Sept. 11, 2009
By SKIP MYSLENSKI, NUsports.com Special Contributor
"I told the story to the kids on Friday (before the season-opener with Towson)," Pat Fitzgerald is saying. "I traveled to Notre Dame (as a true freshman) and didn't play. We came back and played Boston College. My first play was first-and-goal and I got trucked. Touchdown.
"We go down a couple plays later and we score and I go on the kickoff team. I'm running down the field and I didn't pay any attention in the meetings, I didn't pay any attention during the game, they changed up their return, they ran a cross return, and I got my lips knocked off. I'm looking out my ear hole. Chris Martin, I'm walking over to the Boston College sideline and Chris Martin's walking me back over to our sideline. Chris and I are close for a lot of reasons, but that one in particular.
"That was probably my best High School Harry moment."
They jumped on the merry-go-round with their arrival in Evanston and then, as if it were some possessed contraption from a Grade B horror movie, that ride just kept on spinning, spinning, spinning ever faster. There was no family to lean on and a new environment to master, a couple practices on campus and a bus trip to Kenosha, a dense playbook to study and grueling two-a-days to survive, a return trip to campus and even more practices, finally game-week preparation and last Saturday's arrival and their appearances against Towson at sun-dappled Ryan Field.
"It was exciting," says the true freshman tackle Patrick Ward, remembering that moment. "It was probably one of the most-awesome things I've ever done in my entire life, to be able to step out on the field like that. It was great."
"I was so ready to go and ready to get out there, I did have to calm myself down," echoes the running back Arby Fields, the only other true freshman who played against the Tigers. "I said, 'OK, Arby, listen. It's OK to be excited, but you've got to focus on what you've got to do.' It was exciting. I've been wanting to do that since I was a little kid, play major college football at this level. It seemed so surreal to me, being out there in the arena for the first time. It was, it was so much fun and then to have the success I had made it even better."
"They've been through some pretty traumatic things, just life experiences," Fitzgerald recalls more soberly. "Then to go out and be expected to execute in front of the biggest crowd they've probably played in front of, and it's only going to get bigger and bigger as the year goes along, that's a lot of expectation on them and I thought they handled it well. But now high school's over and it's time to move on."
Ward and Fields, who are expected to be the only true freshmen who will play this fall for the 'Cats, took their first steps on that journey last Saturday and they were not the only ones. This was true too of the many redshirt freshmen experiencing the arena for the first time and together, recalls Fitzgerald, "They looked like a bunch of High School Harrys."
And what exactly is that look?
"Lining up wrong. Not getting lined up ready to play. Lack of focus. Not executing what their responsibilities are...a lot of the redshirt freshmen who were playing in the kicking game, it's just faster, it happens faster, it might be a different look, it might not be what you practiced, you've got to be able to adjust and you've got to be able to adjust on game day. I thought we got better as the game went along. But I think early it was, 'Wow. I'm playing the game. Wow.'"
Now Ward and Fields, our concerns here, are promising talents and potential stars. The mere fact that they are playing as true freshmen conclusively proves this. Yet their words also prove even they were infected by the wow factor, just as their performances showed that they have miles to travel before they fully leave high school behind them.
Let us first consider Ward, who checks in at a mere 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds. "The speed of the game. Everyone's so much faster," he says, not surprisingly, when recounting his experience. "All the reads have to be faster, your reactions have to be faster, you have to be able to do everything faster. In high school every play was pretty much blocked one way. For a different front, maybe we changed it up a little bit. But here you see so many different fronts, the style of play you see with the different teams, it changes so much. There are just so many variations to plays."
"You could tell he was a freshman," says quarterback Mike Kafka, himself thinking back to last Saturday.
How?
"Maybe a little indecisive. You could tell it wasn't just flowing for him. But they're all mistakes that he can easily fix. Technical stuff. It's not his ability. He has great ability, that's why he's playing for us. I just think he was a little indecisive. But I also think the more comfortable he gets, the more he can just go out there and play and not worry about all the things going on, he's going to be a great player. He is a great player. It's just got to turn over for him and he has to grow up a little bit. He's done that. Playing for us right now with an experienced O line says a lot about him."
And what is he hoping to most improve between games one and two?
"Everything," says Ward bluntly. "There's a lot to improve on. I don't have a short list there."
Now let us consider Fields, who did score a pair of touchdowns and rush for 48 yards on a half-dozen carries. He, more notoriously, cramped up after appearing in a mere 11 plays and was forced to sit out the game's final 25 minutes. "I was focusing on football and not taking care of my body," he admits. "You're supposed to hydrate during the week and not just before the game. I'd have to say it was my fault. I take the whole blame on me that I was not focusing on getting my body ready for the game. Mentally I was ready. But Saturday was a lesson to get my body ready as well."
And where else is he looking to improve now that his debut is behind him?
"Adjusting to the speed of the game," he says, again not surprisingly. "Now I have no excuse to come off the field and say, 'Oh, coach, it's so fast.' I have one game under my belt, so now I can go out there and adjust to the speed of the game and play faster. It won't be such a shock to me."
"Pat and Arby might be the two captains of that group (of High School Harrys)," Pat Fitzgerald is finally saying. "Buckle both sides of your chin strap and go out and play a little bit and they did. But Pat was underground most of the day and Arby cramped up. So if I were to give them a mid-term grade, or a first pop quiz grade, they've got a lot of work to do. But they're going to be very good football players."