Northwestern University Athletics
Spring Ball, We Hardly Knew Ye
4/12/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 12, 2011
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
• All that now remains is a closed practice on Thursday and, on Saturday, a situational scrimmage that will match ones against ones (first offense against the first defense), twos against twos and on down through the depth chart. So spring, for the football 'Cats, is over even before it arrives in a weather-challenged city like Chicago, which is why we asked Pat Fitzgerald on Tuesday just what he has learned since his team first gathered for this season back on March 7.
"One thing, we've got good depth. Right now, I feel good about our depth," he said. "We've got a lot of future guys out there right now and they're very athletic, they're picking up on the systems on both sides very well. And then, we're getting fundamentally better. We're playing better with our feet apart, we're coming to balance better, we're playing more physical. I think that's what I learned. Then I'm looking forward to Sunday so we don't get anyone else hurt."
• The 'Cats, especially on defense, were neither fundamentally sound nor overtly physical at the end of last season, and so their improvement in those areas is noteworthy. Noteworthy too has been the emergence of senior Jeravin Matthews, who has taken over at right corner and put a stranglehold on that position. "If we're playing Saturday, he's our starter," Fitzgerald said of him. "He's earned it. . . He's real physical out there and that's what we need."
• Quarterback Dan Persa, of course, sat out spring while rehabbing his torn Achilles, and that opened the way for Evan Watkins and Kain Colter and Trevor Siemian to get needed reps. (More on this later.) But there were other familiar names who were limited these last five weeks and their idleness opened the door for unfamiliar names to insert themselves into the discussion.
One of the part-time participants was All-Big Ten wide receiver Jeremy Ebert, whose idleness gave Charles Brown a chance to shine. Another was defensive end Vince Browne, whose idleness gave sophomore Tyler Scott a chance to show he can make plays. Doug Bartels, a sometime starter at left guard, missed all of spring after an operation; in his absence the redshirt freshman Paul Jorgensen made a deep impression. Another who sat out after surgery was safety Hunter Bates; in his absence the redshirt freshman Ibraheim Campbell proved he has the toughness coaches covet at that position. Yet another who was kept out of the fray was the hard-nosed running back Jacob Schmidt; in his absence junior Tyris Jones showed he too just might have the toughness to be the third-down, goal-line, short-yardage guy.
Those are some of the players who make Fitzgerald feel good about his team's depth.
• We caught up with offensive coordinator Mick McCall for a two-minute drill and opened by asking if it had been a strange spring for him since he was operating without his starting quarterback. "I don't know if it's strange. I think it's a great opportunity," he said. "That's the one thing we've taken and put our arms around. It's a great opportunity for three guys to get better and get a lot of reps. And it's a good opportunity for Dan to sit back and watch a little bit rather than being in the fray all the time, all the time, all the time. When he sits back and watches it, he gets a little different perspective."
What can he learn from that?
"Dan can learn by just going back to the basics and learn why we do things rather than bypassing some things. Sometimes, when you get out and play, sometimes you lose those initial, basic things that we're teaching as concepts. He's gotten to go back and think about how he learned it. When you've gone through something, and you sit back and think about it, you go back to basics. That's what you know. That's what got you there in the very first place."
Had he been getting away from the basics?
"No. I'm not saying he got away from it. But there are some times when you just assume certain things and go on. So it's really good to go back sometimes and ground yourself a little bit. I do that even with the way we teach things. I'll go back and rethink how I'm teaching stuff and make sure I'm teaching it the right way, like I've always taught it. But, no, I don't think he's gotten away from anything like that."
Did he change his approach to installing his offense since Persa was absent?
"No. No. We put our base in and we tried a couple of new things, just like we would have if he was here. So, no, it was pretty much the same stuff."
Did any of Persa's three backups make a big jump this spring?
"I think they've all done some better things. They're all on different, well, sometimes they're leveling out and then at other times they're shooting up and then one time they step back. Like one day one guy shows up, the next day, another guy shows up. I'm proud of all three of them because they really have grown."
Has any of them stamped himself as the clear number two?
"I told them, each and every one of them, and this is how they ought to think about it: If I'm one of them, I want to say, 'I want to be the guy.' That's what they ought to do. Now is it possible for us to really sort through it? Yeah, we're going to try and do that. But, I, I, I don't know. I wanted to. Please feel free to have one (clear cut No. 2). But it's kind of nice to have all three of them working their fanny off and competing. So we'll look at it at the end of spring. But we're fine where we're at."
So nobody really separated himself from the pack?
"Like I said, there's times when a couple of them have one day. But the next day they take a step back. But they're working at it."
Oh, by the way, any plans for Colter at any position but quarterback?
"Not right now. He's playing quarterback. He's playing quarterback and until we decide where that goes and how we're going to deal with that, then we'll talk about that. But right now we are who we are."
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