D’Nerius Antoine’s familiar job for the Westgate football team is in the backfield, both on defense as a safety and on offense as a running back.

But the WHS junior’s position in the offensive backfield takes a detour this spring as head coach Brian Fine experiments a little and puts Antoine under center to see if he can run the offense as a quarterback.

“It’s just something that we want to look at this spring,” said Fine. “We’re going to look at D’Nerius over there, we’re going to look at Marcellus Thibodeaux over there.

“It’s just something that we’re going to look at and then we’ll go from there. I don’t know how that will end up, we’ll see.”

With last year’s quarterback Jared Williams graduating this month, Fine said the team has to find a quarterback as Westgate moves back to a spread formation with some I-formation on offense after running the wing-T formation last year.

Antoine’s experiment at quarterback may last until the end of the spring drills or it may be a permanent move. 

Either way, he just wants to help the Tigers get back to the playoffs and return to the semifinals, which the Tigers have reached in three of the last four years.

“I always want to do what is going to help the team,” said Antoine, who rushed for 270 yards and four touchdowns last year as a running back while concentrating mostly on defense. “So I don’t mind trying something new.”

And this would be something new for Antoine, who said he has never played quarterback before being told right before spring drills by Fine that he would get to spend some time in the pivot.

“I can’t even say right now what I’m expecting out of this,” said Antoine. “I never even really paid attention to what past quarterbacks here had done. 

“I was more concerned with making sure I knew what I was doing as a running back.”

Antoine knew right away he was stepping into a big role.

“That’s the position that has to carry the team,” he said. “But it’s a position that I would like to be in.”

Antoine doesn’t know how he’ll react the first time he gets under center in a scrimmage situation but he does think he has enough time to become acclimated to the position even with Westgate limiting its spring work to only five or six practices.

And while he prefers to be either a running back or a safety, which is all he’s really known during his career, if called on, he’ll be ready to go at quarterback.

“I think that in the fall I’ll be back as a running back and safety,” said Antoine. “But I’ll go where I’m needed to help the team.”