The Skip Report: Ten Things About TJ Green
9/7/2018 12:16:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Ten things about TJ Green, the junior walk-on who's seeing time while Clayton Thorson is restricted by a proverbial pitch count. . . .
1. Back in the spring, early in Thorson's rehab from a torn ACL, he was locked in competition with the sophomore Aidan Smith and the redshirt first-year Andrew Marty. "It was a close competition," 'Cat offensive coordinator Mick McCall will say when asked why Green emerged the victor. "But all through spring and fall camp, he had a better grasp of what we were trying to do offensively and he was just more consistent. He was just more consistent with everything he was doing. It was close. But TJ, he had a little — I think the team felt like he was that guy too because of the way he handled it. I think they were waiting for someone to step up. TJ did that. He's been around it, so he has an understanding of what goes on."
2. What Green was around growing up was his father Trent, himself a former quarterback whose 15-year pro career included a Super Bowl championship (XXXIV) and a pair of Pro Bowl appearances. "I learned a lot from him," the son said at one point last spring. "How to carry myself. He taught me a lot in terms of talking to my teammates, being a leader, communicating, trying to get the best out of guys. I used him kind of as a baseline. I go back to him a lot for advise on how to carry myself, and what I want to do day to day to get better and try to lead this team."
At another point he added, "When I was little I'd go to the stadium with him, go into the locker room and just watch and listen to how he conducted himself. I would talk to him sometimes when I got older through high school about leading guys and developing relationships. You picked up a lot. There was a lot of soaking it in from a young age."
3. This all served him well at Rockhurst High, where as a senior he threw for 2,700 yards and 33 touchdowns and was named the Gatorade Missouri Offensive Player of the Year. He was here, Fitzgerald said in the spring, "A guy who, three inches taller, is probably a scholarship guy in this league." But he was a modest 6-foot-2 and so his only offers came from the Ivies and North Dakota State.
4. He rejected those offers, chose instead to be a preferred walk-on with the 'Cats and with that began laboring in the shadows, which are far removed from center stage. He says now that he never gave up the thought of playing ("Nope. Never."). But last spring, while discussing why he enjoys watching the Saints' six-foot Drew Brees, he also said, "It gives me some hope. He's undersized. I've been told I'm too short my whole life. I was a walk-on here. Now I'm in a position to potentially start, which is crazy to me. That'd be a dream come true."
5. He was not going to start. But some two weeks before the Wildcats' Aug. 30 season-opener at Purdue, Thorson learned the plan for that night and Green learned he would be playing. "He kind of pulled me aside and told me what they were thinking," he recalls. "I'd been preparing all summer and through camp to be the starter anyway. So when he told me that, I was already ready to go."
And how did it feel, knowing he was going to get a chance to play?
"It was good. It was good. I talked to my family. They were really excited for me. We had like 15, 20 people come to the game from my side of the family. It was just an awesome feeling knowing I was going to get a shot."
6. His shot came with 4:20 remaining in the first quarter. His father, he remembers, had already told him "just to take it in, to block out the extra noise and to focus on what's on the field, on what you can control."
Now, on the sideline, Thorson told him, "Calm down. You've got this. We all believe in you. This is your time. Take advantage of it."
"Don't press. Breathe and play," McCall told him.
"That's his big thing for me," Green explains. "When I get back there, set everything and then take a deep breath before I go. Just to focus in on what I've got to do and calm down a little bit."
Was that easy or hard under the circumstances?
"I've been working on it all fall camp and all the practices leading up to it, so it just came naturally. I felt pretty calm actually going out there for me first drive, which was really good."
7. Still. His first drive was mottled by a delay-of-game and a false start and ended in a three-and-out. But on his second, which included a swing pass to running back John Moten IV that went for 18, he led the 'Cats to a field goal, and then in the belly of the third quarter he hit wideout Flynn Nagel on an out for 11 yards and a first. "I felt pretty confident going in," Green will say when asked when he felt, yeah, I can do this. "But I'd say the throw to Flynn on third-and-long, that was probably when I felt the most confident. Either that or when we started going fast at the end of my second drive and I threw the swing to Moten. It felt then like everything slowed down for me and I was able to see everything very well."
8. Green and Thorson would share time that evening, and they are expected to do that again Saturday in the Wildcats' home opener against Duke. This means their game plan will include plays suited to each skill set, and so McCall is asked about the challenge of devising two plans for one game. He politely demurs, saying, "There might be a few things. But the general game plan is what it is." Then, elucidating, he adds, "We've played two quarterbacks before, so it happens. And you've got to be prepared for that anyway (In case the starter gets hurt during a game). So it is what it is and we do what we do."
Well is it frustrating having to pull a hot quarterback, as happened early against Purdue?
"I cant worry about that. It is what it is. We know what we're dealing with, so you just switch gears here, switch gears there, back and forth. It's ok. We're prepared. We're better off than all of a sudden someone gets hurt. You prepare for that, but you're not expecting it. Here, we're expecting that stuff now. So we kind of have a feel. But our game plan is our game plan for the most part."
But alternating like this, neither quarterback has a chance to get into a real rhythm.
"The big thing is to stay in the moment and not focus on that. Never get too high or too low," Green says when asked about that. "Both Clayton and I knew that we were rotating, so we wouldn't get that rhythm. Just staying in the moment and taking each play one at a time— I think that was the big thing."
9. The last time TJ Green had played meaningful minutes in a game was November of 2014, while he was still in high school. But here, despite his prolonged inactivity, he was steady enough, skilled enough, poised enough to commit no turnovers and to rush for a touchdown and to complete seven of his 11 pass attempts for 63 yards. "It was exhilarating, to say the least," he will say of the experience. "Being a walk-on, it's a long shot that I get a chance to play. But I just kept my head down and kept grinding. I knew someday it would work out and I guess the Purdue game was the start of that. It's been four long years of waiting for an opportunity. Finally getting that shot, I just wanted to take advantage of it as best I could. I feel I did that."
10. And on a lighter note: TJ stands for Trent Jason. But what about those missing periods. "I never liked doing the periods in my name," he explains. "It felt like it took too much time when I was growing up. So I just did TJ."
QUICKLY NOTED: Last year in Durham, Duke routed the 'Cats, 41-17, behind their dual-threat quarterback Daniel Jones, who rushed for 108 yards and two touchdowns and threw for 305 yards and two more. He opened this season rushing for 43 yards and a touchdown and going 13-of-17 (76.5 percent) for 197 yards and another touchdown in the Blue Devils' 34-14 win over Army. "I definitely feel the team was upset that we lost," defensive tackle Jordan Thompson said this week when asked if last year's memory will serve as fuel come Saturday.
"Every team's upset when you lose a game. The goal at the end of the day is to go one-and-oh, as Fitz always preaches to us. Just prepare everyday as hard as you can for as long as you can. I feel that's the theme of this team. Be consistent and not be satisfied. If you have a good day one day, make the next day a better day. So, yeah. That loss is in the back of our minds. But does it change how consistently we want to prepare everyday? No."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Ten things about TJ Green, the junior walk-on who's seeing time while Clayton Thorson is restricted by a proverbial pitch count. . . .
1. Back in the spring, early in Thorson's rehab from a torn ACL, he was locked in competition with the sophomore Aidan Smith and the redshirt first-year Andrew Marty. "It was a close competition," 'Cat offensive coordinator Mick McCall will say when asked why Green emerged the victor. "But all through spring and fall camp, he had a better grasp of what we were trying to do offensively and he was just more consistent. He was just more consistent with everything he was doing. It was close. But TJ, he had a little — I think the team felt like he was that guy too because of the way he handled it. I think they were waiting for someone to step up. TJ did that. He's been around it, so he has an understanding of what goes on."
2. What Green was around growing up was his father Trent, himself a former quarterback whose 15-year pro career included a Super Bowl championship (XXXIV) and a pair of Pro Bowl appearances. "I learned a lot from him," the son said at one point last spring. "How to carry myself. He taught me a lot in terms of talking to my teammates, being a leader, communicating, trying to get the best out of guys. I used him kind of as a baseline. I go back to him a lot for advise on how to carry myself, and what I want to do day to day to get better and try to lead this team."
At another point he added, "When I was little I'd go to the stadium with him, go into the locker room and just watch and listen to how he conducted himself. I would talk to him sometimes when I got older through high school about leading guys and developing relationships. You picked up a lot. There was a lot of soaking it in from a young age."
3. This all served him well at Rockhurst High, where as a senior he threw for 2,700 yards and 33 touchdowns and was named the Gatorade Missouri Offensive Player of the Year. He was here, Fitzgerald said in the spring, "A guy who, three inches taller, is probably a scholarship guy in this league." But he was a modest 6-foot-2 and so his only offers came from the Ivies and North Dakota State.
4. He rejected those offers, chose instead to be a preferred walk-on with the 'Cats and with that began laboring in the shadows, which are far removed from center stage. He says now that he never gave up the thought of playing ("Nope. Never."). But last spring, while discussing why he enjoys watching the Saints' six-foot Drew Brees, he also said, "It gives me some hope. He's undersized. I've been told I'm too short my whole life. I was a walk-on here. Now I'm in a position to potentially start, which is crazy to me. That'd be a dream come true."
5. He was not going to start. But some two weeks before the Wildcats' Aug. 30 season-opener at Purdue, Thorson learned the plan for that night and Green learned he would be playing. "He kind of pulled me aside and told me what they were thinking," he recalls. "I'd been preparing all summer and through camp to be the starter anyway. So when he told me that, I was already ready to go."
And how did it feel, knowing he was going to get a chance to play?
"It was good. It was good. I talked to my family. They were really excited for me. We had like 15, 20 people come to the game from my side of the family. It was just an awesome feeling knowing I was going to get a shot."
6. His shot came with 4:20 remaining in the first quarter. His father, he remembers, had already told him "just to take it in, to block out the extra noise and to focus on what's on the field, on what you can control."
Now, on the sideline, Thorson told him, "Calm down. You've got this. We all believe in you. This is your time. Take advantage of it."
"Don't press. Breathe and play," McCall told him.
"That's his big thing for me," Green explains. "When I get back there, set everything and then take a deep breath before I go. Just to focus in on what I've got to do and calm down a little bit."
Was that easy or hard under the circumstances?
"I've been working on it all fall camp and all the practices leading up to it, so it just came naturally. I felt pretty calm actually going out there for me first drive, which was really good."
7. Still. His first drive was mottled by a delay-of-game and a false start and ended in a three-and-out. But on his second, which included a swing pass to running back John Moten IV that went for 18, he led the 'Cats to a field goal, and then in the belly of the third quarter he hit wideout Flynn Nagel on an out for 11 yards and a first. "I felt pretty confident going in," Green will say when asked when he felt, yeah, I can do this. "But I'd say the throw to Flynn on third-and-long, that was probably when I felt the most confident. Either that or when we started going fast at the end of my second drive and I threw the swing to Moten. It felt then like everything slowed down for me and I was able to see everything very well."
8. Green and Thorson would share time that evening, and they are expected to do that again Saturday in the Wildcats' home opener against Duke. This means their game plan will include plays suited to each skill set, and so McCall is asked about the challenge of devising two plans for one game. He politely demurs, saying, "There might be a few things. But the general game plan is what it is." Then, elucidating, he adds, "We've played two quarterbacks before, so it happens. And you've got to be prepared for that anyway (In case the starter gets hurt during a game). So it is what it is and we do what we do."
Well is it frustrating having to pull a hot quarterback, as happened early against Purdue?
"I cant worry about that. It is what it is. We know what we're dealing with, so you just switch gears here, switch gears there, back and forth. It's ok. We're prepared. We're better off than all of a sudden someone gets hurt. You prepare for that, but you're not expecting it. Here, we're expecting that stuff now. So we kind of have a feel. But our game plan is our game plan for the most part."
But alternating like this, neither quarterback has a chance to get into a real rhythm.
"The big thing is to stay in the moment and not focus on that. Never get too high or too low," Green says when asked about that. "Both Clayton and I knew that we were rotating, so we wouldn't get that rhythm. Just staying in the moment and taking each play one at a time— I think that was the big thing."
9. The last time TJ Green had played meaningful minutes in a game was November of 2014, while he was still in high school. But here, despite his prolonged inactivity, he was steady enough, skilled enough, poised enough to commit no turnovers and to rush for a touchdown and to complete seven of his 11 pass attempts for 63 yards. "It was exhilarating, to say the least," he will say of the experience. "Being a walk-on, it's a long shot that I get a chance to play. But I just kept my head down and kept grinding. I knew someday it would work out and I guess the Purdue game was the start of that. It's been four long years of waiting for an opportunity. Finally getting that shot, I just wanted to take advantage of it as best I could. I feel I did that."
10. And on a lighter note: TJ stands for Trent Jason. But what about those missing periods. "I never liked doing the periods in my name," he explains. "It felt like it took too much time when I was growing up. So I just did TJ."
QUICKLY NOTED: Last year in Durham, Duke routed the 'Cats, 41-17, behind their dual-threat quarterback Daniel Jones, who rushed for 108 yards and two touchdowns and threw for 305 yards and two more. He opened this season rushing for 43 yards and a touchdown and going 13-of-17 (76.5 percent) for 197 yards and another touchdown in the Blue Devils' 34-14 win over Army. "I definitely feel the team was upset that we lost," defensive tackle Jordan Thompson said this week when asked if last year's memory will serve as fuel come Saturday.
"Every team's upset when you lose a game. The goal at the end of the day is to go one-and-oh, as Fitz always preaches to us. Just prepare everyday as hard as you can for as long as you can. I feel that's the theme of this team. Be consistent and not be satisfied. If you have a good day one day, make the next day a better day. So, yeah. That loss is in the back of our minds. But does it change how consistently we want to prepare everyday? No."
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