“He’s a poised guy and he’s probably poised beyond what his years are right now,” said quarterbacks coach G.A. Mangus. “But he has been here awhile too now. Getting here early that semester, it seems like he’s been here longer because he got here early. He’s a student of the game and we’ve talked before and said that the more he plays, he’ll start pulling the trigger quicker and keep getting better with reps, and I think that’s what you saw towards the end of the season. He just really kind of let go. And then you don’t have the bad plays. He hasn’t made those plays that can get you beat. He makes a lot of plays with his feet too and keeps plays alive and things of that nature, so that’s always something we like in a quarterback and he obviously has done some of that very well when protection has broken down a little bit.”
The zone-read:
Nebraska has struggled against mobile quarterbacks this season, so it will be interesting to see how they handle Shaw and the zone-read offense.
“The quarterback run has had some success against them,” Mangus said. “That’s our identity right now and that’s what we do pretty well, so it’s something that we’ll have to establish and establish early.”
Against Wisconsin, Nebraska surrendered 255 passing yards and two passing touchdowns, as well as 32 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown on six carries, to quarterback Russell Wilson. Northwestern’s Kain Colter, who is the backup for starter Dan Persa, was able to lead the team in rushing and passing in the win over the Huskers. Finally, Michigan’s Denard Robinson had 180 passing yards and 83 yards on the ground.
Shaw, who struggled as a passer in the early going, had his best outing against Clemson, tallying four touchdowns on 210 passing yards and 107 rushing yards. The Gamecocks will need Shaw to carry that momentum into the bowl game against a defense that will be without defensive coordinator Carl Pelini, who has been named the head coach at Florida Atlantic.
“When we hired (offensive line coach) Shawn Elliott, he pretty much brought it here and how to block it and so forth,” said coach Steve Spurrier on the zone-read. “And the quarterbacks we have ran it in high school, so that’s really why we’re doing it. I think it’s sort of the new thing in college football. It’s certainly an advantage to have a quarterback who can run.”
Spurrier is known for the “Fun ‘N Gun” offense that spread defenses all over the field and had quarterbacks throw deep passes. Any play seemed like it could go for a touchdown, so the zone-read is a new experience for him.
“Coach does a great job of making adjustments to the personnel,” Mangus said. “All good coaches do that. I think with the way defenses are in general, you have to have a quarterback that has the ability to move. If you don’t, they’re going to be in trouble, in our league especially. These guys are getting the best defensive linemen in the country and the way these linebackers and defensive linemen are blitzing you, you can’t be a stationary guy back there because you’re going to get hurt. I think [Spurrier] has kind of learned to like it. We all like 10 wins. I think the Clemson game is a good example of a true dual-threat guy that you really enjoy.”
That being said, there was potential for the type of downfield passing game the Spurrier enjoys when Shaw was able to have deep throws in the last three games of the season.
“He throws a good deep ball,” Mangus said. “I think it’s a matter of that he actually hit one. He’s thrown some pretty good ones throughout the year and then we finally hit a couple. He’s really starting to learn when he’s got to put some juice on it, he can put some juice on it. When he’s got to through a touch ball, he throws a beautiful touch pass that fades and things of that nature, but he can throw the deep ball. Now that he’s hit a couple, I think everybody sees that he can throw a pretty deep ball.”
A football player that plays quarterback:
As Mangus said, a lot of Shaw’s early maturity and knowledge of the position stems from the fact that he graduated from high school early and enrolled a semester early, so he was able to take part in spring camps.
“I think it’s the best decision I’ve made,” Shaw said. “Coming in early, getting to the playbook and already being comfortable with it, and going through spring practice. I think it’s a very big advantage to have coming in the summer.”
Furthermore, Shaw felt very comfortable with the zone-read offense because he ran it in high school in Flowery Branch, Ga., where his dad is the head coach. The zone-read wasn’t the only thing he worked on in high school, though.
“They ran that in high school and so you saw very early when [Shaw] was playing,” Mangus said of the zone read. “Of course, he was a free safety and a wide receiver before he ever became a quarterback. He was an all-state wide receiver when he was a sophomore in high school. While he was waiting on his brother to get done playing quarterback, he was playing wide receiver. He’s got a great knowledge of the game of football. He’s a football player that plays quarterback. He’s very, very good at reading that and understands it and makes it easy.”
Shaw watched his older brother, Jaybo Shaw, who’s the quarterback at Georgia Southern, fall to North Dakota State in the FCS Semifinals on Saturday, and he said he was proud of all that he had accomplished at GSU.
