Baylor quarterback Griffin is doing it all

He is undoubtedly the best Japanese-born freshman quarterback in America.

That tidbit is part of the Robert Griffin discovery quest, now in high gear after two virtuoso performances as Baylor’s quarterback. The rave reviews also are part of the adventure, as are the growing number of YouTube appearances.

The football resume already is filling up:

•Griffin didn’t start but played the majority of snaps in the opening-game loss to Wake Forest and moved the team better than starter Kirby Freeman. “He gave us fits,” Deacons coach Jim Grobe said.

•As the starter against Division I-AA Northwestern State, Griffin went 15 of 19 for 294 yards and three touchdowns.

•In last Friday’s 45-17 victory against Washington State, Griffin set a school record with 217 rushing yards and a Big 12-record 19.7 yards per carry. “He looks like a wide receiver playing quarterback,” said Cougars wide receiver Brandon Gibson.

Baylor has something special in Griffin, who will be on display to a wide audience tonight for the first time as the Bears visit Connecticut on ESPN2.

You’ll hear comparisons to some of the game’s great dual-threat quarterbacks. In the Big 12 world, Vince Young first comes to mind, but there have been a load of others such as Eric Crouch, Michael Bishop, Corby Jones, Brad Smith and Seneca Wallace. That would be incredible company for Griffin. Although it’s much too early and unfair to apply that kind of measuring stick, the highlights don’t lie. He shows uncommon ability and promise of making Baylor the winner it has never been as a Big 12 member.

Interviews with Griffin and those who know him best also show a maturity required to shoulder the growing expectations and excitement level around the program.

“He is poised,” Baylor coach Art Briles said. “Very poised.”

If major-college competition doesn’t intimidate Griffin, it’s because he competed at that level before putting on pads.

Griffin arrived at Baylor at the semester break last year, and while his high school classmates were involved in spring activities he was competing for Baylor’s track team. He won the 400-meter hurdles at the Big 12 meet and NCAA Midwest Regional and finished third at the NCAA national meet and competed at the U.S. Olympic trials.

But Griffin is a football player first, though not enough schools realized that as he was completing a terrific career in Copperas Cove, Texas. The town is adjacent to Fort Hood and explains the Asian birthplace. Griffin’s dad is a retired Army sergeant who was stationed in Japan then. The family also lived in Colorado and Washington state before settling in Copperas Cove about 10 years ago.

Briles was coaching Houston when he struck up a relationship in recruiting with Griffin and his family. Griffin had been interested in Baylor, but the Guy Morriss staff figured it was set at the position and didn’t offer a scholarship.

After all, returning this season was Blake Szymanski, the returning starter who set a slew of passing records in the program’s spread offense last season. Also in the fold was Freeman, who had started seven games at Miami, before transferring to Baylor.

Griffin committed to Houston, but when Briles left the program for Baylor, Griffin announced his switch a week later, joining the crowded group.

Griffin was undeterred. At the spring game, he was the most successful at running the offense, and he continued to wow during fall workouts.

Briles went with Freeman to start the season, but Griffin was in by the fourth series and got the Bears into the end zone on the sixth series.

“He’s the quarterback most capable of putting points on the board,” Briles said upon his decision to make Griffin a starter. “I don’t care what the birth certificate says.”

Because he doesn’t, Griffin, and not Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor, has had the greater impact nationally among freshman quarterbacks.