Post by elp525 on Oct 18, 2011 5:14:31 GMT -5
Tuesday October 18, 2011
by Mike Casazza
Charleston Daily Mail
MORGANTOWN - Every day of every week, WVU quarterbacks Geno Smith and Paul Millard make the same walk down the same hallway at the Puskar Center and make the same turn into the same office to meet with their position coach.
They grab a bottle of water and take a seat in Jake Spavital's office. The lights go down, the film goes up and the three of them watch and discuss everything good, bad and in between about the way Smith and Millard play the premier position in Dana Holgorsen's offense.
And every day of every week, the same three people in that same office in that same hallway go on until they feel like their work is done.
"I'm a firm believer you can't sit up there and repeat yourself and repeat yourself in these meetings," said Spavital, who became the quarterbacks coach in August. "Once I feel like I've got the point across, they're free to go."
Spavital was Holgorsen's graduate assistant at Houston and Oklahoma State before his promotion came about after Bill Stewart resigned in June. He's in charge of those meetings now and not sitting with Holgorsen and studying the way he conducted things. He's still figuring out how he'll work and for how long he'll do it, though on most days the meeting lasts 90 minutes.
"I've done clinics before where I've taken one play and talked about it for three hours," Spavital said. "You can do it."
It's not easy in that room, though. For starters, just about every college team has fewer players in the quarterbacks room than in the receivers room or the safeties room. There are three or four linebackers and two or three or four receivers on the field on every play. The time flies when one of their coaches goes player by player on a play and dissects what did and did not happen.
There's one quarterback in on a play and one player being critiqued. Most of the time what happened on a particular play is pretty obvious. This is where Spavital begins his work.
"You want the room to be comfortable at all times," he said. "You've got to be open. You can't sit up there and lecture like you've got a crowd of 40 people. It's more of a hands-on interaction and getting them involved, like, 'What do you think of this?,' and 'I think this,' and, 'Well, I think you're wrong.' You want them to talk, too. If they're not comfortable with plays, you probably don't want to run those plays."
Good luck getting a quarterback to cop to that. These are the players, after all, who are held in such high regard that they are designated to have the ball their hands every play. They're the ones their teammates look to for leadership and for confidence. They are empowered to act a certain way, but confessing you don't like a certain play is a complete contradiction.
Really, how do you get through to a player who is about to break all the school's single-season and career passing records, who is in the nation's top 10 in passing yards and total offense?
You learn to work with them.
When Spavital and Holgorsen were at Houston, they had Case Keenum, who asked all sorts of questions all the time. When Spavital and Holgorsen were at Oklahoma State last season, Brandon Weeden was honest about how he felt.
"He'd text me at night: 'Hey, I hate this play,'" Spatival said. "I'd go in the next day and tell Dana, 'He doesn't like this play. It has to come out.'"
When you ask Spavital if he's gotten a text from Smith, you don't get a reply. You get a chuckle. Smith hasn't met a play he thinks can beat him. Sometimes it's up to the others in the room to chime in and say something Smith might not
Spavital said he got lucky when he inherited Smith. He is confident and he is a handful for his coaches and Smith's personality is prone to competitive occurrences, but he's also controlled and coordinated. Underneath that determination, Smith is actually deeply invested and interested in reviews.
"You learn to challenge them in different ways," Spavital said. "He's a competitive guy, but he's pretty smart as well. He understands what we're doing and why we're doing it. The good thing for us is we have an open room. Everyone rags on everyone. It stays in that room, but it's pretty funny."
Smith is playing the position better than anyone else in the Big East Conference and better than so many others across college football. Yet when he's in the meeting room, he's just another guy. He's no different than Millard, which is interesting because Millard really does believe he would be doing the same things Smith is doing at WVU if Smith were playing somewhere else. Spavital treats both the same and the players take their cue from the coach.
"We always make fun of how big Paul is and how slow he is," Spavital said. "Then he fires back at Geno with the same kinds of comments. It's that relaxed in there and that's the way it has to be."
It's not all laughs and wisecracks. Spavital can be tough and he said he's "the bad guy" when the situation requires it. The three get their work done every day and, judging by the numbers, it seems to be working. Everything that happens on the field goes back to what happens in that meeting room.
"You've got to have a relationship with them where the kids will at least play hard for you," Spavital said. "I've seen instances where you watch a game and the kids don't play hard for a coach. That's something I don't want and something I don't think we'll have to deal with."
by Mike Casazza
Charleston Daily Mail
MORGANTOWN - Every day of every week, WVU quarterbacks Geno Smith and Paul Millard make the same walk down the same hallway at the Puskar Center and make the same turn into the same office to meet with their position coach.
They grab a bottle of water and take a seat in Jake Spavital's office. The lights go down, the film goes up and the three of them watch and discuss everything good, bad and in between about the way Smith and Millard play the premier position in Dana Holgorsen's offense.
And every day of every week, the same three people in that same office in that same hallway go on until they feel like their work is done.
"I'm a firm believer you can't sit up there and repeat yourself and repeat yourself in these meetings," said Spavital, who became the quarterbacks coach in August. "Once I feel like I've got the point across, they're free to go."
Spavital was Holgorsen's graduate assistant at Houston and Oklahoma State before his promotion came about after Bill Stewart resigned in June. He's in charge of those meetings now and not sitting with Holgorsen and studying the way he conducted things. He's still figuring out how he'll work and for how long he'll do it, though on most days the meeting lasts 90 minutes.
"I've done clinics before where I've taken one play and talked about it for three hours," Spavital said. "You can do it."
It's not easy in that room, though. For starters, just about every college team has fewer players in the quarterbacks room than in the receivers room or the safeties room. There are three or four linebackers and two or three or four receivers on the field on every play. The time flies when one of their coaches goes player by player on a play and dissects what did and did not happen.
There's one quarterback in on a play and one player being critiqued. Most of the time what happened on a particular play is pretty obvious. This is where Spavital begins his work.
"You want the room to be comfortable at all times," he said. "You've got to be open. You can't sit up there and lecture like you've got a crowd of 40 people. It's more of a hands-on interaction and getting them involved, like, 'What do you think of this?,' and 'I think this,' and, 'Well, I think you're wrong.' You want them to talk, too. If they're not comfortable with plays, you probably don't want to run those plays."
Good luck getting a quarterback to cop to that. These are the players, after all, who are held in such high regard that they are designated to have the ball their hands every play. They're the ones their teammates look to for leadership and for confidence. They are empowered to act a certain way, but confessing you don't like a certain play is a complete contradiction.
Really, how do you get through to a player who is about to break all the school's single-season and career passing records, who is in the nation's top 10 in passing yards and total offense?
You learn to work with them.
When Spavital and Holgorsen were at Houston, they had Case Keenum, who asked all sorts of questions all the time. When Spavital and Holgorsen were at Oklahoma State last season, Brandon Weeden was honest about how he felt.
"He'd text me at night: 'Hey, I hate this play,'" Spatival said. "I'd go in the next day and tell Dana, 'He doesn't like this play. It has to come out.'"
When you ask Spavital if he's gotten a text from Smith, you don't get a reply. You get a chuckle. Smith hasn't met a play he thinks can beat him. Sometimes it's up to the others in the room to chime in and say something Smith might not
Spavital said he got lucky when he inherited Smith. He is confident and he is a handful for his coaches and Smith's personality is prone to competitive occurrences, but he's also controlled and coordinated. Underneath that determination, Smith is actually deeply invested and interested in reviews.
"You learn to challenge them in different ways," Spavital said. "He's a competitive guy, but he's pretty smart as well. He understands what we're doing and why we're doing it. The good thing for us is we have an open room. Everyone rags on everyone. It stays in that room, but it's pretty funny."
Smith is playing the position better than anyone else in the Big East Conference and better than so many others across college football. Yet when he's in the meeting room, he's just another guy. He's no different than Millard, which is interesting because Millard really does believe he would be doing the same things Smith is doing at WVU if Smith were playing somewhere else. Spavital treats both the same and the players take their cue from the coach.
"We always make fun of how big Paul is and how slow he is," Spavital said. "Then he fires back at Geno with the same kinds of comments. It's that relaxed in there and that's the way it has to be."
It's not all laughs and wisecracks. Spavital can be tough and he said he's "the bad guy" when the situation requires it. The three get their work done every day and, judging by the numbers, it seems to be working. Everything that happens on the field goes back to what happens in that meeting room.
"You've got to have a relationship with them where the kids will at least play hard for you," Spavital said. "I've seen instances where you watch a game and the kids don't play hard for a coach. That's something I don't want and something I don't think we'll have to deal with."
