TrueGCFan
07-08-2005, 07:59 AM
This is from the www.State.com
Summer school for QBs
USC’s signal callers participate in voluntary summer throwing sessions to get an edge in a quarterback competition Spurrier describes as ‘wide open’
By JOSEPH PERSON
Staff Writer
The summer before he won the Heisman Trophy in 1966, Florida quarterback Steve Spurrier prepared for his senior season by throwing passes each evening to a 40-plus-year-old gynecologist.
With most of the Gators’ receivers at home for the summer, Spurrier needed a pass-catcher to help keep his arm in shape. He found one in Dr. Smiley Hill, an administrator at Florida’s medical school.
“He was my receiver,” Spurrier said. “He liked to run stadiums steps, so he’d be down there. I’d (say), ‘Go down and out.’ A lot of times I’d just station him.”
Much has changed in college football during the past 40 years. Players are bigger and faster, and summers are shorter. Players get a couple of weeks off in May before returning to campus to participate in “voluntary” strength and conditioning programs.
In addition to the customary weightlifting and running workouts, most Division I-A schools encourage their quarterbacks and offensive skill-position players to organize throwing sessions. NCAA rules prohibit coaches from attending these pass-and-catch gatherings; nor can coaches require players to attend them.
But as South Carolina receiver Kris Clark put it, “It always gets back to them some kind of way.”
This is a particularly important summer for the Gamecocks’ quarterbacks, none of whom was able to secure the starting position in the spring. And although none of the five candidates will win the job based on what they do in June and July, their work in the steamy, indoor practice facility three nights a week can’t hurt.
“It is definitely a little more laid back than you’d see in the middle of August. But the guys are out there working as hard as they would any other time,” USC quarterback Blake Mitchell said. “You want to go out there and get in as much as you can, try to get a little edge on the other guy.”
On a recent Monday night, USC’s informal throwing session resembled what Spurrier’s workouts with the Gainesville gynecologist must have looked like. Three players showed up at the indoor facility — walk-on quarterback Brett Nichols and receivers Michael Flint and Clark.
Four nights earlier, 15 players had come out, enough for the Gamecocks to stage 7-on-7 drills. The small turnout on this night was due to USC’s summer school schedule. Mitchell, who organizes the throwing sessions, realized that many players have final exams and papers due.
“I’m not gong to try to get folks out there that need to be studying and making their grades,” Mitchell said. “Taking these few days off isn’t going to kill them.”
In fact, Mitchell skipped Monday night’s session to finish a paper. The only problem: The Georgia native had taken the bag of footballs back to his dorm room, forcing Clark to hop in his car and retrieve them.
While Clark was gone, Nichols and Flint passed the time tossing tennis balls, which were apparent mishits from the junior tennis tournament taking place on the other side of the facility. Grayson Mullins, a receiver from Irmo, wandered over wearing tennis shorts and a t-shirt.
Mullins and a friend caught warmup passes from Nichols after Clark returned with the balls. But a staph infection prevented Mullins from participating further.
Once Nichols was warmed up, the two receivers split out to his right and began running a “route tree,” a progression of each of the pass patterns in the Spurrier offense. Clark and Flint started with the shorter routes (hitch, out, slant) before advancing to intermediate-length patterns (curl, seam) and deep routes (corner, takeoff).
Then they turned around on the 50-yard field and came back the other way, this time aligned to Nichols’ left. They did this twice, with the receivers running each route four times.
It was quiet in the cavernous, barn-like structure, the hum from the fluorescent lighting the only sound in the building as the players worked up a lather.
“It’s still humid in here,” Flint said when the workout wrapped up. “You sweat just as much as you do outside.”
While the 7-on-7, or “skeleton drill,” is a way to involve the defensive backs and linebackers, Spurrier said he thinks the route tree routine is more effective.
“If I was trying to prepare to play quarterback, I’d just get a bunch of receivers and just drop and fire, or shotgun and fire,” Spurrier said. “Just work on the mechanics and fundamentals of all the throws.”
Besides helping the quarterbacks with their throwing mechanics, the passing sessions also help Mitchell and Co. get in synch with the receivers.
“This gets our timing down, too,” said Clark, a former walk-on from Lexington. “I think that’s the big thing. We all have different quickness and speed. The guys that have been there in the summer, they know that. They know how to lead you.”
The three returning quarterbacks — Mitchell, Nichols and redshirt freshman Antonio Heffner — were regulars at the June sessions. They were joined in July by the two incoming freshmen passers — Tommy Beecher and Cade Thompson.
The throwing workouts will give Beecher and Thompson a chance to get acclimated before preseason camp begins Aug. 1.
“It’s wide-open,” Spurrier said of the quarterback competition. “You can’t preclude anybody until you watch them in practice and in scrimmages.”
Spurrier can’t watch the throwing sessions. But he is confident they are more productive than his summer workouts with the gynecologist in Gainesville, which would conclude on Thursdays most weeks so Spurrier could head to Daytona Beach for the weekend.
“I was not as dedicated as you have to be. Of course, nobody was back then,” he said. “We didn’t even lift weights hardly. Lifting weights was voluntary. ... It’s nothing like what players do today.”
Summer school for QBs
USC’s signal callers participate in voluntary summer throwing sessions to get an edge in a quarterback competition Spurrier describes as ‘wide open’
By JOSEPH PERSON
Staff Writer
The summer before he won the Heisman Trophy in 1966, Florida quarterback Steve Spurrier prepared for his senior season by throwing passes each evening to a 40-plus-year-old gynecologist.
With most of the Gators’ receivers at home for the summer, Spurrier needed a pass-catcher to help keep his arm in shape. He found one in Dr. Smiley Hill, an administrator at Florida’s medical school.
“He was my receiver,” Spurrier said. “He liked to run stadiums steps, so he’d be down there. I’d (say), ‘Go down and out.’ A lot of times I’d just station him.”
Much has changed in college football during the past 40 years. Players are bigger and faster, and summers are shorter. Players get a couple of weeks off in May before returning to campus to participate in “voluntary” strength and conditioning programs.
In addition to the customary weightlifting and running workouts, most Division I-A schools encourage their quarterbacks and offensive skill-position players to organize throwing sessions. NCAA rules prohibit coaches from attending these pass-and-catch gatherings; nor can coaches require players to attend them.
But as South Carolina receiver Kris Clark put it, “It always gets back to them some kind of way.”
This is a particularly important summer for the Gamecocks’ quarterbacks, none of whom was able to secure the starting position in the spring. And although none of the five candidates will win the job based on what they do in June and July, their work in the steamy, indoor practice facility three nights a week can’t hurt.
“It is definitely a little more laid back than you’d see in the middle of August. But the guys are out there working as hard as they would any other time,” USC quarterback Blake Mitchell said. “You want to go out there and get in as much as you can, try to get a little edge on the other guy.”
On a recent Monday night, USC’s informal throwing session resembled what Spurrier’s workouts with the Gainesville gynecologist must have looked like. Three players showed up at the indoor facility — walk-on quarterback Brett Nichols and receivers Michael Flint and Clark.
Four nights earlier, 15 players had come out, enough for the Gamecocks to stage 7-on-7 drills. The small turnout on this night was due to USC’s summer school schedule. Mitchell, who organizes the throwing sessions, realized that many players have final exams and papers due.
“I’m not gong to try to get folks out there that need to be studying and making their grades,” Mitchell said. “Taking these few days off isn’t going to kill them.”
In fact, Mitchell skipped Monday night’s session to finish a paper. The only problem: The Georgia native had taken the bag of footballs back to his dorm room, forcing Clark to hop in his car and retrieve them.
While Clark was gone, Nichols and Flint passed the time tossing tennis balls, which were apparent mishits from the junior tennis tournament taking place on the other side of the facility. Grayson Mullins, a receiver from Irmo, wandered over wearing tennis shorts and a t-shirt.
Mullins and a friend caught warmup passes from Nichols after Clark returned with the balls. But a staph infection prevented Mullins from participating further.
Once Nichols was warmed up, the two receivers split out to his right and began running a “route tree,” a progression of each of the pass patterns in the Spurrier offense. Clark and Flint started with the shorter routes (hitch, out, slant) before advancing to intermediate-length patterns (curl, seam) and deep routes (corner, takeoff).
Then they turned around on the 50-yard field and came back the other way, this time aligned to Nichols’ left. They did this twice, with the receivers running each route four times.
It was quiet in the cavernous, barn-like structure, the hum from the fluorescent lighting the only sound in the building as the players worked up a lather.
“It’s still humid in here,” Flint said when the workout wrapped up. “You sweat just as much as you do outside.”
While the 7-on-7, or “skeleton drill,” is a way to involve the defensive backs and linebackers, Spurrier said he thinks the route tree routine is more effective.
“If I was trying to prepare to play quarterback, I’d just get a bunch of receivers and just drop and fire, or shotgun and fire,” Spurrier said. “Just work on the mechanics and fundamentals of all the throws.”
Besides helping the quarterbacks with their throwing mechanics, the passing sessions also help Mitchell and Co. get in synch with the receivers.
“This gets our timing down, too,” said Clark, a former walk-on from Lexington. “I think that’s the big thing. We all have different quickness and speed. The guys that have been there in the summer, they know that. They know how to lead you.”
The three returning quarterbacks — Mitchell, Nichols and redshirt freshman Antonio Heffner — were regulars at the June sessions. They were joined in July by the two incoming freshmen passers — Tommy Beecher and Cade Thompson.
The throwing workouts will give Beecher and Thompson a chance to get acclimated before preseason camp begins Aug. 1.
“It’s wide-open,” Spurrier said of the quarterback competition. “You can’t preclude anybody until you watch them in practice and in scrimmages.”
Spurrier can’t watch the throwing sessions. But he is confident they are more productive than his summer workouts with the gynecologist in Gainesville, which would conclude on Thursdays most weeks so Spurrier could head to Daytona Beach for the weekend.
“I was not as dedicated as you have to be. Of course, nobody was back then,” he said. “We didn’t even lift weights hardly. Lifting weights was voluntary. ... It’s nothing like what players do today.”