WSU
FOOTBALL
Pac-12
Media Day: What you should pay attention to on Wednesday in Hollywood
Tue., July 24, 2018, 6:13 p.m.
By Theo
Lawson
Spokane
S-R
LOS
ANGELES – Before festivities begin in Hollywood Wednesday morning, it’s more
than likely Mike Leach’s 2018 Washington State team will be projected to finish
near the bottom half of the Pac-12 North – fifth seems to be the consensus thus
far – when the conference removes the cloak from its official preseason poll.
But for
the seventh year in a row, the WSU coach who seems to grow more unpredictable
and controversial with every passing year, should again be one of the most
riveting characters at Pac-12 Football Media Day at the Hollywood &
Highland Entertainment Center.
Leach will
hold court from 9:30 to 9:55 a.m. and the coach will be joined by two of the
Cougars’ leaders, senior receiver Kyle Sweet and junior safety Jalen Thompson,
who happen to hail from the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Media Day
begins at 8 a.m. and coverage can be found on the Pac-12’s YouTube page. A full
schedule of events can be found here.
Below are
five Cougar angles and five Pac-12 angles to keep an eye on as the media masses
converge on Hollywood.
The
Cougars…
For
starters
Surely,
Leach will be pressed about his dilemma at quarterback. Don’t expect the coach
to reveal anything groundbreaking, although for the first time he’ll speak on
the record about offseason addition Gardner Minshew, who hadn’t signed his
letter of intent by the time the Cougars put a bow on spring camp.
Nonetheless,
Leach isn’t entering Media Day with a starter in mind and he won’t leave it
with one. But QB competitions tend to stir up conversation this time of the
year and six Pac-12 schools will hold open auditions this fall. None of those
seems to be a bigger question mark than the one in Pullman.
No. 3
It’s
inevitable that Leach and both players could, and most likely will, be
questioned about the death of teammate Tyler Hilinski, who shook the college
football world when he took his life in January. Many national print and
television outlets have covered Hilinski’s death and delved into the deeper
conversation it raised about the mental health of college athletes. More
recently, the focus has been on the impact of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
(CTE), which was found in the brain of Washington State’s presumptive starter
after an autopsy.
Leach
tweets
Similar to
his colleagues, Leach likes to kick his feet back during the offseason and take
his mind off of the X’s and O’s that consume the vast majority of his calendar
year. Occasionally, he likes to kick his feet back, unlock his iPhone, open up
Twitter and share with his 106,000 followers a doctored video of an old
President Obama speech. Then watch the social media firestorm that ensues
because of it.
Expect all
of it to resurface on Wednesday: the tweet, the video and even the Twitter tiff
with USA Today columnist Dan Wolken, who should only be allowed into the day’s
festivities if he’s armed with a 30-ounce Big Gulp.
Defensive
rebuild
The
Cougars lost two of the top defensive assets in the conference this offseason:
coordinator Alex Grinch, who left for Ohio State, and defensive tackle Hercules
Mata’afa, who thought he could capitalize on a dazzling junior campaign and
chose to leave early for the NFL. Outside linebackers coach Roy Manning and a
handful of other defensive pieces, including Isaac Dotson, Daniel Ekuale and
Frankie Luvu, won’t be returning to the Cougars this fall, so expect Thompson
to have his hands full with questions about the team’s rebuild on the defensive
side of the ball and what’s changed under first-year DC Tracy Claeys.
Slightly
slighted?
As we
mentioned above, WSU probably won’t attract any first-, second- or third-place
votes in the preseason media poll. Washington could, and should, take the
unanimous No. 1 standing. Stanford and Oregon will scrap for Nos. 2 and 3. WSU
and Cal will jostle for 4 and 5. The Cougars lost an abundance of talent from
last year’s roster, but Thompson, Sweet and a handful of their teammates were
playing for the Pac-12 North heading into the Apple Cup each of the last two
years. Not to mention, they’re 5-1 against the Cardinal and Ducks in their last
six tries. Both will be asked about the perception of this year’s squad and I
imagine it’ll be hard not to take even a fourth-place prediction slightly
personal.
The Pac…
Kelly
Green to Kelly Blue
The Pac-12
certainly lost some of its luster when Chip Kelly left Oregon so he could try
his hand in the NFL – a largely unsuccessful experiment that led Kelly back to
the conference last spring as Jim Mora’s replacement at UCLA. Will his
transformative offense still produce points in the same conference six years
later? Will Kelly have the pieces to shake up the Pac-12 South right away? Or
will the Bruins continue to underachieve in one of the country’s top recruiting
hotbeds? Kelly won’t have any of those answers Wednesday, but his return does
bring a certain familiarity back to the annual media event.
Rule
changes
Just about
every offseason, the NCAA presents a set of rule changes and Media Day – be it
the SEC, Big 12 or Pac-12 – gives coaches their first platform to riff on the
revisions. Leach has traditionally been an opponent of rule changes – “there’s
several rule change committees that impact this and it’s so bureaucratic and
boring that I haven’t really gotten to the bottom of it because it’s like studying
the tax code or something like that,” he said last year – but the recent
modifications have garnered mostly positive feedback. The two biggies: Division
I athletes can now transfer freely, without any restrictions from their current
school, and football players can now play up to four games without burning
their redshirt. Seems OK, right? We’ll see if the WSU boss agrees.
Khalil and
Kevin
Arizona’s
coup of former Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin probably ranks as the
second-most popular Pac-12 coaching hire of the offseason. On Tuesday, we
learned a little more about what happened behind the scenes to make that
happen. More was brought to light about the conversations between star QB
Khalil Tate and president Robert Robbins about the school’s coaching search in
a Bleacher Report article that detailed Tate’s efforts to persuade
administration not to hire Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo. Tate’s been sheltered from
the media up to this point, but he and Sumlin will be be in the house for
today’s gala.
Bow down
Washington
coach Chris Petersen and quarterback Jake Browning aren’t known to be colorful
quotes and rarely turn heads in this type of setting, but they’ll attract
plenty of attention as the representatives of a team that most expect to win
the conference outright and vie for its second College Football Playoff berth
in three years.
The Herm
effect
The Herm
Edwards Experience at Arizona State, regardless of whether it flourishes or
fails, should be a treat for everyone in the Pac-12. Edwards is bringing NFL
tactics to his job in Tempe and even introduced a “Formal Leadership Model”
during his debut press conference with the Sun Devils. Oh, and speaking of
that, he’s figured out the whole mascot thing by now, right?
:::::::::::
By VINCE
GRIPPI, SPOKANE S-R
Yes, it’s
that time again. Washington State announced its preseason practice schedule
yesterday. This time next week the equipment men – good luck Milt and Josh;
don’t strain anything – will be packing up the gear for the trip to the
Cougars’ home away from home, Lewiston.
It’s not
unprecedented college football teams leave campus for their preseason work. It
allows for bonding and focus for the crucial first week or so of practice. And
it’s probably been a thing since Walter Camp was actually coaching and not just
the name on an award.
It’s
especially important this season. This is the first in a long time in which the
Cougars will be deciding on a starting quarterback – their most important
position has been filled by Luke Falk most of Mike Leach’s tenure – and the
first since the untimely death of Tyler (fixed from earlier) Hilinski, who
would have been filling that role.
The warm
days in Lewiston will be followed by warm nights, nights filled with players
from all types of experiences coming together to learn a bit more about each other
and what to expect as the weeks roll by.
Successful
teams bond. They find a cohesion that helps them get through rough patches.
It’s an ongoing process that began the day last season ended. But a week
together gives it a AAA-level jump.
WSU:
Speaking of the starting quarterback, there is a chance the role may be played
by an athlete whose first glimpse of the Palouse came in May: Gardner Minshew.
I talked with Gardner last spring, after he announced he was transferring to
Washington State and came away impressed. He’s a composed, confident,
team-oriented young man, all of which you will discover after you’ve finished
reading this story. It was written by our Theo Lawson, with an assist by a cat
he was cat-sitting. (It’s a Twitter thing. You would have to be following Theo
– @TheoLawson_SR – on Twitter to understand.) … Speaking of Lewiston, Theo has
the schedule in this story. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12, the football media day
is tomorrow. I won’t be there. I am not sad about that. It’s kind of a waste
for the local beat writer. It’s more of an event aimed at the national and
regional media, so they can swoop in and write stories about the disintegration
of the conference’s reputation. Or Leach’s non-football comments, past, present
and future. …
::::::::::::
AT&T
could walk away from the Pac-12 this summer and take DirecTV with it … then
what?
By JON
WILNER San Jose Merc News
PUBLISHED:
July 24, 2018 at 6:56 am | UPDATED: July 24, 2018 at 7:47 am
The
Hotline touched on several topics that could surface Wednesday at Pac-12
football media day, but one subject was not addressed.
One
subject is too complicated, too sensitive, too important, to be grouped with
the others.
One subject
demands its own space, its own column …
In the
late summer of 2013, the Pac-12 announced a sweeping partnership with AT&T
that included marketing rights to Pac-12 events, telecom services for the
conference and U-verse distribution for the Pac-12 Networks.
AT&T
acquired DirecTV two years later, but carriage negotiations with the Pac-12
subsequently broke down and the parties have been at an impasse ever since.
The terms
of the AT&T deal were not released. But according to a timeframe laid out
two years ago by commissioner Larry Scott, the contract expires this summer —
every facet of it.
That left
two options:
* The
Pac-12 and AT&T double down on their partnership, with a DirecTV carriage
agreement as the centerpiece.
* The
parties end their relationship … and any chance of the Pac-12 Networks being
shown on DirecTV for the foreseeable future.
A middle
ground — a continuation of purgatory for the Pac-12 — wasn’t an option, based
on comments by networks president Mark Shuken.
Shuken was
asked in March about the looming expiration of the AT&T deal:
“The
AT&T sponsorship works very well for both entities. The fact that DirecTV
does not carry the networks does not work for us, and we’re not inclined to
treat those as separate initiatives.
“We’re
hopeful that DirecTV will choose to launch the networks the way everyone else
carries the networks. But I would rather work with another wireless partner
than an entity whose television partner doesn’t choose to carry the networks.”
(Hello,
T-Mobile?)
Seeking
context, the Hotline has reached out to numerous contacts in recent months —
contacts with knowledge of the conference’s business affairs — and the
responses were unanimous:
No one
expected the Pac-12 and AT&T to double down on their partnership with a new
deal.
Everyone
expected AT&T to walk.
“I guess
you never know, but my assumption is that they’re each going their own way,’’
one source said.
Another
source explained that the conference and AT&T have been destined for
separation since Sept. ’15, the last time they seriously engaged in
negotiations over DirecTV carriage.
At the
time, AT&T had just completed the takeover of DirecTV and pitched a deal to
Scott that provided distribution for the networks on DTV in exchange for wireless
rights across all 12 campuses.
Scott
recommended the deal to the presidents and chancellors. They rejected it by an
11-0 vote (Washington State abstained), an outcome that undermined Scott’s
reputation with the campuses and the Pac-12’s relationship with AT&T.
“When that
went down is when it all started unraveling (with AT&T),” the source said.
“Can they repair it? I don’t know.”
What
happens if the parties agree to end their relationship, which they might have
already done, quietly and privately?
(The
conference doesn’t comment on business partnerships during ongoing
negotiations. If the sides have walked away from the table, perhaps Scott will
addresses the matter at media day.)
The
situation is a tad more complicated than you might think.
On a
practical level, the official close to DirecTV negotiations would have limited
impact:
The Pac-12
Networks haven’t been on the satellite provider for one second of their
existence; they wouldn’t be on DTV this fall if the contract, for instance, had
another year remaining; and the athletic departments haven’t budgeted for a
deal.
But on a
psychological level, the permanence of the DirecTV separation would sting
deeply — it would sting fans and officials throughout the conference, the pain
resonating all the way up to the commissioner’s suite.
Losing
U-verse distribution, meanwhile, would be a modest blow only. The service,
which is being phased out by AT&T in favor of DirecTV and DirecTV Now, has
approximately four million subscribers, with less than half residing inside the
Pac-12 footprint.
In other
words, U-verse makes up a small percentage of the approximately 20 million
subscribers to the Pac-12 Networks and, we could thus presume, a small
percentage of the conference’s total media rights revenue.
In fact,
one could argue that half the schools in the Pac-12 might be better off
financially were the conference to end its partnership with AT&T.
That
sounds nonsensical, but consider:
Under the
terms of the agreement reached in 2013, AT&T became the official wireless
sponsor of the Pac-12.
To take
that step, the athletic departments had to severe existing wireless agreements
at the local level and bundle their rights into a package that the conference
handed over to AT&T.
In return,
the Pac-12 received distribution on U-verse, telecom services and cash
compensation from AT&T.
The
specifics have not been made public, but the AT&T portion of conference’s
annual distribution to the campuses is believed to be $1 million -to- $2
million per school per year (out of more than $30 million).
Were the
AT&T deal to disappear, the athletic departments could sell those wireless
rights on the open market.
The
evolving media landscape and looming Tier I deals for the Power Five: Hotline
Q&A with dealmaker Chris Bevilacqua
“No one
satisfied” with Pac-12 Networks revenue, says ASU AD Ray Anderson, as the
conference takes another PR hit
Pac-12
Networks: The inside story of the DirecTV impasse
For the
California schools — and perhaps for Washington and Arizona State, as well,
because of market size — those wireless rights would be worth more than the $1
million -to- $2 million annually produced by the AT&T deal, according to
two Hotline sources with experience in the sponsorship space.
UCLA, for
example, would be better off receiving full value for wireless rights in the
Southern California marketplace and no U-verse carriage than with a
below-market paycheck from AT&T (via the conference) and the limited
eyeballs generated by U-verse.
“(The
current deal) benefits the Washington States and Oregon States,” one source
explained.
So if
DirecTV carriage is removed from the calculation — if the current state of
affairs were to continue — then half the athletic departments likely would
benefit financially from the end of the AT&T partnership. (And it could be
more than half, if we consider Utah and Oregon.)
Of course,
it’s difficult to price out the psychological hit to the conference that would
accompany its DirecTV hopes fading to black.
Like we
said at the top, the situation is complicated
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
WSU
FOOTBALL
Who is
Gardner Minshew? Looking at Washington State’s potential starting QB through
the lens of his closest acquaintances
UPDATED:
Tue., July 24, 2018, 3:47 p.m.
By Theo
Lawson S-R of Spokane
PULLMAN –
It’s an all-time Gardner Minshew story, a tale Jack Wright shares to this day
and one that any Washington State football fan should care to hear before they
even attempt to handicap the Cougars’ impending quarterback race.
Coming
into his second season as the coach at Northwest Mississippi Community College,
Wright was looking to sign a marquee quarterback who could help the Rangers
reestablish their clout in the highly competitive MACJC.
He’d
identified Minshew a few years earlier, toward the end of the quarterback’s
fabled career at 6A Brandon (Miss.) High, as someone who could make a “splash
impact.” Wright offered … and missed. Despite receiving minimal FBS interest,
Minshew negotiated a late walk-on deal with Troy University. And Wright went in
a different direction.
After six
months, when it looked like he wouldn’t have a chance to unseat young Troy
starter Brandon Silvers, Minshew left the Trojans and looked for a place to
reboot his career. The Northwest offer still stood, but the terms of it had
changed. He’d have to compete for the job and his challenger, Wright described,
was “the prototypical Division I quarterback” – a 6-4, 230-pound right-hander
who “could run probably a 4.6 (40-yard dash),” he said, and “throw it 80 yards
on the run.”
Every
physical advantage on Minshew … and time. The contender came into spring camp,
and left it, as Northwest’s presumptive starter. Minshew didn’t sign with the
Rangers until May 28.
Sound familiar
yet?
“I said,
‘Gardner we’re going to give you a scholarship. We want you to come over here,
we want you to be with us but I’m going to be 100 percent honest with you
because I don’t want you to get over here and there to be any surprises,’”
Wright recalled of their phone conversation. “’There’s another quarterback here
… he’s been here, he’s a few months ahead of you, he’s got a relationship with
the receivers and it’s going to be a competition.’”
Minshew
responded boldly: “‘Coach, tell me about my receivers.’”
In his coach’s
estimation, Minshew had the job won a week later, though Wright let it play out
longer as a formality. The other quarterback transferred out. Four months
later, Minshew and the Rangers stomped past Rochester of Minnesota 66-13 to win
the program’s third national title.
In about a
week, expect the former Brandon High/Northwest Mississippi/East Carolina
quarterback to bring the same audacity to his next mission. He’ll face many of
the same handicaps.
Before
joining the Cougars, Minshew’s furthest college football venture was in
Greenville, North Carolina. Even then, his friends and family bemoaned the
eight-hour car ride required for East Carolina’s home games.
So Minshew
might as well be on Jupiter now.
At
Washington State, he’s the third man to show up to a three-man QB competition.
He’s vastly more experienced than his competitors, but the Cougars didn’t
announce his arrival until May, so he’s already a few-thousand practice reps
and a couple-hundred position meetings behind both Trey Tinsley and Anthony
Gordon, who’ve been around since 2016. That’s plenty of real estate to make up
in just a month.
It’s
unfamiliar. It’s new. It’s uncomfortable. It’s right up Minshew’s alley.
“When he
went to East Carolina, and I told people the same thing, I think they brought
him in as a third or fourth guy,” Wright said. “Well you look up the fourth
week of the year and who’s starting? He just kept beating the door down.”
“I would
not bet against him.”
The
competitor
Houston
Smith characterizes his longtime friend as the quintessential competitor – and
he understands that can be cliché, especially when you’re talking about a
college football quarterback.
So here’s
some clarification.
“He was
the type of guy that if he was on your team, you loved him and if you’re
playing against him, you didn’t like him very much. You kind of hated him,”
Smith said.
His first
encounter with Minshew came on the baseball field. The two played on rival
squads. At 12 years of age, whatever happened on that diamond was all that
mattered in life.
“Not
knowing him, I was kind of like, ‘I didn’t really like that guy.’ That’s what
we always thought about him,” Smith said. “Me and my 12-year-old teammates
always used to talk trash about Gardner Minshew, that catcher for the Brandon
Lumberjacks. ‘I don’t like that guy. I don’t like that kid.’”
When
Minshew transferred to Smith’s school, East Rankin Academy, for one year in
eighth grade, the two bumped into each other in the locker room. An instant
connection spawned and in just one year, the duo altered the perception of a
school that had always been superior academically, but inferior athletically.
East Rankin won a district football title, posted the best baseball record in
school history and made a deep playoff run in basketball.
Smith
distinctly remembers one football game. East Rankin should’ve been a big
underdog heading into a game against an opponent from Hattiesburg, but Minshew
played well enough to keep his team in striking distance. After a close loss,
Smith was in earshot when former New York Giants/Alabama coach Ray Perkins, who
was coaching East Rankin’s opponent, label Minshew “the best junior high
quarterback I think I’ve ever seen.”
Anybody
who knows Minshew speaks of his credentials as a top-end competitor.
When the
QB returns home in the offseason, he’ll often spend his days playing pickup
basketball at a court adjacent to the Methodist church in Brandon. 3-on-3,
4-on-4 and hours of it, amidst Mississippi’s soaking humidity and blazing heat.
“And I
don’t know what Gardner’s record is playing at that church, but I bet he can
count on one hand the number of times he lost,” Smith said. “And you didn’t
ever want to be the team that had to play Gardner after he lost because he was
going to be so pissed off and ready to rip your head off.”
He’s been
known to treat games of garage ping pong like Wimbledon and friendly Madden
contests like the Super Bowl.
“If we’re
doing something that’s not competitive, he’ll find a way to make it competitive,”
Smith said.
But that
only explains a fraction of the boy that Kim and Flint Minshew raised. He’s
introspective and curious. A 4.0 student who excelled in the ACT, scoring 30
out of a possible 36 points.
His mother
tells a story about the family’s first months living in Brandon, following. Kim
was instructing her son while the two shot basketballs on a hoop in the
driveway. If you’re on the left side of the goal, she explained, you shoot with
your left hand.
“‘Mom, I
don’t understand why,’” the boy queried. “‘Because,’” Kim explained, “‘you want
to keep the defense between you and the ball.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, well that’s
logical.’”
A
7-year-old Minshew had mastered the layup only an hour later.
More than
a decade later, the same kid was attending defensive meetings at Northwest
Mississippi simply to learn how the other side of the ball functioned.
The idol
Over
Minshew’s four years, the bright red Brandon High jersey, screen-printed with
No. 9, became a best-seller in the small suburb of Jackson, Miss.
“All the
little kids would wear No. 9 jerseys,” Kim Minshew said.
And in
case that sounds like an over-exaggeration from Minshew’s No. 1 fan…
“He’s kind
of like a local legend here,” Smith said.
“There would
be kids all big-eyed, star-eyed watching him at practice and he would always
make an attempt to go over and speak,” added Wyatt Rogers, the offensive
coordinator at Brandon High.
“Whoever
wears the No. 9 jersey down there – the number will be remembered because of
Gardner,” said Josh Stowers, another close friend and former Brandon High wide
receiver.
Those are
the dividends that come with being a four-year starting quarterback at a high
school playing in Mississippi’s top classification – and finishing as one of
the most accomplished players in metro area history. Minshew, who began
starting for the Bulldogs midway through his freshman campaign, threw for
11,222 career passing yards and 105 touchdowns. Brandon was a perennial winner
as long as he was there.
The stats
and accolades don’t hurt, but Minshew’s propensity to sign every autograph,
mentor the area’s young quarterbacks and speak at the local elementary schools
is what gave him heroic standing in a town slightly less populated than
Pullman.
“His
character is above reproach, I’ll be honest,” Rogers said. “… If I get half an
opportunity, I’m going to blow up a Discover card to get out (to Pullman).”
Added
Stowers: “The Pac-12 game will usually come on and we’ll be like, we need to go
to bed, let’s just leave it on, turn the sound down and go to sleep. But now we
have him to look forward to watching.”
And
there’s a large mass of Washington State fans in rural Mississippi who now plan
on doing the same.
The
student
How has
Minshew readied for the next and final stage of his collegiate career?
Well, to
start off, “He’s been throwing Y-Cross for probably 10 years,” said father
Flint Minshew, referring to a popular passing concept of the Air Raid offense.
“We went and got the offense and ran it in Pee Wee ball.”
Rogers,
still the OC at Brandon and one of Minshew’s closest confidants, had a
love-at-first-sight experience with the Air Raid while he was an assistant
coach at Delta State. The co-authors of the now-widespread passing offense, Hal
Mumme and Mike Leach, were in Cleveland, Mississippi, with their Valdosta State
for a game against Rogers and DSU.
With wind
whipping through the field, Mumme, Leach and their radical passing schemes got
off to an inauspicious start. Delta raced out to a huge lead, but in the fourth
quarter, the gusts died down and the Air Raid took off.
“It
changed my philosophy on coaching that day and ever since then, it was incredible,”
Rogers said.
When
Minshew was in 6th grade, and Rogers was coaching at Winston Academy in
Louisville, Mississippi, the boy and his father would regularly make a 90-mile
drive to Louisville so they could browse through playbooks, glaze over film and
learn the Air Raid alongside Rogers.
“They were
studying Texas Tech film then,” Kim Minshew said.
Chances
are Minshew has seen Michael Crabtree’s highlight catch to beat Texas in 2008
more times than Leach has.
“Gardner
would come over to my house and we’d play NCAA Football, we’d be playing video
games and he’d be breaking down the Air Raid offense and we’d watch Texas
Tech,” Smith said. “You’d get on YouTube and we’d watch Texas Tech film and he
could break down the concepts and certain routes and certain reads.”
Rogers
introduced the offense to Brandon High and Minshew went to some impressive –
and exhaustive – lengths to ensure no scheme was left unlearned. Almost every
day during the summer of 2012, the Bulldogs participated in 7-on-7 scrimmages or
held throwing sessions.
Stowers,
one of Minshew’s slot receivers, recalled playing in a 7-on-7 tournament one
day and getting a call from his quarterback the next.
“Won the
whole thing, so we played like seven hours of football,” he said. “And the next
day, all the receivers have blisters on their feet – can’t even walk around –
but the next day Gardner wanted to get going, wanted to go to the field and
throw some more. We literally had to stop because we were in that much pain. We
couldn’t run routes, it was kind of a waste of our time.”
The Cougar
For
someone who’d long proclaimed a fetish for Leach and the Air Raid, an otherwise
unassuming day in March turned out to be one of the most euphoric of Minshew’s
career.
His cell
phone flashed, a 509 area code popped up and Minshew bellowed to his mother,
“Mike Leach might be calling me!”
“THE Mike
Leach,” she responded.
“Yes
ma’am.”
Leach came
armed with his best pitch – “How’d you like to come and lead the country in passing
yards?” the WSU coach proposed – and Minshew committed on the spot,
simultaneously joining a small club of players to ever spurn Nick Saban and
Alabama.
The
Crimson Tide offered Minshew a spot, but he’d easily have been the third wheel
in a QB competition with Bama namesakes Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa. Minshew
had sent WSU his release, the Cougars were looking for an experienced
quarterback in the wake of Tyler Hilinski’s death and luckily for both sides
there was someone in Mississippi – a middle man, so to speak – who could help
speed up the marriage.
Hal Mumme.
“When Mike
had the tragedy up there in Pullman,” Mumme said, “he asked me if I knew
anybody and I said there’s this kid here in town.”
The Air
Raid’s true pioneer, now the offensive coordinator at Jackson State, was the
head coach at Division III Belhaven when Minshew’s name first came across his
radar.
“I knew he
was kind of a diamond in the rough,” Mumme said. “I thought we might be able to
steal one right there, but I couldn’t.”
Mumme
believes Minshew’s arm strength is underrated, and while he doesn’t have the
physique most SEC schools are looking for, “they probably would’ve turned down
Drew Brees, too,” Mumme noted.
And if
Minshew couldn’t spend spring camp working with Leach, he did the next best
thing: learn under Leach’s top mentor.
Between
20-30 times this spring, he woke up at 4 a.m. to attend 5 a.m. practices and
film sessions at Jackson State – about a 30-minute drive from Brandon – just to
spend time with the first Jedi of the Air Raid.
“He came
into the office some and we’d draw stuff on the board for him and stuff like
that,” Mumme said. “But he came to almost every workout. I think he was out of
town one weekend, but all the rest of them he was at. He really loves this
offense.”
So, while
Tinsley and Gordon may have a leg up on Minshew, Mumme concedes, “I think he’ll
catch up pretty rapidly.”
“I think
Gardner’s a great player,” adds Mumme, “he’s got a great release.”
The
starter (?)
Minshew
not only has the capacity to understand the Air Raid, but the capability to
execute it at a level few can.
Wright’s
offensive packages at Northwest Mississippi are all predicated on Air Raid
concepts – shallow cross, Y-Cross, four verticals, stick and such – and at
first, the coach was unsure how Minshew fare in his first collegiate game. Just
briefly, though.
Minshew
would complete his first six passes and drive the Rangers into the end zone six
times during a 42-20 rout of Jones County. The next week, NW Mississippi beat a
Gulf Coast team that had squashed them by 56 points the season prior to Minshew
arriving. The Rangers snuck past the Bulldogs again in the MACJC title game.
“Just
looking back at it I was able to trust Gardner so much with the passing game,”
Wright said. “What I mean by that is, when a pass gets called, is he going to
take the progression in the way you want it to be taken? Is he going to hit the
guy that should be open in the coverage you’re getting? And is he going to be
able to throw it on time? Of course you’re not going to have a 100 percent
completion rate, but are we going to gain what we wanted out of the pass
concept that’s called? I think over the course of the year I understood I was
going to get that out of him more than any other quarterback I’ve coached.”
Stowers,
who’s been on the receiving end of Minshew’s spiral more than a few-thousand
times, says “he’s going to want to put the ball where only they can catch it.
He kind of spoiled me as a receiver, which worked out for me because I wasn’t
the most athletic guy.”
And
Minshew’s apparently off to a good start in Pullman. Asked which players their
son took a quick liking to, Kim and Flint instantly blurted out the name of Tay
Martin, an outside receiver from Houma, Louisiana, who’s projected to be the
Cougars’ top pass-catcher this fall.
“He
clicked with Tay right off the bat,” Flint said.
Minshew’s
living with WSU nickel Hunter Dale, left tackle Andre Dillard and his parents
say he’s grown especially close with Tinsley.
East
Carolina quarterback Gardner Minshew (5) hugs tight end Stephen Baggett on the
sideline in the final minutes of the fourth quarter during a 70-13 loss to
Memphis in an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017, in Memphis,
Tenn. (Mark Humphrey / AP)
“Gardner’s
real good about going back, he’s going to go out and talk to everybody and get
everything going,” Flint said. “He understands how important that is when you
go into a group like that.”
This
summer, he had the opportunity to attend the renowned Manning Passing Academy –
an experience that’s as invaluable for the high school campers attending it as
it is the college passers coaching it.
Minshew
shared a dorm with Penn State’s Trace McSorley III and three starting
quarterbacks in the Pac-12 – Washington’s Jake Browning, Colorado’s Steven
Montez and Arizona’s Khalil Tate – joined him in Louisiana.
Perhaps
it’s only a matter of time before he’s part of their club, too.
“He’s the
type that when he puts his mouth to something, I would not say it’s not going
to happen,” Wright said. “I wouldn’t put it against him.”
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