Some hard-core University of Alabama football fans look at John Parker Wilson, their new newly installed starting quarterback, and recall a three-name Crimson Tide QB of renown, Joe Willie Namath.

Others conjure up images of, as some have put it, "the next" Kenny "The Snake" Stabler.

But whatever the comparison — anybody for Bart Starr, Richard Todd or Scott Hunter? — on one point most agree: That the one they call John Parker is "the franchise" and his much-anticipated era begins Sept. 2 in Bryant-Denny Stadium against the University of Hawai'i.

If the 6-foot-2, 208-pound sophomore wasn't born to wear crimson and white as legend thereabouts would have it, he is at least a comfortable fit in it. Wilson's mother and an aunt were both 'Bama cheerleaders and he was a Tide fan since being knee-high to a tackling dummy.

So when John Parker led national power Hoover (Ala.) High to back-to-back state large school championships in a 30-2 run as a starter and was named a 2004 Parade Magazine All-American, there was little doubt he would play college football 45 minutes down the road.

"I looked around, but I knew it didn't matter — I was going to end up at Alabama," Wilson said. "I didn't want to go anywhere else."

Nor did Alabama fans, relishing quite a future after watching Wilson pass for a state-record 3,281 yards and 40 touchdowns (10 interceptions) as a senior, want him wandering off. To understand what Wilson meant to Tide faithful, recall the buzz over Tim Chang's arrival at UH after a record-breaking career at Saint Louis School and multiply it.

The only question, however brief, was whether Wilson would take a run at professional baseball first — he was a 19th-round pick of the Florida Marlins as an infielder.

Ultimately, it came down to The Dream. One clung to by a majority of those who play the position in the football-mad state and maybe one realizes: quarterbacking the Crimson Tide. "This is where I was meant to be," Wilson said.

So sure of it after watching Wilson throw for 8,170 yards and 78 touchdowns in high school were the Alabama coaches that they laid out in recruiting a five-year blueprint that would have him running the team for four seasons. Something nobody has done there since the 1940s.

Wilson would show up in Jan. 2005 as a "grayshirt" and attend spring practice. Then he would redshirt the 2005 season, have a second spring practice, be positioned to start for four years and, somewhere along the way, lead Alabama back to its first national championship since 1992.

That was the idea, anyway. The reality was that when, through attrition, injuries and his own maturation, Wilson emerged as a solid No. 2 behind NFL-bound Brodie Croyle, playing in five games (though throwing only 11 passes). The blueprint was quickly tossed and Wilson's eligibility clock is in year two.

Curiously, Wilson would have made a good system fit with the Warriors after operating out of a four-wide, shotgun offense at Hoover, where they weren't afraid to throw the ball 25 to 30 times a game.

"He would sit well there (at UH); he'd be successful, no doubt about it," said Hoover coach Rush Propset. "But he'll adapt to the pro-style offense at Alabama. The learning curve will be a little different but he'll do it. They've done a good job of getting him ready to play. Whether he lights it up the first couple of games, I don't know because he has to learn to manage the game. But he'll be a great QB at Alabama."

On that, Crimson Tide fans are already counting.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.