Jake Luton doesn’t care what people think about the offense he ran at high school.
Marysville-Pilchuck High School has been operating run-oriented offenses for decades — and against the advice of some who thought he’d get recruited more playing elsewhere, Luton stayed true to his hometown and enrolled at Marysville-Pilchuck.
Playing with the kids he grew up with was important to Luton. Even if it meant he was joining a high school program that at the time hadn’t had a quarterback throw for over 1,000 yards in a season since before Luton was born.
“He went through the four years of people telling him if he would have gone to another offense, he could have had these numbers,” said Brian Hoorn, an assistant at M-P who’s known Luton since he was in elementary school. “He took it in stride, worked with us on working to make him better and said ‘let’s see what works out.'” 
Luton broke that trend by topping 1,000 yards passing in each of his seasons as starter at M-P. Still, only 2,200 yards in two seasons wasn’t enough to get him recruited heavily. He got the attention of Idaho by attending a scouting camp in Mercer Island, Wash., last year and also by attending Idaho’s camp last summer.
He committed to Idaho in October shortly after Idaho offered citing Petrino not caring about his lack of passing attempts as a big reason.
“I think he put a lot of emphasis on a lot of things besides the offense I was running, because he saw me in camp, saw what I could do and not necessarily what I was doing in high school,” Luton said.
That fact might be a blessing in disguise for Idaho. Recruiting analyst Dirk Knudsen of NWPrepreport.com said 2014 was a down year in terms of quarterback talent in the Pacific Northwest. Mount Si, Wash., quarterback Nick Mitchell is the top prospect and an Oregon State commit. Knudsen isn’t sure if Mitchell is that much better than Luton.
“Look at his production, Jake is right there,” Knudsen said. “Just an off-year in terms of perception, these guys were missing something, didn’t have the total package people were looking for. There were some schools that came really close (to offering Luton).”
The focus on Luton would remain the offense he ran in high school despite his 10-1 record as a starter his senior year. He didn’t have to throw the ball much with 2015 running back prospect Austin Joyner running for 1,500 yards in 2013. Luton also didn’t get many opportunities to add on to his statistics with a hurry up passing game — it’s not in the Tomahawk’s playbook. For Luton and the coaching staff it was the process of finding ways to utilize his talent while staying true to the offense they ran.
“A lot of what we did with him was down the field stuff. It was all down the field, backside post, and he did great,” Hoorn said.
There were short-passing and screen opportunities for him to show off his decision-making as well.
“What happens is Jake is so good, can’t even tell you how many times he drops back, moves around the field, sets his feet and even go to his third guy,” Hoorn said.
Luton will join the program in the fall and immediately be given a chance to compete, he said. Though he may face an uphill battle trying to convince Petrino not to redshirt him as Petrino likes to do with freshman quarterbacks.
“They know I have the talent, just a few fundamental things I have to tune up and study the offense. I’m ready to come in and try and win the job,” Luton said. “I think that’s everybody’s goal coming in.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]