has coached, in part because he studies it like a final exam.
I’ve been told no a lot. Sunday was the first time a whole stadium told me yes.
Cole Ramsey
The comeback, drive by drive
The Pioneers trailed 31–7 with 11 minutes left in the third quarter. Ramsey began the rally with a quick 75-yard drive that ended in a short touchdown pass to tight end Andre Bishop. A defensive stop followed, and Ramsey hit receiver Jalen Price for a 41-yard score on the next series. Early in the fourth quarter, he scrambled for a seven-yard touchdown, diving past the pylon.
Denver answered with a field goal, but the Pioneers tied the game with 2:48 left on a 14-yard pass to Price in the back corner of the end zone. Then, after the defense forced a punt, Ramsey took over at his own 22 with 58 seconds and one timeout. Five completions later, the kicker lined up from 44 yards and split the uprights as the clock hit zero.
In the Game Center live blog on Sunday, our readers voted Ramsey’s final drive the play of the week by a wide margin, and his jersey has reportedly been the team store’s top seller since Monday morning.
The list on the shelf
Ramsey does not talk much about being cut, but he does not hide from it either. Asked about the framed list after the game, he laughed and said it was not there to remind him of anger. It is there to remind him of the bus rides to junior college games, the coaches who took chances on him and the kids who will be cut from their own high school teams this fall.
“If you are on the wrong side of a list right now, it is not the end of anything,” he said. “It might just be the first page.”
Four games is a small sample, and the league has a long history of rookie quarterbacks who flashed early and faded once defenses adjusted. Ramsey will see more disguised coverages and more pressure in the weeks ahead. The Pioneers face two of the league’s top pass rushes in the next month. But for a franchise that has struggled to find a steady quarterback for most of a decade, Sunday felt like the start of something.
Key takeaway: Cole Ramsey was never the most gifted quarterback on any roster. He has simply been the most prepared one, and so far that has been more than enough.
Thanks for explaining this so clearly.
Great reporting — please keep following this story.