[Fuller/MGoBlog]
Jim said it was Wilton’s best game last week. After watching film, would you agree with that?
“Yeah. He was like 70% completion, made good decisions all the way across the board, was very accurate. A couple throws or a couple plays probably could have even taken back and gotten some more completions out of it. As we were looking at it, felt like there was some opportunity to even be a little bit better than that; couple more touchdowns. Excited about how he’s progressed and how he played in this game.”
What has helped Wilton really develop his consistency this season?
“He’s a consistent person, and I think it really starts from off the field and moves into the field or onto the field. He’s a guy that really does everything you want him to do. He wakes up about the same time every day. He says he goes to bed about the same time every day. He has a very consistent schedule in what he does. He’s told me weekends haven’t really changed his schedule anymore. He’s kind of programmed his body and himself really starting throughout training camp to be kind of what time he woke up in training camp is still what time he wakes up now. Just lives a very clean, consistent life, and because of that I think it’s parlayed into his football.”
Wilton talked a lot yesterday about avoiding aiming the ball. For us non-quarterbacks out here, what is the difference between aiming the ball and just letting it go, and how can you tell when that’s happening?
“It’s just like baseball. Sometimes you feel like when you’re thinking too much or you’re trying to put it in a certain spot, when you’re thinking and not following through it’s different than, hey, I’m just going to go out there and rip it, so to speak. I’m gonna go out there and I’m confident I can make that throw, I’m confident with where I’m going with the ball, I’m confident I can kind of just be free. And when you aim it is sometimes when you start overthinking, and I think that’s probably what he was thinking about, that it’s more of should I take a little bit off of this or not follow through as much as opposed to just going out there and playing.”
[After THE JUMP: impressions of State’s defense, making adjustments on the fly, and whether the staff scripts plays]
And is part of that just having a better understanding of the play and the offense?
“Yeah, I think it has to do with that. I think he has more confidence in his own arm. I think he has more confidence in the guys he’s throwing to. He knows that these guys, a lot of our guys can make some pretty sensational catches and you can sometimes just let it loose and have it close to Amara [Darboh] or close to Jake [Butt] or close to Jehu [Chesson] and kind of work with that and then kind of set yourself through that and then become the most accurate guy you can become. Really, that comes from understanding space and also understanding the system and where they’re gonna be instead of where you think they are at the time.”
On Wilton’s routine, do you almost have to be kind of a boring guy to be a successful quarterback at the next level?
“Um, I don’t know that. I think that you have to be someone that has great priorities and understands your priorities to be successful. I think you have to be somebody that’s very responsible. I think you have to be somebody that is an individual who knows how to set up a routine and be disciplined with it, that I do know. That’s probably what’ll get you successful at the next level and really successful here.
“He’s in the middle of building all that. He’s kind of building his own personal resume, but he’s also building his own personal schedule. We talk about what do you do on a Monday, what do you do on a Sunday, how do you tell your family that you need to go watch film when they fly in, how do you have those tough conversations. How do you mix up hanging out with friends versus catching some extra film, [and] how do you have those type of discussions. All of that is hopefully leading to his growth and development.”
Michigan State always seems to have something different. How do you prepare for things you haven’t seen before?
“Well, I think that we have been getting ‘different’ every week from most teams. Most teams have given us a nugget or two that we have to adjust [to] on the fly. I think what you have to do is you have to continue to emphasize your core principles and core fundamentals and stay with what you know, and hopefully we’ve given our guys enough looks throughout training camp, throughout seven opponents that we’ve had where they’ve kind of had to mix different defenses, helps you get some experience in handling all that, and if you have those experiences you know how to pull from them.”
When you have a defense like that, does that allow you to flex your muscles a little bit differently calling plays?
“Our defense?”
Yeah.
“Well, certainly the fact that you do feel that you’re going to get the ball back fast. I think that the fact is we have like 41 minutes of time of possession or something like that. We’ve done a nice job of maintaining drives and scoring at the end of drives; they’ve done a great job of stopping drives and keeping guys from scoring. It’s been a very nice marriage right now. I think both sides feel that way. We certainly love the fact that our defense plays the way they play, that they’re playing at such a high level, and it gives us a great opportunity to get back on the field quick.
“So, you could have a mistake like Jehu had and then come back three plays later and be ready to bounce right back, or you could have a play where you have a touchdown opportunity or you have a touchdown drive to start the game and three plays later, you have another opportunity for a touchdown drive and very quickly those good things happen. So yeah, we’re very fortunate to be playing with the defense we’re playing with right now.”
Do you script plays at the beginning of a drive? That first drive was very creative.
“I think that most teams have a good sense of how they want to get into a game. You know, we do the same. We have a good plan of how we’re going to attack a team, and then kind of go from there. And you always have to adjust, so I think guys that only live in one script, there’s always things that happen so you have to always be prepared for that.”
Are you better at adjusting this year because the players have been in your system now a year and a half?
“I think that we definitely have more experience to pull from, so we can remind them maybe of certain things that happened in different games or ‘Remember when we went to this…’ or ‘This is a play we might not have had in but we’ve talked to you about it and we’ve practiced it for so many weeks’ and they can immediately pull it from their memory banks and their muscle memory. It also gives them an opportunity that they can go out there and feel as if we can give them a little bit more going into a game, that we can say, ‘Hey, if this happens then go to this. If this happens go to that…’ because of their experiences in year two.”
Can you talk a little bit about Amara and what he’s giving you right now?
“He’s playing great football. He’s playing a physical style of wide receiver, so he’s not just catching the ball or not just running with the ball after the catch but he’s blocking. He’s catching it in traffic. He’s making clutch plays. He’s taking a lot of reps and not having any complaints regarding the fact that we’ve put him in different personnel groups.
“He’s handled a lot mentally. We can kind of give him ‘Hey, you’ve got this on this play and you’ve got this on this play’ and it’s just kind of the experience and he’s just really preparing on a very high level. He practices so hard, it has now enabled the games to be even more comfortable for him. But he’s—he really is…we’re very fortunate. He’s playing great football.”
Some people say Michigan State is down, their defense is down, they don’t have as many sacks. What do you see on film?
“Yeah, I don’t know. I might have heard that, but I don’t believe that. I haven’t seen that. They look to me that a couple of the guys that they played with against us last year are playing, and a couple guys that they’ve rebooted with are now up there and playing good. That defense is always good, always tough to play against. And they’re tough to play against forever. We expect their absolute best punch on Saturday. We know that they are very disciplined. They know their scheme inside and out, and they’ll be very prepared. Very good defense.”
In the Rutgers game, I think there was a play where Jim said he wanted Wilton to take off and run but when he said ‘What’s he doing?’ you said ‘Throwing a touchdown.’ What have you thought about how his decision-making has evolved as the year has gone on?
“It’s been good. I think it was a nice step the other day when he took off and ran for about nine yards when there wasn’t anyone to throw it to, and I think John did a similar thing. I think they’re understanding when to cut your losses, so to speak, and know that you’ll live another play, have another opportunity.
“And there’s other times where all the work that they’ve put in throwing on the run, throwing with somebody in their face, pushing up in the pocket and making a throw, they also know that they can do that, that they’ve had that experience as well. So, I really believe that they’ve kind of found a way to—both of them, but Wilton in particular right now, that his decision-making is getting better and better from experience, but he still has a way to go, and he also has two and a half years to do it.”
Do you think it takes an adjustment after they’ve been in this tight battle where mistakes are so important to get comfortable having ____ in games?
“Oh yeah. We point out mistakes every chance we have, so if there’s something we can correct, if there’s an adjustment we can make, there’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘Hey, you got fortunate on that completion, right? That’s a lot easier throw right over there’ on maybe this play or that play, or ‘The reason why you have to scramble around is you were late,’ or whatever it might have been. Each play is different.
“But there’s also a confidence of saying, hey, I’m gonna step up in the pocket—and the play you were speaking of specifically—I’m gonna step up in the pocket, I feel that Jehu can make this play, and I’m gonna give him a chance to make it. And that’s coming from their experience with one another and their trust.”
For Wilton, he really hasn’t played a lot on the road: he played a half at Rutgers and last year at Minnesota. Is that at all a concern now that you’re going on the road three of your next five games?
“I think more than anything it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for him to grow as a quarterback and continue the evolution that he has started. He has started that, taking steps forward at home. Then he had an opportunity to get in the game last year, as we know, but then he also started at Rutgers, how he did there and we were able to correct some things off of that, and now he’s got a chance to go up to East Lansing and start. That’ll be a good one for him as well. Stay grounded and take the next opponent.”
Having his first five games at home, how important was that in giving him that comfort level?
“Yeah, he’s probably at about 180 pass attempts in the seven games that he’s played. So, in each one of those pass attempts I hope he’s learned something and I hope that that will now lead to when he gets to the next game he can now pull from those pass attempts rather than creating issues that may or may not exist, you know, like, oh now I’m on the road, now I’m in a different environment. You just kind of have to pull from your experiences and he’s now had a decent amount of experience. We’ll see how he does.”
Eddie McDoom had a catch and a run to show that he’s much more than a speed guy. Talk about how you’ve seen him develop.
“Eddie’s going to be a very good football player for us. We feel very confident in Eddie. He had a great catch a few weeks back on a slant route in our place, on our sideline, too. He’s going to make some tough catches. He’s going to make some easy catches as well. Then he’s going to do stuff with the ball: he’s fast and he’s twitchy and he’s explosive. He works hard at it. Can play a couple different positions for us. It’s nice to watch these guys kind of develop, from seeing him at West Orange High School in the spring to being able to see him now where he’s at. He really works hard at it and it matters to him.”
The experience that Wilton has, does that help you as a playcaller to know where to put him in the right spots, to know that he’s going to throw a touchdown pass a few seconds in advance?
“I think that his experience helps all of us in determining everything that we do. When Coach Drevno and myself and Coach Harbaugh and Jay and Wheat, when we all sit down and talk about the best way to attack a team, we know what we think our guys can do. What’s the best thing Wilton can do? Where is he still not comfortable? Let’s try to avoid those things that maybe he’s not as comfortable doing. Let’s do more of the things he is comfortable doing, and that really goes for all position groups. We really want to make sure that we don’t ask our guys to do some things that they aren’t great at and use these days and weeks of experience to do that.”
Does that grow every week or is it at this point in time knowing who you guys are?
“I think it grows. I think—you can add some things but you can also take some things out. You can say, now that I’ve seen him do that a couple times it wasn’t just a mistake once, it’s more of a consistent thing he needs more practice with; let’s take that out. This is something he’s done well; let’s add more of it. It’s really every week that kind of evolution, and that goes for all position groups.”
Wheatley Jr. said last week that you came up with a play for him. Have you seen something evolving with Tyrone Wheatley Jr.?
“We had that play in and were watching the film and Coach Drevno said, ‘Hey, that looks like a great play for TJ to catch’ so we said yeah, nice big body, that’s a great idea. So we made the switch and had TJ run that route, and TJ made a good catch, made a couple guys miss, and got himself a touchdown. So, the way guys work, guys work hard, they get rewarded. That’s kind of been our mentality throughout the whole process.”
O’Korn: are you happy with where he’s at? He’s been seeing the field quite a bit.
“Yeah, I think it’s great that certain games have gone the way they’ve gone so John has been able to get these live reps. Nothing better than a live rep. Nothing better than a game rep.
“He’s continued to advance, evolve, get some completions, and make some plays. We’ve got to get him better.”