Bulldogs spent offseason getting Fitzgerald ready to throw it deep
ATLANTA – The Sunday mornings were the hardest.
Nick Fitzgerald did what he had to do to win football games for Mississippi State, which meant running Dan Mullen’s run-first, run-second offense where the leading receiver in 2017 caught only 27 passes and his quarterback was top 10 in the league in rushing attempts for the second year in a row.
It wasn’t just the read-option plays where Fitzgerald could run it himself, hand it off to back Aeris Williams or throw it. Or the scrambles, where Fitzgerald naturally avoided the 300-pound linemen charging at him. It was the quarterback power and quarterback draw plays where Fitzgerald’s assignment, in his words, was to “pound my head against the wall.”
“There were many Sunday mornings where I couldn’t move,” Fitzgerald said.
That’s going to change this fall, as part of the process by which Mississippi State has, amidst Fitzgerald’s rehab from a gruesome injury, tried to evolve him into a complete quarterback.
Mullen spent four years teaching Fitzgerald the game and rebuilding his throwing motion. But new quarterbacks coach Andrew Breiner spent the spring working on Fitzgerald’s lower body mechanics. Those new techniques became habits on the summer quarterback training circuit. And in new coach Joe Moorhead’s offense, Fitzgerald will be asked to throw. A lot.
“You’re going to see a lot more deep shots down the field this year,” Fitzgerald said.
A year ago Fitzgerald threw the ball 286 times, a number Penn State’s Trace McSorley passed in his ninth game. And when Fitzgerald did throw, it was often safe and short – his 6.2 yards per attempt was 12th among 13 SEC quarterbacks, and actually a slight decrease from 2016, his first as MSU’s starter. ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating (QBR) stat placed Fitzgerald as one of the best running quarterbacks in the SEC, and No. 100 as a passer.
Whatever the reason – Fitzgerald’s limitations, Mullen’s preference, an underachieving wide receiver group – Mississippi State has simply not been interested much in throwing the football over the last two seasons.
Which makes it entirely fascinating that the new coach runs an offense with which a primary critique is that it’s one where the QB drops back and chucks it.
While that’s not entirely true, it is true that Moorhead wants his quarterback to throw deep whenever the opportunity presents itself, and his offense has a tendency to create that scenario. McSorley threw for 8.4 yards per attempt, and Penn State had 20 passes go for at least 30 yards. Mississippi State had eight.
“I think for our offense to operate at its optimum level, we need to be able to run the ball successfully and force people to commit numbers to the box by supported by pressure,” Moorhead said, “and that is what creates one-on-one matchups on the perimeter and gives our wide receivers and tight ends an opportunity to make plays down the field.”
But to make it work, Fitzgerald will need to find a way to take more chances while also completing a higher percentage of his total attempts – up from 55.6 in 2017 to at least 65 percent, Moorhead said.