Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: "It's My Team"
4/1/2016 2:58:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
He was, 12 months ago, coming off his redshirt year, and working through his first spring practice, and competing for a starting role with a pair of more-experienced teammates. Now it is all so very different. Now, in his second spring, he has a season as a starter on his resume and a firm hold on the 'Cats quarterback job.
"It changes a lot," Clayton Thorson will say when those differences are noted. "It gives you a lot of confidence knowing you're the guy and the guys on the offense are looking to you and they know you're the leader. Just stepping into that leadership role and being the quarterback for this team is huge, and something I'm trying to take the next step with this spring."
"It comes with a lot of responsibility," Pat Fitzgerald will say, referring to Thorson's status. "Wanting to be the guy and being the guy are two totally different mindsets. He's approaching it every day understanding that, for us to get better, a big piece of that is for him to get better, for our passing game to get better. I've just been really impressed with his growth, with his maturity. Today he threw a ball that got dropped and initially his eyes went down for a second, then they popped back up and he's like, 'OK. Let's go. Pick it up.' The reaction of a guy who's in a competition is, 'Aw, man. He dropped the ball. It's going to hurt my stats. I'm not going to win the job.' A guy who's becoming experienced-- he's still not quite there yet, but he realized, 'No. Everyone's watching me.'
"Gosh. All the guys that we've had, going back over time, they've all kind of gone through this process."
Clayton Thorson slips into a seat in his team's meeting room. Last fall, even while leading the 'Cats to 10 wins and a bowl game, he went through that process, and so it was no surprise that he would soar one moment, scuffle the next. How tough was that, that vertiginous voyage that lasted a season?
"Obviously, starting out with the Stanford game, it was awesome," he says. "You're at an all-time high. Those first five games were great. But there was a stretch of a few games there where it was tough. I wasn't playing well. I was trying to get back on it, really working on it, but it was frustrating. At the same time, we kept winning and I'm perfectly content with winning 10 games and throwing for 1,500 yards rather than winning seven games and throwing for 3,000 yards. But, yeah. There was a stretch there where it was tough."
Was there any one thing that was toughest for him to adjust to?
"Some adjustments are just mind games. In high school you can go out and you can throw a seam (route)-- you can sit back there for 10 seconds it seems like and just throw it up and score a touchdown because high school defenses aren't that good. But here you've got to throw seams at 18 to 22 yards, and if you don't, it's an interception. You see that every week, and that's just one example. The mind game is so much different from high school than what it is here. Knowing protections. Knowing what the defense is doing. Knowing what your guys are doing, first and foremost. But that's something I've always liked to do (study the game). Some guys don't like to do that. Some guys don't like to put in that extra work. They're, 'I'll just go out and play.' But I enjoy that. That's something I'd do in my free time, if I had the choice, and that's something that's helped me from high school to here."
Fitz often says the hardest thing for freshmen to understand is just how hard it is to succeed at this level. Was that a surprise to Thorson?
"I got a chance (as true freshman redshirting) to watch Trevor (Siemian), and watch the work he put in, and watch him come in every day ready to go. That was a really good example. And the last two years I saw guys like (superback) Danny (Vitale) come in every day with the attitude, 'We're going to get better today.' Those were the two big examples, but there were a lot of other guys too. They really helped make that learning curve, as Fitz calls it, a little less drastic for me. But now after going through a year of playing-- obviously I got a big taste for what it's like to go through a 13-game season-- I know even more what I need to do now to get ready for that. That's really changed my mindset, just knowing, hey, different adjustments, I've got to get that fixed now and not then. There's not enough time in the fall to make an adjustment like that"--and here he snaps his fingers--"if its a big adjustment."
So how much easier is it for him to make those adjustments now than it was last season?
"I don't know if it's easier. But I understand everything a lot more. I understand the process more. At the same time I'm in a different situation now. I'm the quarterback. I've got to be the leader of this team. That presents a whole new thing this spring and in the summer and into fall camp. Like Fitz has said, it's my team. I've got to act like that now. I've got to lead these guys well and be a servant to these guys."
Was his reaction to the dropped pass that morning a reflection of that?
"That's something Fitz and I have been talking about. Just staying upbeat and not hanging my head when there is a drop. I know sometimes I'll miss a pass and those guys (the receivers), it's not good for me when they hang their heads. So it's not good for me to do that either."
Clayton Thorson, last fall, missed nearly as many passes (145) as he completed (150), and threw for more interceptions (nine) than touchdowns (seven). It is no surprise then that Mick McCall, the Wildcats offensive coordinator, will say this when asked his primary goal this spring.
"The biggest thing for us, and we're doing it right now, is we're getting confidence in pitching and catching the football again," he will say. "We were pretty good running the football a year ago. But we need to get back to pitching and catching the football, and that's happening as we speak. Number one, we have a quarterback who knows he's the guy unlike a year ago. . .(and) he's taken it over. He's really worked hard at making this his offensive football team, and he's really worked hard at his fundamentals and technique, and they've improved immensely. So I think it (his offense) is in a good place right now."
Clayton Thorson, still in place in his team's meeting room, is yet immersed in the process of developing into a complete-and-mature quarterback. But he is on his way. He announces that not only with his answers, but also with his presence, which reflects a determination to inexorably move that process along. He has worked on his mechanics, he will say when asked about McCall's observation, and now, "I'm really throwing the ball a lot better, really using my lower body and core to throw the ball, using my arm as a lever. I think I'm a lot more accurate, a lot more consistently accurate. It's good."
He is asked about the one biggest thing he is trying to accomplish this spring.
"Just really knowing the offense, and the ins-and-outs of each play, and what it is we want to run it against, and what we don't want to run it against, so I can go up there to the line of scrimmage and really control it and get us into a play that we'll be successful in," he says. "That's something that me and Coach McCall, and all the quarterbacks, have done a good job of this spring. It's understanding that and taking the next step of being a quarterback. That's something I'm really working on."
He is reminded that if he has to think of what to do, it is too late to do it, and is asked if he can now more quickly translate his knowledge of the playbook into action?
He chuckles. "That's something Coach McCall always says, and it's funny," he then says. "He'll be, 'We have to stop thinking. We have to start playing.' Guys will laugh sometimes just because it's, 'We've got to stop thinking?' But when a play's really ingrained in your mind, then you just play. That's something I've felt this spring too. I'm just going out there and playing. That's something that'll be a lot of help to me this fall."
He is told he sounds excited as he considers that future.
"Yeah, yeah. I am," he says, excitedly. "I'm far from where I want to be. I want to be, like a lot of quarterbacks, particularly guys like me, we want to be like Andrew Luck, want to be like Peyton Manning. That's something I'm shooting for. I recognize I'm going into my sophomore year of playing in college and you've got to be realistic with yourself. But at the same time you've got to have big goals. That's where I want to get to and I know if I keep working like this, who knows? Obviously only the Lord knows.
"But I think our offense, there's a little buzz going on with us. We're playing well."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
He was, 12 months ago, coming off his redshirt year, and working through his first spring practice, and competing for a starting role with a pair of more-experienced teammates. Now it is all so very different. Now, in his second spring, he has a season as a starter on his resume and a firm hold on the 'Cats quarterback job.
"It changes a lot," Clayton Thorson will say when those differences are noted. "It gives you a lot of confidence knowing you're the guy and the guys on the offense are looking to you and they know you're the leader. Just stepping into that leadership role and being the quarterback for this team is huge, and something I'm trying to take the next step with this spring."
"It comes with a lot of responsibility," Pat Fitzgerald will say, referring to Thorson's status. "Wanting to be the guy and being the guy are two totally different mindsets. He's approaching it every day understanding that, for us to get better, a big piece of that is for him to get better, for our passing game to get better. I've just been really impressed with his growth, with his maturity. Today he threw a ball that got dropped and initially his eyes went down for a second, then they popped back up and he's like, 'OK. Let's go. Pick it up.' The reaction of a guy who's in a competition is, 'Aw, man. He dropped the ball. It's going to hurt my stats. I'm not going to win the job.' A guy who's becoming experienced-- he's still not quite there yet, but he realized, 'No. Everyone's watching me.'
"Gosh. All the guys that we've had, going back over time, they've all kind of gone through this process."
••••••
Clayton Thorson slips into a seat in his team's meeting room. Last fall, even while leading the 'Cats to 10 wins and a bowl game, he went through that process, and so it was no surprise that he would soar one moment, scuffle the next. How tough was that, that vertiginous voyage that lasted a season?
"Obviously, starting out with the Stanford game, it was awesome," he says. "You're at an all-time high. Those first five games were great. But there was a stretch of a few games there where it was tough. I wasn't playing well. I was trying to get back on it, really working on it, but it was frustrating. At the same time, we kept winning and I'm perfectly content with winning 10 games and throwing for 1,500 yards rather than winning seven games and throwing for 3,000 yards. But, yeah. There was a stretch there where it was tough."
Was there any one thing that was toughest for him to adjust to?
"Some adjustments are just mind games. In high school you can go out and you can throw a seam (route)-- you can sit back there for 10 seconds it seems like and just throw it up and score a touchdown because high school defenses aren't that good. But here you've got to throw seams at 18 to 22 yards, and if you don't, it's an interception. You see that every week, and that's just one example. The mind game is so much different from high school than what it is here. Knowing protections. Knowing what the defense is doing. Knowing what your guys are doing, first and foremost. But that's something I've always liked to do (study the game). Some guys don't like to do that. Some guys don't like to put in that extra work. They're, 'I'll just go out and play.' But I enjoy that. That's something I'd do in my free time, if I had the choice, and that's something that's helped me from high school to here."
Fitz often says the hardest thing for freshmen to understand is just how hard it is to succeed at this level. Was that a surprise to Thorson?
"I got a chance (as true freshman redshirting) to watch Trevor (Siemian), and watch the work he put in, and watch him come in every day ready to go. That was a really good example. And the last two years I saw guys like (superback) Danny (Vitale) come in every day with the attitude, 'We're going to get better today.' Those were the two big examples, but there were a lot of other guys too. They really helped make that learning curve, as Fitz calls it, a little less drastic for me. But now after going through a year of playing-- obviously I got a big taste for what it's like to go through a 13-game season-- I know even more what I need to do now to get ready for that. That's really changed my mindset, just knowing, hey, different adjustments, I've got to get that fixed now and not then. There's not enough time in the fall to make an adjustment like that"--and here he snaps his fingers--"if its a big adjustment."
So how much easier is it for him to make those adjustments now than it was last season?
"I don't know if it's easier. But I understand everything a lot more. I understand the process more. At the same time I'm in a different situation now. I'm the quarterback. I've got to be the leader of this team. That presents a whole new thing this spring and in the summer and into fall camp. Like Fitz has said, it's my team. I've got to act like that now. I've got to lead these guys well and be a servant to these guys."
Was his reaction to the dropped pass that morning a reflection of that?
"That's something Fitz and I have been talking about. Just staying upbeat and not hanging my head when there is a drop. I know sometimes I'll miss a pass and those guys (the receivers), it's not good for me when they hang their heads. So it's not good for me to do that either."
••••••
Clayton Thorson, last fall, missed nearly as many passes (145) as he completed (150), and threw for more interceptions (nine) than touchdowns (seven). It is no surprise then that Mick McCall, the Wildcats offensive coordinator, will say this when asked his primary goal this spring.
"The biggest thing for us, and we're doing it right now, is we're getting confidence in pitching and catching the football again," he will say. "We were pretty good running the football a year ago. But we need to get back to pitching and catching the football, and that's happening as we speak. Number one, we have a quarterback who knows he's the guy unlike a year ago. . .(and) he's taken it over. He's really worked hard at making this his offensive football team, and he's really worked hard at his fundamentals and technique, and they've improved immensely. So I think it (his offense) is in a good place right now."
••••••
Clayton Thorson, still in place in his team's meeting room, is yet immersed in the process of developing into a complete-and-mature quarterback. But he is on his way. He announces that not only with his answers, but also with his presence, which reflects a determination to inexorably move that process along. He has worked on his mechanics, he will say when asked about McCall's observation, and now, "I'm really throwing the ball a lot better, really using my lower body and core to throw the ball, using my arm as a lever. I think I'm a lot more accurate, a lot more consistently accurate. It's good."
He is asked about the one biggest thing he is trying to accomplish this spring.
"Just really knowing the offense, and the ins-and-outs of each play, and what it is we want to run it against, and what we don't want to run it against, so I can go up there to the line of scrimmage and really control it and get us into a play that we'll be successful in," he says. "That's something that me and Coach McCall, and all the quarterbacks, have done a good job of this spring. It's understanding that and taking the next step of being a quarterback. That's something I'm really working on."
He is reminded that if he has to think of what to do, it is too late to do it, and is asked if he can now more quickly translate his knowledge of the playbook into action?
He chuckles. "That's something Coach McCall always says, and it's funny," he then says. "He'll be, 'We have to stop thinking. We have to start playing.' Guys will laugh sometimes just because it's, 'We've got to stop thinking?' But when a play's really ingrained in your mind, then you just play. That's something I've felt this spring too. I'm just going out there and playing. That's something that'll be a lot of help to me this fall."
He is told he sounds excited as he considers that future.
"Yeah, yeah. I am," he says, excitedly. "I'm far from where I want to be. I want to be, like a lot of quarterbacks, particularly guys like me, we want to be like Andrew Luck, want to be like Peyton Manning. That's something I'm shooting for. I recognize I'm going into my sophomore year of playing in college and you've got to be realistic with yourself. But at the same time you've got to have big goals. That's where I want to get to and I know if I keep working like this, who knows? Obviously only the Lord knows.
"But I think our offense, there's a little buzz going on with us. We're playing well."
••••••
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