Queen's University quarterback Danny Brannagan, who for a brief time last weekend was Canada's career university passing leader, can already picture the job he'll to have next spring in Hamilton.
But it's not with the CFL's Tiger-Cats.
"It's going to be with the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers," said Brannagan, who is enjoying his Canadian Interuniversity Sport team's playoff-bye week. "When I was in my first year, I thought I had five more years of football and I've prepared myself accordingly."
Similarly, University of Western Ontario quarterback Michael Faulds, who topped Brannagan on the final weekend of the regular season to become the CIS career passing leader (10,811 yards), knows today's playoff game against Guelph could be his football finale. He'd love to get invited to a CFL training camp next spring, but is already planning a career in coaching.
"I think I have an understanding of the Canadian game and I can make all the throws," Faulds said. "I'm just a gamer, ready to compete and willing to learn."
Which brings us back to the age-old question of whether the CFL's treatment of high-achieving Canadian university quarterbacks is fair or not.
For years, the absence of Canadian-bred quarterbacks in the CFL was attributed to the bias of American coaches, who were unfamiliar with the Canadian university game and not willing to take its quarterbacks seriously. But that argument no longer stands up, given there have been three former CIS head coaches to hold CFL head coaching jobs - Jim Daley, Greg Marshall and current Tiger-Cats boss Marcel Bellefeuille - and none of them have employed a Canadian QB.
"If there was a Canadian quarterback [who could play at the CFL level]at the time, I certainly would have," said Marshall, whose two-plus seasons at the helm of the Ticats ended in 2006. He is now Western Ontario's coach.
"I think Marcel would do the same thing. But in the CFL you've got to win now or they want a new coach, so you've got to go with your best players."
CFL head coaches - all of them, not just the Americans - agree quarterbacks coming out of Canadian schools simply don't measure up to the ones coming out of the upper U.S. college ranks. And they say it's no mystery why: American quarterbacks come from a more competitive level, usually have been playing the game longer and had far-more coaching specific to the position.
There have been Canadian university quarterbacks who've had the physical skills to play at the professional level. But their development isn't far from a level akin to U.S. college football at the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III or lower Division II. And the CFL almost never employs quarterbacks from those levels either.
"It's not the arm," Marshall said. "Mike Faulds can stand back and fire the ball with any of the quarterbacks in the CFL. He's got a rocket. But the thing is, down in the U.S., there's lots of guys who can fire the football. And are teams going to be patient with a Canadian quarterback and teach him? The complexity of the defences and the coverages in the CFL, it takes time to figure that out."
The simple reason CFL teams don't try to develop Canadian quarterbacks is because there's no roster quota at the position. And for those teams that try to swing open the door of opportunity for a Canadian to compete on an equal basis, the experience can be thankless.
Several years ago, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers signed former Queen's quarterback Tommy Denison, but cut him just a few days into training camp. To many fans, the Bombers were seen as the team that cut Tommy Denison - the two-time Hec Crighton Trophy winner as the most outstanding player in CIS football - instead of the one that gave him a shot.
"That's the problem when you sign a Canadian quarterback," said former Winnipeg general manager Brendan Taman, who signed Denison and now works in the front office of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. "I've talked to others in league about the pressure it puts on the kid and on the organization. There's a lot of pressure on both, that's for sure. And with 10 days of training camp, it's tough."
It's often been suggested that CFL teams be mandated to employ a Canadian as a third quarterback on the depth chart. However, that would bump out some American pivots with some very strong credentials - such as Montreal Alouettes third-stringer Chris Leak, who led the University of Florida Gators to a Division I national championship three seasons ago, keeping freshman Tim Tebow on the bench.
And CFL head coaches aren't anxious to give up their third spot to a player who may need years of development.
"Are you going to bring in a guy who is not ready to play? Because you need three guys these days," Bellefeuille said. "So it would have to be a fourth quarterback.
"Would I love to see [a Canadian quarterback in the CFL] Of course. But in the current structure, it doesn't work."