Cal QB Jack Plummer Could Face Arizona QB Will Plummer on Sept. 24
Have brothers ever been opposing quarterbacks in a college game? Probably, but none comes to mind. Eli and Peyton Manning faced each other three times in the NFL, but never on the college level.
Which brings us to new Cal quarterback Jack Plummer and Arizona quarterback Will Plummer. There is a possibility that on Sept. 14, 2022, Cal, with Jack Plummer starting at quarterback, will face Arizona, whose starting quarterback might be Will Plummer, Jack’s younger brother.
---Click here for a story on why Jack Plummer transferred to Cal---
The possibility looked like a probability in December 2021 when Jack Plummer committed to Cal after transferring from Purdue. Jack Plummer is likely to be the Golden Bears’ starting quarterback in 2022, and Will Plummer seemed to be in line to be the Wildcats’ starting quarterback next season after starting the final six games of 2021, including a 10-3 victory over Cal. Golden Bears coaches even mentioned the possibility of facing his younger brother when they were discussing with Jack the possibility of transferring to Cal.
“It was something cool when I was being recruited by Cal that, ‘Hey, did you know you could play your brother?’” Jack Plummer said.
The brother-vs.-brother scenario took a hit, however, when Washington State quarterback Jayden de Laura announced on January 10 that he was transferring to Arizona. There will still be a quarterback competition among de Laura, Will Plummer and Jordan McCloud for the starting job, but last year de Laura led the Pac-12 in touchdown passes, finished fourth in passer rating, led the Cougars to a surprising 6-3 conference record, has three years of eligibility remaining and presumably would not have come to Arizona unless he was fairly certain he would be the starter.
Will Plummer. Photo by Marc Lebryk, USA TODAY Sports
De Laura will have to adjust from the run-and-shoot offense WSU ran last year to an Arizona offense that Will Plummer has run for two seasons. Jack Plummer is hoping Will Plummer wins the starting job.
“Yeah, I’m hoping he wins it, of course, he’s my brother,” Jack said in the video atop this story. “He’s got a good grasp, I think, of coach [Jedd] Fisch’s offense, and I think he earned a lot of respect from his teammates there.
“I’ll tell you he’s one of the toughest kids I ever met. He ended up beating Cal last year. Cal had a bunch of COVID issues, but, I mean, he had four stitches in his hand, multiple shots in his shoulder, and just to go in and finish that game . . . I don’t think a lot of people talk about, but that’s something I like to bring up and just how tough he is.”
Even if de Laura does win the starting job, there are three games before Arizona and Cal meet next season, and who knows what will happen. De Laura wasn’t the Cougars starter in their 2021 season opener against Utah State. He then missed most of the second half against USC with an injury that also forced him to miss all of the Utah game, and he didn't play the second half in the Sun Bowl against Central Michigan because of a knee injury.
Jack and Will Plummer might still be in the Pac-12 in 2023, but Arizona probably won’t be on Cal’s schedule in 2023 unless the conference scheduling arrangement changes.
Jack Plummer still has to win the starting job at Cal too, something he will attempt to do when the Bears’ spring practices begin April 6. But it seems safe to say Jack Plummer has a better chance to land a starting job at Cal than brother Will at Arizona.
Jack and Will were typical brothers growing up, as Jack explains in the video below.
“Me and my little brother, he always kind of copied me with everything,” Jack said, “so we were always doing the same thing, and I’m two years older than him, so I was always bigger and stronger than him all the time. And we would play ping-pong and play until I won basically the majority of the game, and stuff would end in fights all the time. And it’s typical. We were really competitive with each other.
“He would always get the benefit of the doubt with mom coming in a breaking it up. He would start screaming before we would even touch him.”
They did not fight much once they got to high school, and they were teammates at Gilbert High School, with Jack being the quarterback and Will playing tight end until Jack went off to Purdue and Will took over the quarterbacking duties.
And next fall they face each other as adversaries, perhaps as starters, but definitely as brothers.
However, there is one relationship issue that needs to be addressed since it comes up so often. Jack Plummer is NOT Jake Plummer’s son, nor is Jack any relation to the former Arizona State and NFL star quarterback.
Jake Plummer in 2022. Photo by Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports
The mistaken assumption that they might be father-and-son makes sense. Jack grew up in Gilbert, Arizona, which is just 10 miles or so from Arizona State, where Jake Plummer was the Pac-10 player of the year in 1996 and nearly guided the Sun Devils to a national championship. Jake Plummer also played his first six NFL seasons for the Arizona Cardinals, who then played their home games at Sun Devil Stadium, again about 10 miles from Jack’s home. Jake Plummer is 47 years old, so he could have a son who is 22 years old like Jack, which seems like a reasonable name for a son of Jake Plummer, even if Jake’s real first name is Jason. And, in fact, Jake Plummer does have a son, although he is just 12 years old and is not playing college football quite yet.
Jack Plummer is often asked whether he is Jake Plummer’s son, but Jack Plummer is not related to Jake Plummer in any way as far as Jack knows. Period. Exclamation point, Full stop.
But he is related to Will Plummer, and the Plummer brothers, who were competitors for much of their early life, could be facing off next September.
Jack Plummer explains his accelerated academic progress in the video below:
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Cover photos of Will Plummer and Jack Plummer by Mark J. Rebilas and Marc Lebruk, USA TODAY Sports
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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
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