Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Pitch and Catch
10/20/2016 10:00:00 AM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Fancy passing, no passing fancy. . . . .
NICE 'TUDE: Mick McCall, the offensive coordinator, mentioned it a week ago while discussing Clayton Thorson and the receivers he throws to and the passing attack they comprise. "They've got a little attitude to them about it," he said then, and four days later it was on full display during the 'Cats emphatic takedown of Michigan State. Here Thorson completed 77.1 percent of his attempts and averaged 10.4 yards on each of his 27 completions. Those completions, in turn, were to seven different receivers, and three of them went for touchdowns.
"I think that's confidence from me, and confidence from the receivers, and my confidence in the receivers," Thorson will say days after that performance when asked the source of that attitude. "We worked real hard in the off-season, as you know, and coming into the year, we had that confidence. Now we just have evidence for it in the games. That keeps helping us. Each week, like I said, is a new week. But we continue to have confidence."
"I think it raises the confidence," the wideout Flynn Nagel will later say of that empirical evidence this group now has. "I don't think it raises it in a bad way. Confidence is an extremely important part of football. Every good player is confident in his own way. Some people don't show it. Some people are more humble than others. But I think every great football player is extremely confident in himself and in his teammates. That helps us, and is going to help us keep succeeding. We've seen it pay off, so we're going to keep working."
"The source of that attitude—I think we were fueled the last few years just not getting the ball as much as we had been," another wideout, Andrew Scanlan, finally says on this matter. "Some say lack of production. Call it what you want. But we just wanted everyone to back up off the line a little bit to give Justin some breathing room so he can go for 188 yards, two touchdowns (as he did against the Spartans). We wanted to be more dynamic, more balanced."
ROOTS: The seeds for their mutual success were sown in the off-season when they threw together, and studied film together, and dined at Chili's together and together gathered for what were called Quarterback/Wide Receiver Movie Nights. "We met so much with the quarterbacks just to get the timing down, just to get the steps down," recalls Scanlan. "After awhile it just becomes second nature and it's real easy to see where Clayton's going to throw it, when he's going to throw it, how he's going to throw it when you throw with him in the spring and summer three, four, five times a week. We worked at it."
ONE MORE STEP: Another reason for their success is the continuing maturation of Thorson, who is making giant strides in subtle ways. "Earlier in the year I talked about Clayton getting depth, getting back (on his drop)," Pat Fitzgerald recalled this week, recounting one of those strides. "OK. Everybody in the building (Spartan Stadium) knew they were blitzing. OK. Get yourself a little bit more time to be able to make a play and make them pay for what they're doing. Earlier in the year we didn't have that happening. It just didn't happen. They (Michigan State) brought one more (rusher) than we had (blocking). That's going to happen from time to time. To Clayton's credit, seeing him mature, he really drove back out of his drop— caught the ball, drove back three, four yards, had to drift a little bit. That gave Austin (Carr) a chance to go run the route and gave us a chance to go make a play. Earlier in the year, he took a sack. That's the difference in whether or not we're able to sustain drives, whether or not we're an outstanding offense, whether or not we're able to finish drives. The credit goes to the whole package. It's no different plays. It's not a different scheme. It's the guys are taking to the coaching and going out and trying to make things happen. I think those guys have got some pretty good chemistry going right now."
Later Thorson is asked if that play was indeed another step in his maturation.
"Yeah. It definitely is," he says. "Picking up the blitz is one of the biggest things a quarterback needs to do. That's just another thing that I'm working on."
THE GOOD HANDS GUY: Carr, of course, has blossomed into a dynamic performer, and continues to lead the Big Ten in receptions (43), receiving yards (595), receiving touchdowns (eight) and receiving-yards-per game (99.2). He also, mysteriously enough, continues to receive one-on-one coverage. "It's great. Keep doing it," Thorson says when this is noted, and then he smiles and chuckles.
But soon enough some coach out there will surely notice that, hey, this kid's pretty good, and with that Carr will start getting some special attention. "Conversations have happened like that," Nagel will say. "Coach Fitz will say, 'Defenses are going to start double-teaming Austin, defenses are going to start bracketing Austin. That means other guys have to get open, that means other guys have to have big games.' It obviously raises our interest. But our interest is already there. Our interest is already high. And I think we've been winning, the other guys have been winning and have been getting open. We have a lot of weapons in our room. I don't think Austin's the only one. He's a big one. He's an unbelievable player. But I think we have a lot more weapons in the room with Solo (Solomon Vault), Macan (Wilson), Scan, Ben (Skowronek), just a freshman, Charlie (Fessler), Jelani (Roberts and, he is too modest to mention, he himself). I think we have enough guys to be ready when that does come. So it'll be fun."
"If that's what people decided to do (double Carr), there's going to be other guys in one-on-one match-ups. Now we've got to make them pay somewhere else," Fitzgerald says. "That's the chess game of football. It'll be fun to see it progress."
SOME LAST WORDS: First from Nagel, who says, "We all do (have an attitude) in the room. It's an emphasis we had through all of the off-season. In the past, I don't know if guys in the past had that attitude. It seemed like they would drop a ball and it wouldn't effect them that much. Now everybody in the room, if a ball gets away from us in practice or a game, it's a big deal to everybody and everybody's upset by that. I think that's a really good thing. Obviously you want to be short-minded when it comes to that and let it go. But you also have to care about what you're doing and the mistakes you're making so you don't keep making them and so you can become a better receiver."
Then finally from Thorson, who says, "We've got that attitude. Guys are walking around like, 'We're going to do this.' I think sometimes in the past it's been like, 'All right. We'll see if this happens.' Now it's like, 'No. We're doing it.' That's something that's really changed."
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