Caleb Herring’s father could see the longing in his son’s eyes.

Watching on television when the cameras cut to Herring and Nick Sherry discussing the next drive, Mike Herring saw his son look at the scoreboard with a blank face. Herring was a wide receiver for UNLV against Minnesota that day, and Sherry was his quarterback.

Though Herring was dressed, prepped and ready for that role, a receiver he was not. Herring had been a quarterback since he started playing football, but had been relegated to his new position because of a perceived lack of talent.

“I could tell in his eyes he wanted the ball in his hands, but he was a receiver,” said his father Mike, who was also one of his coaches at Citrus Hill High School in California. “He wants to have the ball, he wants to make the decisions.”

For Herring’s first three seasons at UNLV, he shuffled between back-up quarterback, wide receiver and holder.

Two games into his senior season, that all changed. Herring was given the starting nod during game three after two blowout losses, and immediately propelled the Runnin’ Rebels to their first four-game winning streak in 13 years. Now at 4-3, UNLV is on the cusp of its first winning season since that 2000 campaign.

Herring’s story, though, is more about his journey, rather than the destination.

“It’s been really humbling,” Herring said. “It’s taught me to not take things for granted. I find that the time that I had on the bench, kind of take it in and appreciate that this something that I really love to do.

“It’s exciting to finally enjoy some success.”

Herring is completing passes at a 68.4-percent clip, up from the 54.5 percent during his first three seasons combined behind center. In 228 attempts, he’s thrown 13 touchdowns and just one interception.

“When you look at it in this day and age, especially at the quarterback position, you see all these guys jumping in and out of programs, and the minute something goes against them, they leave and quit,” UNLV head coach Bobby Hauck said. “This guy is the antithesis of that.”

Herring takes pride in the fact that he stuck with the program at UNLV, but that decision wasn’t always the easy one.

When Herring was relegated to playing wide receiver during his junior season, he contemplated quitting.

“Being a quarterback was what I was recruited to do,” Herring said. “If I failed that, then I failed my purpose at UNLV.”

But his father reminded him of the commitment he made to the school.

“I didn’t stick to my commitment back in high school, and some things didn’t turn out like I wanted in college,” Mike Herring said. “I used that example of me for him, to make sure you stick to your word, and have your word mean something.“

Even during a hectic recruiting process, Herring remained steadfast in his decision to play for UNLV.

Coming out of Citrus Hill, Herring was a three-star recruit and one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks on the West Coast. Oregon listed him as its No. 2 choice at quarterback behind now-Heisman candidate Tajh Boyd, Mike Herring said, but by the time then-Oregon head coach Chip Kelly came to talk to him, Herring said he was sticking with UNLV.

“Caleb said he was solid. He didn’t flinch on it,” Herring’s father said. “Even to the amazement of our coaching staff here, they were like, ‘Caleb, that’s Oregon.’”

Herring redshirted during his freshman year at UNLV, when the head coach that recruited him was fired during the offseason. In came Hauck, and out went any guarantee of Herring becoming the starting quarterback.

Herring often beat himself up knowing he could have played at Oregon. Kenjon Barner, a former Ducks player and high school friend of Herring’s, even called to tease him about making the wrong choice, Mike Herring said.

And while he wasn’t sure if it was the wrong choice, his goal to help turn around UNLV football seemed lost.

Each summer, Herring and his friend and teammate Bradley Randle would drive home. They would train all summer and talk about how next year would be their season. As the years came and went, that dream seemed fainter.

“He was just being patient,” Randle said. “He knows he’s a great quarterback. Now he’s getting his time and getting his opportunity, and he’s proving what he was always able to do.”

Now, after four years of being told to go for it, Herring finally has something to show. And when he finally got the chance in the third game, he made sure to make the most of it.

“It was one of moments that you pray for, and something that you’ve been quietly asking for,” Herring said. “It was one of those moments where I said to myself, ‘Here’s your opportunity, what are you going to do with it?’”

Published on November 1, 2013 at 12:51 am

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3