Nebraska Football: Former Husker using 7th year to jumpstart coaching career
Most Nebraska football fans know Tristan Gebbia as the guy who lost the quarterback battle to Adrian Martinez and then went looking for greener pastures just before Scott Frost’s first year in Lincoln. While it appears he found those greener pastures, the 7th year quarterback is now at Ohio State looking for a way to get a jump on his post-playing career.
Gebbia got his seventh year thanks to COVID and a medical redshirt. That allowed him to jump to the Buckeyes this year despite spending one season with the Nebraska football team and then five with Oregon State. Speaking to Lettermen Row, he said that over the offseason, he felt an itch to keep playing football, but also an itch to start looking towards a coaching career when this final season in college football is over.
“He’s coming in with a mindset that if he gets on the field, he’s ready to go,” Ohio State head coach Ryan Day told the media last month. “But I thought he was a really great addition to the room and can help mentor some of those young guys in there.”
The former Nebraska football player, who some think came closer to beating out Adrian Martinez than people realize, knows that he might not actually see the field. He’s not really the backup. Buckeyes followers know he’s not even third string. He’s much more the emergency quarterback who will be able to practice still and play while learning the ropes of coaching.
Jeremiah 29:11 pic.twitter.com/bShDdOsS8J
— Tristan Gebbia (@tgeb_) January 18, 2023
It appears that the best way to describe the quarterback’s role is as a graduate assistant who hasn’t graduated from college athletics just yet.
He’ll be able to lean on his career, especially with Oregon State, when it comes to imparting his wisdom to the team’s other quarterbacks this year. He started 12 games for the Beavers over the years but it’s clear that even when he wasn’t stepping foot on the field, the former Nebraska football top prospect impressed his teammates and coaches. He was a team captain in Corvallis even while he was the backup signal caller.
Even if he was going to be playing more often than not for Ohio State, Nebraska football fans wouldn’t get the chance to square off against him this year unless both teams make the Big Ten Championship game. That might make it easier for Husker fans to root for him when everything is said and done.