Bodie Reeder walked slowly, with his head down, late last Saturday night.

Dressed in jeans, with a navy blue T-shirt and cowboy boots, the shaggy-haired Reeder took his time.

Eastern’s backup quarterback, who was content before the season started to bide his time while Cole Stinson led the Panthers’ offense this year, brought his head up, bit his lip and spoke.

“I fumbled the snap,” he said. “There’s no blame other than mine. I just flat-out didn’t get the job done.”

Accountability is not seen much from athletes in today’s society. But here was a college kid taking full responsibility for what had just happened 30 minutes ago.

A half hour prior to this, Reeder was on the cusp of actually living a fairy tale.

He had just driven the Panthers offense 55 yards down to Illinois State’s 20 and Eastern was trailing 24-21 with 32.6 seconds to play.

His throws were on target to his receivers and all his mannerisms were indicating he would lead Eastern into the end zone.

Then the forgettable part of an otherwise perfect second half for Reeder happened.

Call it a fumble; call it miscommunication or a botched snap.

Call it whatever.

It doesn’t matter at this point and won’t do Reeder any good to think about the final play against Illinois State when he makes his first career college start this Saturday at Indiana State.

The 6-foot, 203-pound Reeder found out on Sunday he’d be starting after offensive coordinator Jorge Munoz had his positions meeting with the quarterbacks.

It’s now his job to lose, Eastern head coach Bob Spoo said.

“I think we have to give him an opportunity,” he said. “He’s only really played less than half a game so I don’t want to pull him too soon. I want to give him the same opportunities we gave Cole. Who knows? In three or four games down the road, there might be another switch but I hope that doesn’t happen.”

Last season, the Panthers also made a quarterback switch during the season. Stinson replaced incumbent starter Mike Donato after five games.

While Stinson led Eastern to a 6-2 record in the Panthers’ final eight games last year, there was a layer of tension that seemed to permeate last year’s squad.

It’s not evident, at least to an outside observer of the team, and Reeder said both him and Stinson are treating it with a business-like approach.

This switch is obviously up for debate. Stinson has completed 60 percent of his passes (45-of-75 for 561 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions). Just on paper, those are impressive statistics.

Reeder is 12-of-16 for 94 yards this season. Again, impressive statistics but in a more limited role than Stinson.

Stinson hasn’t hurt the team with his play either, Munoz said.

But his inability to complete some easier throws has puzzled the Eastern coaching staff.

“(He was) missing some bubble screens and some deep outs that he’s capable of doing,” Munoz said. “Two straight weeks of that, and the week of practice in between, he was still missing some of those throws.”

Spoo likened bringing in Reeder to a relief pitcher in baseball.

“You can go to your reliever and hope he can provide a little bit of a spark,” he said. “And I think Bodie did that extremely well. It’s been something that’s been going on for a while and I just thought it was the appropriate time to do that.”

Reeder hasn’t started a game since his senior year of high school, almost three years ago. He doesn’t have as strong an arm as Stinson.

He doesn’t have all the prototypical physical attributes most quarterbacks have in 2007.

He’s going to face adversity again this season even if he does keep the starting quarterback job.

But he understands his new role.

Five days after he walked slowly out of Eastern’s locker room to go meet his family, he sat down on a bench at O’Brien Stadium in his sweat-soaked red practice jersey.

He had just finished working for 10 minutes after practice on receiving snaps from center Drew Cairo-Gross.

Three hours prior, he conducted interviews with two television crews and then took the majority of snaps with the first team in practice.

But Reeder understands he’ll take away more from Saturday’s game against Illinois State than his lost fumble.

“I’m the starter but there’s a hell of a lot of ways to get better,” he said. “I don’t want to be a guy where guys are thinking ‘Man, it’s the second-string quarterback out there playing.’ I want to be the guy out there thinking this is the best guy for the job right now.”