Texas A&M’s QBs have plenty to learn under their new coach.
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M quarterback Nick Starkel has figured out in a hurry that the plays the Aggies are learning often come with a history lesson, free of charge.
The A&M quarterbacks were gathered with new coach Jimbo Fisher in the film room of the Bright Football Complex on Wednesday when a pedestrian play flashed across the screen.
“Coach Fisher said, ‘We ran that in the LSU offense in 2003 in the third quarter against Tennessee, going from left to right on the film,’ ” Starkel said with a grin. “Sure enough, we pull it up, and it’s right there.”
Fisher, a former LSU offensive coordinator and Florida State head coach, is as handson as a head coach can be with an offense. He inherited a trio of quarterbacks who are fighting for the starting job.
“Everything is wide open,” Fisher said. “The best players play.”
Starkel earned the starting job to start last season, only to break his ankle in the Aggies’ season-opening loss at UCLA. Freshman Kellen Mond started eight games for the 7-6 Aggies, and late in the season a recovered Starkel won the job back. He passed for 499 yards in the Aggies’ 55-52 loss to Wake Forest in the Belk Bowl — secondmost in school history.
A&M fired Kevin Sumlin in late November, in part because of his laid-back approach to coaching. A&M hired Fisher from FSU, where he won a national title in 2013 and routinely produced top-10 recruiting classes over his eight seasons with the Seminoles. Starkel was asked how much he has learned from Fisher in their short time together.
“Every day it’s something new, every day it’s one nugget from him that I didn’t even know,” Starkel said.
Starkel and Mond will be sophomores next season.
“It’s a lot different from what we’ve seen before,” Mond said of Fisher’s daily approach to practice. “We do something wrong, he’s on us. If we do something right, he’s on us because there’s a better way to do (something).”
Sumlin, Arizona’s new coach, kept things simple on offense. Fisher does not, in counting on his quarterbacks to lead the way.
“This is a pro-style offense,” Starkel said. “It’s completely different than what we were running. We would have twoword plays, and everyone would know what to do in our old offense. Now, it’s a paragraph. When you’re saying a play, and then you check (at the line), and it’s another paragraph.”
Fisher coached a Heisman Trophy winner in Jameis Winston in 2013, and he’s only one of the examples Fisher uses in terms of what he expects from his offensive leader.
“We’ve been watching the LSU offense with JaMarcus Russell, Jameis, Deondre Francois (both at FSU) … he’s showing us everything,” Starkel said. “And he doesn’t forget anything, that’s for sure. We’ve been watching a lot of those guys, how they do it, and just incorporating that with what we do.”
Fisher said after Thursday night’s scrimmage at Kyle Field that he doesn’t have a timetable on naming a starter.
“Whichever one consistently moves us up and down the field, and it becomes obvious,” he said.
Along the way, the crew of quarterbacks can expect Fisher to be right in their facemasks — and in the film room.
“It’s not your typical head coach, where your head coach really isn’t in position meetings,” Starkel said. “He’s up there running our position meetings — he’s running the clicker, fast-forward and rewind and everything. Pointing this out, pointing (that) out. It’s a lot different, but it makes it so much more personal. It makes me really want to play for him, to compete for him.”
Fans will get a chance to catch the quarterbacks in action on April 14 during the annual spring game.