As a 14-year-old high school freshman, AJ Long was given the keys to a varsity football team.

He was short, wiry and had a 160-pound frame. Around him stood grown, 18-year-old men. Long was asked to lead Pius X (Pa.) High School before he’d ever played on it.

Long’s first three weeks reflected that. Week 1, Pius X lost 27-20. Then 42-14, before a 49-14 loss dropped the Royals to 0-3. But the discouragement didn’t mount. Instead, each day, he’d go home and watch game and practice tape with his father, Ace Long.

“If you didn’t know he was a freshman or you didn’t look at his face and see that he was a young kid, you would have never known,”said Phil Stambaugh, Long’s head coach at Pius X. “He played like he was seasoned.”

Long went on to lead that team to eight-straight wins with the offense averaging nearly 54 points per game during that stretch. But as a dual-threat freshman quarterback for Syracuse four years later, playing time isn’t presenting itself in the same way.

After transferring to Friendship Christian (Tenn.) High School after his sophomore season, Long came to Syracuse with a goal of proving himself as a leader and player and snatching snaps right away. And while he may possess the raw capabilities and mentality of a starting quarterback, it’s almost a surefire bet that he’ll be on the sidelines when the Orange opens its season against Villanova on Aug. 29.

“My goal won’t change,” Long said. “It can’t. If you change your goal then you become less confident in yourself. My goal still is going to be to become the starter and if that doesn’t happen, I’m going to be as close to being the starter as possible.”

Long has been with the team since the spring after enrolling at SU in January. It was a move, he said, that he hoped would prepare him for a starting role in 2014 —a spot that will in all likelihood be occupied by incumbent starter Terrel Hunt.

After the Orange’s intra-squad scrimmage at Fort Drum on Thursday, head coach Scott Shafer pegged Long as the flavor of the day for the team’s backup quarterback competition. Although Shafer also said the depth chart at quarterback is volatile, he put Long slightly ahead of sophomores Austin Wilson and Mitch Kimble for the backup quarterback position.

“I would see a lot of quarterbacks when I was younger, that guys went on and they were successful in their first couple of years — they got playing time,” Long said. “Since I was younger, it was the main thing that I wanted to do. I saw the benefits of it.”

Yet Long arrived at SU weighing just 165 pounds. His throwing motion was inconsistent. His footwork, by his own estimation, wasn’t as sharp as he’d like it to be.

But his arm was accurate. At Friendship Christian it wasn’t the yards that he racked up that impressed his coach, but the lack of interceptions that he threw. Yet still he needed strength.

Eight months later, Syracuse assistant athletics director for athletic performance Will Hicks put him on a training program and diet that enabled him to gain 20 pounds. On top of that, Hunt has helped Long’s throwing arm by helping him properly use his legs.

“Really just little things like that,” Hunt said, regarding things Long can improve upon. “Hearing it from someone who’s went through it is a lot easier. He takes it in. He’s been working on it every day since.”

For Long, mentality isn’t an issue. Throughout high school and his short college career, everything he’s done has been to become a college starter.

“He doesn’t let his friends, family or distractions get in the way,”Ace Long said. “There’s an end goal to be reached.”

It’s an end goal that doesn’t have a defined path. He sat out Thursday’s scrimmage because of shoulder irritation. And even if Long’s natural ability has pushed him ahead of Wilson and Kimble at times during spring training, he could potentially redshirt his freshman season for that very reason.

When asked about competing for a backup spot rather than a starting role, Long smiled. He’s aware of the situation he’s in, but negligent of it as well. He understands that there’s another leader, but still believes he could win that spot even if no one else does.

“You’re working as hard as you can to prove that you’re here for a reason,”Long said, “that you’re not just some freshman that’s coming in to sit behind whoever’s here.”

Published on August 20, 2014 at 1:05 am

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3