The Skip Report: It's Time

9/8/2017 1:21:00 PM | Football

By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor

IT'S TIME: For two seasons he operated in the long shadow of Dan Vitale, who is now playing on Sundays. Then, a fall ago, he performed alongside Austin Carr, who put up numbers enough to be a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award. But he is a senior now, the most experienced of all the Wildcats' receivers, and in their season-opening win over Nevada, he finished with four receptions and had another erased by a dubious pushing-off call. At last, it appears, it is the time for superback Garrett Dickerson to shine. "I think patience is a virtue as an athlete," Pat Fitzgerald will say when asked what it's like for an athlete to, as the saying goes, wait his turn.

"But he's been a big part of what we've done. He maybe didn't have the stats. But nobody had the stats last year besides Austin, so it's a little skewed. But there were a lot of big situations when Garrett got the ball a year ago. So I believe he and (quarterback) Clayton (Thorson) have great confidence and trust in each other, and it showed on Saturday. That comes back to match-ups in certain situations. I think Clayton liked the match up he had with 'G' in a handful of situations Saturday."

But is it hard, the waiting?

"It is hard because you come into college football wanting to play," Dickerson himself says. "Teams take a chance on you and make you an offer and they really like you. I wouldn't say— it's frustrating to an extent only because you know you're working and you know you're doing everything you can to get on the field, but everybody has their time. Fortunately, I had a great guy in front of me, Dan Vitale, who's doing very good things for the Cleveland Browns right now. Honestly, that gave me more time to mature and master the offense so when I did step into the starting position last season I felt much more ready than I ever would have been my freshman and sophomore years. It's a good experience in that you're able to learn the offense, you're able to master it, you're really able to grasp the concepts and what we're really trying to accomplish."

How did he handle going from the top of the totem pole as a high school senior to the base of that pole?

"It's the way of the game," he says levelly. "You go from the top, as you said, right back down to the bottom of the depth chart. You've just got to work your way up. Most people enjoy it. You want to be a competitor. You want to earn that position. So I don't think it was something I was mad about when I first got here. I was coming to a new team. I knew I had to earn my way to a position where I could make an impact. It's all part of the game. You love the grind. You love the time and hard work you put into it. It's all worth it."

He is shown a story where the safety Godwin Igwebuike opines, "I don't think he (Dickerson) got as much props as he needed to last season, but that just added some fuel to that man."

"Godwin's a great safety. He and I duke it out at practice, no pun intended," Dickerson says after reading it. "We really went at it in camp this year and I knew, in order to be a leader, I needed to step up in many areas and improve my game. That's what I was trying to focus on this off-season and in camp, and hopefully all my hard work will pay off and it will show this season."

But has lack of recognition added fuel to him?

"I'm not really thinking about it. I'm sure everybody would like to be recognized for every single thing that they do. But at the end of the day you're here to work. I'm here to accomplish a goal and that's to win the Big Ten championship. At the end all of those self accolades, or whatever you want to call them, I'm not necessarily worried about them."

Flip the question then. What does motivate him?

"What motivates me is, I don't know. I guess just love for the game," says Dickerson, showing clearly that his priorities are in place. "I love playing this game. I love working hard for my teammates. We have a very good relationship throughout the whole team. Seeing everybody succeed and seeing everybody make plays on the field is what really gets me going. It just makes me really happy, and I couldn't be more proud of the guys. So me trying to make everybody else proud and making sure I'm doing everything I can for my teammates is really what motivates me."

ADDED DUTIES: Macan Wilson is another of the senior receivers and he too had an afternoon against the Wolf Pack, grabbing off three passes for 77 yards and a touchdown. Two days later, at a presser, he and Dickerson were asked about their emergences, and revealed that there is far more to their new status than merely catching the ball. "It's just next guy up. This is our opportunity to be that guy," said the latter. "It's a little bit more added pressure. We're supposed to be leaders of our position group and have to make sure we're doing everything right at all times. But I think we're ready for the situation. We've taken the time, we've put in the effort. Now is our time."

"You wait for your opportunity. Eventually that opportunity comes and you've got to seize it yourself and make the most of it," said Wilson. "Now, being in the positions we're in, it's like Garrett said. Making sure we're looking out for the younger guys. Making sure we're doing everything right first-and-foremost ourselves. Then bringing everybody else along with us."

QUICKLY NOTED: The 'Cats are on the road Saturday at Duke, which is coached by the redouble David Cutcliffe. "I have so much respect for him, his staff, their young men," Fitzgerald said this week. "We've played each other now a number of times. David and I are both AFCA (American Football Coaches Association) board members. We spend a lot of time together. He's a great friend and just a terrific football coach. I've got a ton of respect for him.". . . The Blue Devils opened their season with a 60-7 win over North Carolina Central. . . . Their quarterback is redshirt sophomore Daniel Jones, who has shown marked improvement since being thrust into a starting role just before last season's start. In his first five games, he threw eight interceptions. Since then, in eight games and 233 attempts, he has thrown just one. He has thrown none in his last 198 attempts. "I was impressed getting ready for Daniel Jones a year ago, and now you look at all the video from the whole season and the way he played last week, I think he's an outstanding quarterback, just absolutely terrific," Fitzgerald said of him. . . . Their senior running back Shaun Wilson is the only active player who has receiving, rushing and return touchdowns of 80 yards or more. . . . Fitzgerald was discussing Thorson's performance against Nevada when he segued into a scouting report of the Blue Devils defense. "Duke is going to present a lot of problems schematically," he said here. "They overload blitz ya and they max blitz ya. He's going to have his challenge without a doubt this week. I think this game will be big for him. Last time we went down to Duke, he really didn't play well. It was his second college start, right? (Actually, it was his third.) And his first road start, I believe. (True.) But I'm sure he'll have a little extra sense of urgency with the way that he played the last time we were down there."

AND FINALLY: Duke's Cutcliffe was Tennessee's offensive coordinator and quarterback coach when Peyton Manning and the Vols topped Fitzgerald and the 'Cats in the 1997 Citrus Bowl. Does Fitzgerald remember him from that game? "Quite frankly, when you're a player, you have no idea who the assistant coaches are," he said, and then he laughed. "I was worried about getting to class on time. So you maybe knew who the head coach was. Maybe. You remember, there were only like two games on TV back then. Everyone knew who Joe Pa (Joe Paterno) was and stuff like that. But week to week, I don't know if you knew who you were playing against coaching wise. You could ask the guys. I doubt they even know now."