Seattle Times State Player of the Year: Skyline QB Jake Heaps

SAMMAMISH — Trailing late in the fourth quarter of the Class 4A championship game and facing third-and-13, Skyline junior quarterback Jake Heaps looked to the sideline for the call.

We'll hit something short, he thought, and set up a manageable fourth down.

The call came from first-year coach Mat Taylor, and the Skyline players each looked at the play cards on their wrist. The Spartans were about to go long. With Heaps, Skyline can always go long.

On the right side, two Skyline receivers ran deep routes toward the end zone. When the safety bit toward the middle, Heaps didn't miss it. He knew receiver Kasen Williams would be open on the sideline.

"I was licking my chops," Heaps remembers.

He threw deep, the way only Heaps does, a rainbow of a throw that never loses its zip, and hit Williams 40 yards downfield. Three plays later, Heaps threw for the winning touchdown.

"Go big or go home. That was our mentality as an offense," Heaps said.

Remarkably, in two seasons as a starter, Heaps has never gone home a loser. He is 28-0, a two-time state champion, the state's most hounded recruit, and The Seattle Times' State Player of the Year.

Heaps threw for 2,888 yards and 38 touchdowns this season, and with 5,991 yards in two seasons he is 871 yards shy of a new KingCo record. In those two years, he has thrown 69 touchdown passes, yet this is one of Taylor's favorite statistics: Heaps has been intercepted only 11 times.

"You almost take for granted how good he really is," Taylor said.

The Spartans won only three games this season by fewer than 21 points, and in each one Heaps led Skyline down the field and threw the winning touchdown pass in the second half. Blessed with four of the state's most talented receivers, Skyline's four-wide spread offense was rarely stopped; the Spartans punted only 21 times in 14 games.

"When they [defenses] want to bring the blitz hard, we can do so many things to attack that," Heaps said. "When they sit back and play zone, we can do a ton of things to attack that, too."

When next year's recruiting lists come out, Heaps might not just be the top-rated quarterback in the nation; he could be the No. 1 player, period. In the week after Skyline won the state championship, Heaps had about 100 phone calls from college coaches, recruiting Web sites and reporters looking for a response to the UW's hiring of Steve Sarkisian.

"It has been overwhelming," his mother, Kelly, said. "It has been a barrage."

It's become a tradition at the Heaps family dinner for him to open his recruiting mail, which lately has included handwritten Christmas cards from Division I coaches. Each night, his mom files them away.

Before the season, his recruiting mail fit in a single file folder. Now it fills a whole file cabinet. He has 18 Division I scholarship offers, and the most high-profile programs such as USC and Florida often do not make offers until after they sign the current senior class. Other colleges want to see him in person before they make an offer.

Speculation has gone beyond rampant. Does Heaps want to stay close to home and try to rescue the Huskies? Is he interested in the Mormon tradition of BYU? Does the long football history of Notre Dame entice him? The answers are yes, yes and yes again. He plans on taking unofficial visits on most weekends next semester to get closer looks.

"It's going to be a fun process for me, and go out there and visit all these schools I dreamed about visiting," Heaps said.

His time is short. He wants to pick a school by the start of his senior season, and like many elite prospects, Heaps might try to graduate from Skyline a semester early and enroll in college in January 2010 to be a part of spring camp.

Heaps is devoting this offseason to getting college-ready. He has coverages to learn, techniques to fine-tune and weight to gain. He is on a more-than-4,000-calorie diet to try to put on 15 to 20 pounds before next fall.

"I don't want to go to a college and be overwhelmed physically," he said.

Before then, Heaps has one more season to overwhelm the state once again.

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com