Top 5 Underrated Option Era Players - Zach Abey
#5 – Lamar Owens
#4 – Tyler Carmona
#3 – Eric Roberts
#2 – Zach Abey
Lists like these are usually feel-good walks down memory lane, looking back on beloved players and teams of years past. That won’t be the case here.
I get angry when I think of Zach Abey. Not because of him, but because of how underappreciated he is. Fans, particularly Navy fans, tend to blame quarterbacks almost exclusively when a team struggles. And yes, the 2017 team had problems, although that whole season is undervalued, too; winning seasons capped by blowouts over ACC opponents don’t exactly grow on trees. Still, while Abey’s ball security was a legitimate criticism, fans who focus on the troubles miss the mark. If Abey played in any other era, he’d be considered one of the greatest Navy quarterbacks of all time. He still deserves mention even in the context of the current era. He was an absolute warhorse.
Abey was thrown into the fire like no Navy quarterback before or since. His first meaningful playing time came as Will Worth‘s replacement in the 2016 AAC Championship game. His first two starts were in the Army-Navy Game and the Armed Forces Bowl. Despite that enormous pressure, he played well. After a slow start against Army, he ran for 73 yards and two touchdowns, including a 41-yarder that gave the Mids a fourth-quarter lead. And while Navy lost the bowl game, Abey’s performance (273 total yards and three touchdowns) was so convincing that he was still named the game’s MVP.
He only got better the next season. In the opener at Florida Atlantic, Abey ran for 235 yards and two touchdowns, threw for 110 and a touchdown, and led the Mids to a 42-19 win. He was only the second quarterback in school history to rush for over 200 yards and throw for over 100 yards in a single game against an FBS opponent. He ran for another 214 yards and two TDs against Air Force, making him only the fifth player in Navy history to have two 200-yard games in the same season. He ended that game by leading an 11-play, 75-yard scoring drive in only 1:38, capped by a 15-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Carmona with 15 seconds left (and without using a timeout).
Between the end of 2016 and into 2017, Abey became the first player in Navy history to have eight consecutive 100-yard rushing games. His first seven games alone would have been a top-20 rushing season in Navy history. He averaged more than 160 yards per game in those contests and was well on his way to not only passing Napoleon McCallum as Navy’s single-season rushing king, but becoming the first quarterback in FBS history to run for 2,000 yards. Sadly, after suffering a concussion in the third quarter against UCF, Abey was never the same and started only two more games the rest of the season. In the Military Bowl against Virginia, though, Abey came on in relief of an injured Malcolm Perry and put on one last show. He ran for 88 yards on only 13 carries and tied the national record with five rushing touchdowns in a bowl game. Despite the injury, Abey still finished the season with 1,413 rushing yards, the third-most in school history.
The next year, Abey switched to wide receiver and served as the goal-line quarterback. He started games later in the year when Perry was injured and ran for 128 yards in a win over Tulsa. Against Tulane, he threw for 167 yards and a TD and caught a 37-yard TD pass from Perry. Even in his limited role, his 14 rushing touchdowns in 2018 tied for the sixth most in the country among quarterbacks.
Today, Abey is all over the Navy record book. On top of everything I’ve already mentioned, he is fifth in career rushing touchdowns. He’s fourth in passing yards per attempt. He is second only to Perry in single-season rushing yards by a quarterback. The 2017 team’s 351 ypg rushing average set a record that was topped only by the great 2019 team.
Abey’s career often gets reduced to the struggles of a single season, and that is shameful. His body of work stacks up against anyone. Respect should be given accordingly.
