Northwestern University Athletics
The Difference Between One and One-A
10/6/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 6, 2010
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
'Cat coach Pat Fitzgerald is speaking of the junior linebacker Ben Johnson and he says, "I would put him maybe as One-A. He's our fourth guy in right now. I'd say the same thing about (sophomore linebacker) David Nwabuisi. He's kind of our fifth guy in. Those guys are playing a lot of football for us in some different roles."
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Earvin Johnson, familiarly known as Magic, once said this in a John Fitzgerald Kennedy moment. "Ask not what your teammates can do for you. As what you can do for your teammates."
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His name was Bud Wilkinson and he was a legend at Oklahoma, where during the mid-'50s his Sooners rolled up 47 straight victories. He later was an announcer for ABC and then a U.S. senator from his home state and finally the head coach of the (then) St. Louis Cardinals, where we sat down with him in the late '70s. This was in his office after a forgettable game and here, with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, he began discussing the dysfunctional and ego-driven group he was in his first season guiding.
So, we said to him, your job has been to get them to put their egos into their back pockets?
No, he said. Ego is what makes a player believe he can be great and so is a vital component of his success. His job instead was to get all the egos aimed in the same direction.
That wisdom from a wise man must be remembered when considering the shared state of Ben Johnson and David Nwabuisi, a pair of talents consigned to back up (respectively) seniors Quentin Davie and Nate Williams. Each is a proud man. Each is a talented man. Each is a competitive man. Each certainly desires to be and believes himself capable of being a starter, which they both would be on a team not as suffused with skilled 'backers. Yet here, as the 'Cats prepare to meet Purdue on Saturday night, they must take a part of their very essence and use it to not only better themselves, but the team as well.
"I'd love to be a starter," Johnson will say.
"It's tough sometimes," Nwabuisi will say.
"You'd hope it's not good for them. You'd hope they're not happy about that," linebacker coach Randy Bates will say. "If they are happy, that's probably not a good thing. But for the most part, they balance it and keep fighting and, as Nate Williams found out two years ago (when he took over as starter when Malcolm Arrington was injured), if you keep practicing long enough, in this Big Ten with injuries and everything, you'll probably be a starter before it's all said and done."
"That's called being a teammate," Fitzgerald will finally explain. "You've got to do whatever you can to help the football team win. You may not like your role. But if you embrace it, you can help the team improve and get better. Then, when plays come, you go out and make them. That's what they're doing."
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What's the difference between One and One-A, we ask Fitzgerald.
"Maybe just the opportunity. I don't know," he says. "If you have the opportunity, when it presents itself, you have to take advantage of it. Their roles have been put in place from a nickel standpoint. They're doing a great job with it. All they can control is to be prepared when the opportunity does present itself and I think both are doing a good job."
What's the difference between One and One-A, we ask Bates.
"Basically, he's a guy we consider a starter but doesn't start the game," he says. "A guy that plays and we don't even question putting him in. Both of those guys, we have different packages and both of those guys are starters. Not in our base defense. They're starters in other packages."
What's the difference between One and One-A, we ask the players themselves.
"A lot of it is experience," says Johnson. "Q and Nate both have that experience that takes them beyond where 'Bus and I still are at. You get in a game, there's little things you learn in a game. You can learn a lot from watching game film. I do that a lot. During practice, I watch all of Q's reps and I learn from watching him. But just being out there and being able to experience it and feel it, I think that's the best way to learn and be confident in the box every play."
"Yeah. We learn from film every day. . .(and) watching Nate and Q in front of us," echoes Nwabuisi. "But at the same time, there's some stuff you're going to pick up better on the field. But until you get those reps, you've got to keep on learning through film study. Then when you get them on the field, you combine those two and come up."
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Ben Johnson, in his role, already has a sack and a fumble recovery and that interception he made last Saturday to preserve the 'Cat win over Minnesota. Nwabuisi, in his, has a quarterback hurry and a tackle-for-loss and his own interception, which came against Central Michigan. Both, as Bates said, are integral parts of important defensive packages, and now they are standing together on the practice field listening patiently to the lesson Wilkinson gave so many years ago.
So how do they manage their egos and utilize them for the greater good, we then wonder.
"I think for both of us," says Johnson, "we find ourselves in positions where we are role players in important parts of the game. We're not necessarily one in the regular defense, the base defense. But in a nickel package or a 30 package, when it's third down, when the game's on the line or the drive's on the line, we're in there. We have a role in that. That's a little ego boost, knowing you are able to contribute in that way."
"We're in there, we have roles," says Nwabuisi. "Right now, our team's doing really well and we have a lot of competition in our room and everybody knows that. So you can't be angry about (not starting) or you're not going to prepare as well. So we just prepare and if our shot comes, it comes. If it doesn't, we've still got to embrace our role and play to the best of our ability until it does come. If you let it get to you, you won't get better every day like you need to."
With all that competition, how are the relationships in that room?
"We have a great relationship. I think we've come together a lot more than we typically have in the last couple of years," says Johnson. "This group of linebackers knows that we are the heart of this defense, that we're going to take us where we want to go. We all understand what it means to do that. I think that's great. That gives us competition. That makes us work harder in practice, push each other."
"Our whole room, we're all really good friends and we all realize that everyone around us is talented," says Nwabuisi. "We've got young guys like (redshirt freshman Damien) Proby and (redshirt freshman) Tim Riley right on our butts. Everyone in our room knows they're talented, so there're a lot of egos in the room. You've just got to keep working hard until your chance comes."
"That's the thing with 'Buisi and I. We don't become complacent with our roles," says Johnson. "We still push. We try to get through to the coaches, 'If we're called upon, we'll do the job.' That's our role right now. To show them, 'Hey, we're ready to go anytime.'"
So they're pushing both to advance and to not be replaced?
"Absolutely. Absolutely," Ben Johnson finally says. "If we're not getting mental reps during practice, coach will yell at us and get on our butts. He knows. He knows. The game doesn't last forever. Anything can happen. Q can go down, Nate can go down. We hope that doesn't happen. But things like that do."
"If we ever do become complacent, there are guys right behind us who are ready to play as well," David Nwabuisi finally says. "In our room, it's not just two-deep. We're three-deep at most positions. So if we ever get tired, the coaches will just move onto the next guy."
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