Quentin Davie claims to be the funniest player in Northwestern’s locker room. Once he steps on the field, the junior linebacker’s play is no longer a laughing matter.
Davie led the Wildcats with four sacks and nine tackles for loss, and was second behind senior safety Brad Phillips with 81 tackles – one tackle shy of the 82 he racked up in his first two seasons combined.
Davie also registered an interception and fumble recovery. This knack for being around the ball and making stops has gotten coach Pat Fitzgerald, a former linebacker himself, excited about Davie’s potential.
“He’s in a position to be able to make plays, moving inside, and he’s just gotten better each week,” Fitzgerald said. “Since day one, he’s always been around the ball and made plays, big plays. Now there’s been an air of consistency in his play, and that’s what’s been really encouraging.”
Davie attributes his success this season to being older and better understanding the defensive scheme, as opposed to “just playing.” But it’s not just his mental game that has improved. His teammates have seen Davie increase his work regimen to get stronger physically too.
“Off the field, he’s a pretty goofy guy, especially in the locker room,” junior Nate Williams said. “But on the field he’s pretty high demeanor, he likes to get up and get excited around everybody. He’s a hard worker, both on the field and in the weight room.”
Davie and Williams couldn’t think of a good, appropriate example of a typical Davie joke. But Davie was willing to share his philosophy about what makes a good jokester.
“Some guys are funny, but you have to be able to be funny at certain instances,” he said. “If you go ahead and crack off a joke or someone laughs, someone’s going to come back with a joke, but you have to keep popping them off and have everybody laugh. If one guy laughs, you need to stop and you can’t tell any more jokes, that’s the rule. But if you keep making them laugh, then that’s it. That’s my logic.”
JACK OF ALL TRADESOn the field, it looks like Davie was born to be a linebacker. But in high school, he played basketball and ran track in addition to being on the football team. As a football player, he played quarterback, tight end and linebacker.
When it came time to make a decision on one sport and one position, it was football, and it was linebacker. Though he left basketball behind, Davie took some of the skills from the hardwood and used them to his advantage on the gridiron.
“I was a great defender, and defense from basketball translates to defense in football,” Davie said. “You have to be able to move your feet and have the instinct to break on the ball, so that really helped me.”
Davie has no regrets about his decision to play on the defensive side of the ball, only occasionally missing the opportunity to run a defender over. He said he does not want to have to rely on other people throwing him the ball, and would rather hit than be hit.
But when he first came to NU, his fellow linebackers would joke with him about his 205-pound frame, saying he should be a wide receiver instead of a linebacker.
“We used to call him skinny, and he had a skinny waist and he still does, but he worked hard in the weight room to get his weight up and really worked hard on the field,” Williams said. “We used to tease him in the locker room that he was going to be a wideout, but he stuck with it and pushed through. He’s been doing a really great job from last year to this year.”
FAMILY COMES FIRSTFunny as Davie may be, he is serious about his family. He said his mother and brother are the two most inspirational people in his life, and NU’s proximity to his home state of Missouri was a major reason why he chose the school. His mom attends nearly every Cats game, missing only one this season.
“It’s been my whole life, she’s been coming to every game, every sporting event, not just football, but every sport I play,” Davie said. “That’s a big inspiration to see how strong she is and to keep it together and come see me.”
His older brother, on the other hand, is someone Davie looks at as friendly competition, always comparing himself with what his brother is doing and trying to match his success.
“My brother is going to be playing in the NAIA Championship game on December 19, and that’s inspiration to me as well,” Davie said. “I see my brother doing good, and he came out of high school before me. I want to be like him, and I worked hard, and this is where it got me.”
And with last year’s Alamo Bowl loss to home-state Missouri still fresh in his memory, nothing would be better to come home with than an Outback Bowl victory against Auburn.
“It was a big rivalry with me, because that’s my home state, and I know I’d have to go back home and listen to everybody talk about what we did in the bowl game,” Davie said. “Then when we lost, it brought me down, I knew I would have to go home and be talked about by some of my friends who go to Missouri. So it’s actually inspiration for this year to go out and win the bowl game so nobody can talk about that.”
