Jason Gesser: Ready for a move

Jason Gesser has been a stay-at-home dad this NFL season, but the former Washington State quarterback hopes his football fortunes are about to improve.

Gesser, a late camp cut by the Tennessee Titans, was stunned when he was released.

"It was hard," said Gesser, who was a Titans backup in 2003. "I was playing good. ... You know when you aren't playing good. ... But they said, 'We feel we want to have a comfort level of someone who has played.' "

That's why the Titans signed Doug Johnson, a five-year veteran who had been cut by Jacksonville, to be their No. 3 quarterback.

Gesser and his wife, former WSU volleyball player Kali Surplus, and their 17-month-old daughter, Jordyn, have stayed in Tennessee but a move to the Tacoma area is planned for mid-January. Kali has landed a sales job with a pharmaceutical company.

"It will be good to get back up in Washington," he said.

Gesser's agent, David Dunn, has told him that the holidays are a time when non-playoff teams often sign free agents for the upcoming season. One possibility is that an NFL team would sign Gesser, then ship him off to play in Europe this spring.

Gesser said he plans to continue pursuing his dream of playing professional football "for the next two to three years and see what happens."

If nothing develops, he said, "then I'll probably go into coaching because I want to be a college coach."

Gesser said he still keeps in touch with coach Mike Price and his two assistant-coach sons, Eric and Aaron, who have had a remarkable 8-3 season at Texas-El Paso.

"He turned that program around like I knew he would," Gesser said of his former Cougars coach.

One of the fall highlights for Gesser was going to a sports bar to watch the Cougars beat the Huskies, 28-25, in the Apple Cup, halting the streak of six consecutive Washington wins in the series.

"Awesome," he said. "It was good to reverse the curse."

Craig Smith