Iowa newspaper writes Tommie Frazier’s still playing QB for Nebraska

Are all Nebraska quarterbacks named “Tommy” or “Tommie” alike? That’s what Iowa newspaper The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier seems to think. In a story in Wednesday’s paper about the upcoming Iowa Hawkeyes-Nebraska Cornhuskers game, they confused current Nebraska quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. with famed former Huskers’ QB Tommie Frazier (seen at left above with Ernie Els at Els’ 2015 autism fundraiser):

Somebody should let Iowans know that Tommie Frazier exhausted his eligibility… https://t.co/BC1rC4Sq0c pic.twitter.com/aqJm4CpinL

— Huskers Illustrated (@Hillustrated) November 23, 2016

The story and the photo caption both correctly reference Armstrong, but the headline’s obviously wrong. Playing quarterback at Frazier’s age (42) isn’t unheard of (for example, Henry Burris is leading the Ottawa Redblacks into Sunday’s Grey Cup at age 41), and we did see a 55-year-old Division I player in game action this week, but as Huskers Illustrated notes there, there’s no eligibility left for Frazier, so not much to be wary of. Unless Iowa’s worried about Frazier’s advice to Armstrong? Or some other Frazier? Walt wouldn’t seem much of a threat, unless you want to keep your beard grey, Todd’s more dangerous on the diamond than the gridiron, and Smokin’ Joe died in 2011, so the options there are limited. It’s an understandable mistake given the similar names, and mistakes happen (especially when you have someone who didn’t write the story writing the headline), but this is a pretty funny one.

[Land of 10]