HOUSTON -- The new best quarterback in the Big 12 is not a quote machine. Gone are the days when reporters would practically have to cut off Nebraska's chatty Heisman winner Eric Crouch in order to make deadline.

QB Seneca Wallace has all the tools for the Cyclones.(AP)

In fact in private moments, Iowa State's Seneca Wallace has deep, soul-searching conversations with -- himself.

Crouch played in four bowls. Wallace is on his third school.

Crouch wanted to play for Nebraska his whole life. Wallace almost quit the sport when his mother contracted cancer.

The new best quarterback in the Big 12 sometimes is as imposing as the guy he was named after -- Dr. Seneca Beaulac, a former character on the soap opera Ryan's Hope.

Golden boy? In a sport that is quick to gild its heroes, Seneca Wallace is more like tarnished zirconium. But Iowa State probably wouldn't be playing in next month's Eddie Robinson Classic if it weren't for Wallace, a senior from Sacramento, Calif. Yes, the school stands to make a lot of money from the game with Florida State. But without Wallace, one of those scrambling, improvising types, it's doubtful whether the game's promoter would have called coach Dan McCarney to gauge his interest.

Certainly, the game would be less worthwhile for Iowa State. With Wallace, they have got a chance against the 'Noles. Without him, they risk being bombed back to the stone age.

"He's a big factor in any game that we play," McCarney said Thursday during the Big 12's preseason media days. "There's no way we could have had a winning season last year and gone to another bowl game without him. I've been coaching 26, 27 years now and I've seen very few with the qualities he possesses."

There probably isn't a diagram in Iowa State's playbook for half the stuff Wallace does. The mechanics are all wrong when he runs left, then flips the ball across his body to the right. There is no way to coach how he senses pressure, steps up against it and completes a pass in traffic.

In his case, size, or lack of it, doesn't matter for the 5-foot-10, 193-pound Wallace. To hurt him, you've got to hit him and that didn't happen very often in his first year at Iowa State.

In his first game, he ran for 97 yards against Northern Iowa. In his first Big 12 game, Wallace completed 18 straight passes against Baylor. Few have stopped him since.

"Vick," Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said without hesitation, comparing Wallace to Michael Vick, who led Virginia Tech to the 2000 Sugar Bowl against the Seminoles. "We're fixin' to face another one. Seneca's quick as a cat. He doesn't like you to touch him."

Wallace's ascension to the top of the Big 12's quarterback throne is a combination of attrition and talent. Nine of the league's starting quarterbacks are back. Crouch is gone. Texas' Chris Simms still needs to win a big game in the minds of many to reach his potential. Colorado's Craig Ochs and Oklahoma's Jason White are returning from injuries.

That leaves Wallace, who came to Ames by way of Oregon State and Sacramento City Junior College. Recruited as a defensive back and kick returner by the Beavers in 1998, Wallace never saw the field. The NCAA ruled that a high school English course did not count towards the core required for eligibility.

A transfer to Sac City left him questioning his place in the football world. At Rancho Cordova High School, Wallace was one of "20 something" players on the roster his senior year. He did a little of everything, including kicking. His team finished 2-8. No team recruited him as a quarterback.

"I wasn't a real fundamentally sound quarterback," Wallace said. "Like most kids in high school, I didn't understand how to play quarterback. I was just excited to get a scholarship."

Then junior college coach Dave Griffin turned him loose to improvise. Wallace became a junior college All-American but stirred little interest. Iowa State defensive line coach Mike Nelson stumbled upon him while scouting his territory in northern California.

"Frankly, I thought there would be a long, long line of coaches going after him," McCarney said. "There wasn't. It came down to us and New Mexico State."

So much for the fine art of recruiting. Last year, Wallace was the Big 12's offensive newcomer of the year throwing for 2,044 yards and running for 475. He averaged more yards per attempt than Big 12 leading passer Kliff Kingsbury of Texas Tech. He threw two less interceptions than Simms. Only Kansas State's Ell Roberson had more rushing yards among league quarterbacks. Only Kingsbury was more accurate than Wallace, who completed 62 percent of his passes.

"The same thing we do at Iowa State, is what we did at JUCO," Wallace said. "A lot of the stuff I do with throwing across my body just is the nature of knowing ... that you always have a receiver coming from the backside. It's not making it up as you go along."

About the time he was moving on to junior college from Oregon State, Wallace's mother Linda contracted a form of leukemia. She is in remission but the cancer had profound influence on mother and son.

"It was tough, sometimes it still is tough," Wallace said. "I didn't know if I wanted to play football or not anymore after the stuff that went on at Oregon State. But God works in mysterious ways."

So why haven't we heard more about him? Well, it is Iowa State. The legacy there is running backs, not quarterbacks. The Cyclones have had a 1,000-yard rusher every year since 1995. That was about Wallace's only reference point. He knew that Troy Davis ran for 2,000 yards in consecutive years in the mid-1990s and contended for the Heisman.

Even though the Cyclones have gone to consecutive bowl games for the first time in 23 years, they have edged into the AP poll once since 1981 -- at the end of the 2000 season at No. 25. That usually means their highlights don't make the news.

But in the post-Crouch landscape, Big 12 types speak about him in reverential tones.

"Create a new category for him," Colorado coach Gary Barnett said.

"Geez, he's like trying to tackle the wind," Nebraska defensive coordinator Craig Bohl said.

"We find ourselves throwing in some seven-on-seven tape, watching him and seeing what he can do," Iowa State defensive linemen Jordan Carstens said.

"He's quick," Bowden said after spending a summer watching films in anticipation of his season opener, "but it doesn't disturb his throwing. You say he's a great passer but the dadgum guy can run the football, too. That's why he scares me so much."

Iowa State has mounted a modest Heisman campaign but Wallace hasn't given himself much off-field momentum. He likes skiing having grown up near Lake Tahoe. He is a fastidious ironer of his own clothes. The unique first name came from a mother who always wanted one of her children to be a doctor.

In other words, Wallace isn't a surgeon but he plays one on TV -- when Iowa State games are televised.

His, and Iowa State's, season will ultimately be determined by a brutal schedule that is high-risk, high-reward. In addition to Florida State, the Cyclones play at Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas State and Colorado.

It's likely that even a successful run through that minefield won't change Wallace. He is quiet and soft spoken. If things really get tough, in his private moments he seeks out a loyal and trusted friend.

"I think the thing people would be most surprised to know about me is that when I'm alone, I sit in my room and talk to myself," he said. "I can't sing, but I can carry on a great conversation with myself. I don't know if it entertains me or what, but sometimes I think I even make sense. That's scary."

On the field, Bowden already has agreed.