Connor Kavanaugh was the 2011 Most Valuable Player in the 2011 Vikings football season and will not return this fall.
“Our offense is like a Ferrari,” team head coach Nigel Burton said in a statement. “It’s fast, it’s the best built and it’s designed to win races. We will give you the tools to run the Ferrari, but if you don’t know how to use those tools, you might wrap it around a tree. So, we need to see who can best use those tools before we hand over the keys.”
And Kavanaugh was the driver of the Vikings offense in 2011. He started 11 games from the quarterback position and finished the season with 1,060 yards. He set new Portland State and Big Sky records for quarterback rushing in a season and a career (1,965 yards). He had seven touchdowns and completed 127 of 219 passes for 1,628 yards, nine touchdowns and six interceptions.
“We saw what Connor did best, and that was the focus of us in 2011,” offensive coordinator Bruce Barnum said in a statement. “He ran it more than you will probably see our quarterbacks run in the future. We took some things out of the system, mostly in the pass game (because of Connor’s running ability), that we will put back in now. The package will change. How much, I’m not really sure, but it will evolve from the base that Connor laid down for it.”
In 2010, Kavanaugh started as well. He completed 93 out of the 154 attempted passes and had three interceptions, with a total of 1,109 yards and six touchdowns. The year before, Kavanaugh made two starts in the season.
In his senior year at Portland State, Kavanaugh helped the Vikings finish with a 7-4 overall record and 5-3 record in the Big Sky Conference. They finished third among nine teams in the conference. After four successive years with a losing record, the Vikings became the most improved team in the country in 2011.
During the spring season, the Portland State football coaching staff has the difficult task of replacing Kavanaugh. ■