Keeping things easygoing while I watch the final round of the PGA Championship.
Kevan Smith gets a nice write-up.
“I found out Stull broke his hand, and Dexter has two bad knees, so I’m second guy right now,” Smith said. “That gets butterflies in your stomach, just thinking about it.”
Smith is showing no signs of anxiety. In Tuesday’s scrimmage, he completed 11-of-17 pass attempts for 130 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions, while working with the second- and third-team offenses.
“My head was spinning a lot in the beginning, but now it’s really slowing down,” Smith said. “I’m definitely making progress. The speed that I’m learning, and how I’m grasping it, shows my development and how fast I can grab things. If I keep learning at this rate, hopefully, good things will happen.”
Coach Dave Wannstedt singled out Smith for praise after the scrimmage.
“The guy who has learned the most, who was thrown into the fire as quick as any of them, is Kevan Smith,” Wannstedt said. “He’s come out here and has been the second-team quarterback from Day One. He has been very consistent the entire camp. He has been a real pleasant surprise and no one’s talking about him.”
Smith is silencing all the major-league scouts — and even his own family — who insisted baseball, not football, held his best chance as a future pro. Focus on baseball, they said, and the 6-foot-3, 215-pound catcher would have been a top-10 round draft pick last June.
No indication as to whether he’s going to play ball with the Pitt baseball team. You have to imagine Joe Jordano would love to have him “walk-on.” It had to be tough, though, to do his own thing when his own father is at least “hinting” baseball was the way to go. Suggests a very strong-will and desire towards football.
From all accounts, Smith is a natural talent, and if he prefers football over baseball it makes sense to pursue it. Not to mention, that it’s generally been a bit easier for two-sport athletes to move from football to baseball than the other way. At the very least, the baseball organizations will still take a chance on you in the draft and with a signing bonus if you play football first.
An interesting piece looking at the QBs for Pitt, PSU and WVU.
Palko had to learn some things the hard way: Being a backup to Rod Rutherford as a freshman, taking a redshirt the next year and learning that, after a standout sophomore year, he couldn’t win games by himself last season.
“That’s my personality a little bit,” Palko said. “I’m not a selfish person, but if something needs to be done, I step up and try to make it happen. In football, one guy can’t do everything. I’m a little bit of a hard head. Sometimes I have to learn the hard way.
“My way’s worked. It’s not going to always work. There’s that old saying, different ways to skin a cat. My sophomore year, there were times when I handled it the way I handled it in high school. Hey, high school worked.”
Palko admits that last year didn’t.
He went from hometown hero to scapegoat, took the lumps that went with the position. There were questions about his arm strength, his decision making, his leadership. He has learned to listen to his coaches, not his critics.
“I think it helped him a lot,” Pitt linebacker H.B. Blades said. “Now he knows. He handled adversity last year. Tyler’s a great player. He knows that. We know it. He found out through the media not everybody loves you. I think he took too much of the blame last year.”
He left out questions as to whether he was playing hurt or such. Honestly, there are still some questions about his arm strength. Especially throwing to a sideline, 10-15 yards downfield. The ball tends to float a bit at that spot — which may be more about the way he throws to that spot — unlike when he throws over the middle or even a deep ball along a sideline. Hopefully they have worked on that some more.
The part on Morelli skips over his mental acumen issues. Which leads to a contrasting figure.
Finally, Luke Getsy, in his second year starting at Akron gets a story on ESPN.com. (Given that I live in NE Ohio and a Pitt alum, I probably pay more attention to stories on Getsy than I should.)
Some quarterbacks get by with bionic arms and chutzpah. Getsy does it with preparation.
“You’ve got to be prepared for everything,” he said. “If I move this way, I’ll be able to make a play here or there. It’s kind of an instinct thing, but if you don’t know what’s going on around you, bad things happen.”
Getsy’s instincts were telling him to leave Pittsburgh, his hometown school, after losing the starting quarterback job to Tyler Palko in September 2004. But he was hardly prepared for his next move.
He had never been to Akron. He didn’t know much about the MAC. And because then-Pitt coach Walt Harris wouldn’t release him from his scholarship, Getsy had to pay his own way.
The scholarship situation also prevented him from contacting other schools.
“I pretty much had to go on hearsay,” he said.
He knew Akron coach J.D Brookhart, who had been Pitt’s offensive coordinator during his first two years there. But as Getsy packed his bags, left his hometown behind and headed for Akron, sight unseen, he knew it was a leap of faith.
Turned out to be the best scramble this quarterback would ever make.
“I wouldn’t trade my past for anything,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade the position I’m in now for anything.”
When Getsy was battling Palko for the starting QB spot in 2004, it seemed unbelievable that the much heralded Palko could be in a dogfight through training camp with Getsy for the starting position. It did refelct well on Getsy’s guts, smarts and preparation to make it a battle. The best thing for Getsy was probably that Coach Harris has always preferred the arm strength and physical tools at the QB spot (for those whow remember the epic David Priestly-John Turman QB battles). That probably got Harris to make a decision before the end of training camp and give Getsy just enough time to leave Pitt.
One of Getsy’s most gratifying moments came after the MAC championship, when he and Brookhart received a congratulatory letter from Harris, now Stanford’s coach.
“We have a lot of respect for each other,” Getsy said.
“Luke understands how much Walt gave him,” Brookhart said. “We’re men and we make our mistakes and don’t handle things right. They worked it out and they’re again on speaking terms, so that’s good.”
Getsy enters the fall with high expectations. He wants another MAC title and for Akron to make a statement nationally. The Zips get a chance right away with an opener at Penn State.
If all goes well, could Getsy become the next MAC quarterback playing on Sundays?
“Someone would be crazy not to give this kid a shot in the NFL,” Brookhart said. “I’ve never been around one like this, who knows it the way he knows it and gets it and make decisions and sees things.
“The intangibles, he’s off the chart.”
There were some hard feelings on both sides when Getsy left.
