It didn’t matter to Jake Christensen when the Eastern football team’s coaching staff announced last week that he had won the starting quarterback position for the upcoming season.

For Christensen – the highly touted Iowa transfer who beat out senior, and former starter, Bodie Reeder for the job – winning wasn’t enough to generate excitement.

“I think it’s more of being excited to finally move forward and start preparing for the season more than just being happy to have the job,” the fifth-year senior said. “I don’t think any of us should be satisfied just to be starters. We want to excel. We want to push this team and be leaders.”

Christensen announced his intentions to transfer following a 2008 season at Iowa that saw him his replacemnt as starter by sophomore Ricki Stanzi. Speculation abound immediately that Eastern would be on his short list of teams to attend, mainly because his father Jeff was a star quarterback for the Panthers in the early 1980s.

In August, it became official that Christensen would attend Eastern as a fifth-year senior. He was admitted to the school as a graduate student and granted a waiver by the NCAA for a fifth year of eligibility.

But Panthers offensive coordinator Roy Wittke insists the competition between Christensen and Reeder was legitimate. Reeder started all 12 games for the Panthers a year ago and the final nine games of his sophomore season in 2007. Wittke said the decision was made not because Reeder played poorly, because he didn’t. It was just the fact that Christensen was flat-out better.

“(Reeder) performed about as well as he has since he’s been here and had a very good camp,” Wittke said. “He simply got beat out, and he’s handled it tremendously.”

Head coach Bob Spoo said he feels confident the decision was the right choice.

“It was what was best for our football team,” Spoo said. “I think he’s done a good job, but I think all of our quarterbacks have done a good job.”

While the present of the Panthers offense will undoubtedly include Christensen, a learning curve has been evident. Christensen didn’t join the team until early August and had to adapt to a whole new system. He said Reeder has helped him learn the offense and he feels he’s progressing each day.

“I’m getting there,” Christensen said. “We still have a week of camp mode left. There’s still work to do but I think we have enough time left where we can get it done.”

One thing is for sure, Christensen’s presence has sparked optimism throughout the Eastern locker room.

“I’m excited to see what Jake Christensen can do with the offense,” red-shirt senior strong safety Adrian Arrington said.

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.

Jake Christensen, the newly-named starting quarterback, lines up under center at Saturday evening’s intersquad scrimmage at O’Brien Stadium. (Eric Hiltner/The Daily Eastern News)

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