Dave Patenaude is in the midst of evaluating his options at quarterback. It likely will be an ongoing process, which could last well beyond the days of spring practice and into the start of the 2019 season.
As Georgia Tech’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Patenaude has many decisions in front of him, but none that attracts quite as much attention as the decision of who can lead this team through the transition from an option offense. The race for the quarterback spot is wide open, with Patenaude saying Lucas Johnson, Tobias Oliver and James Graham all are viable options to fill the role.
Advertisement
But Thursday morning, Patenaude met with the media to discuss the offense as a whole and what he is looking for when making his decisions about the quarterback battle. In doing so, he laid out a blueprint, so from the top of the head all the way down to the feet, let’s dissect the anatomy of Patenaude’s ideal quarterback:
The brain
Because the brain is so vast and complicated, it will be split into two sections: the left and right sides.
The left side: The left side of the brain is the analytical thinking side. It is the no-nonsense side, if you will, and includes the skills of mathematical thinking, writing and logic. In the case of this analogy, Patenaude would be the left side of the brain.
As the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, he is the logical one, the one using reasoning and logic to make the decisions. He will be the play-caller, and he will be the one making the initial decisions in the live-game scenarios. This means that he — not the quarterback — is the first part of the anatomy of his own quarterback.
For much of the offseason, it was Patenaude’s job to prepare his quarterbacks for the test ahead. And he was up to that challenge. He taught formations, alignments, terminology and the importance of continually reading the defense (which will come into play more later). He is ultimately the teacher trying to give his students the skills they need to make the decisions on their own when the time comes.
But in this analogy, he is the left side of the brain, using logic and reason to help his quarterback be as prepared as possible to come up with the big play needed in a third-and-long situation with time running off the clock.
“My job is to continue to bring those guys along,” he said.
As the left side of the brain, Patenaude can only do so much. When everything falls through — when the logic and reason are thrown out the door (which can happen in the heat of the moment) and when the only thing left is the decision, the part of the body usually making it is …
The right side: The right side of the brain includes all things creative and imaginative. It holds one’s intuition — that gut feeling. So, in the analogy of the body of a Patenaude quarterback, the actual mindset of the quarterback — whoever it may be — is considered the right side of the brain.
Advertisement
Regardless of all of the tools Patenaude can pass along to these quarterbacks, sometimes their intuition is going to be what gets them through a specific play — whether the play itself breaks down or holds firm. On Thursday morning, Patenaude used a specific scenario that happened in one of the first spring practices as a prime example of the quarterback intuition he is looking for.
During live scrimmage drills Tuesday, Oliver called for a change in the pass protection prior to the snap. Once the ball was snapped, Oliver looked to the left. Not liking any of the options he saw, he looked right while stepping up in the pocket. Finally, Oliver found a target.
“He threw a back-shoulder ball to the seam for about a 25-yard gain,” Patenaude said. “That just doesn’t happen if you can’t throw and you aren’t a really good player.”
While it was Patenaude’s call to have a receiver running down the seam, it was Oliver’s intuition that got the receiver the ball. And that’s the thing about the brain: It needs the left and right sides firing together to get the optimal results.
The eyes
Before the brain is able to make a decision on anything, the eyes must first take in what lies ahead. This is where the eyes of the quarterback and the importance of seeing and reading the defense come into play. Great quarterbacks have to understand their offensive scheme and the scheme of the defense.
“A great offense is going to be when the combination of your offensive understanding and your defensive understanding meet,” Patenaude said.
Patenaude is looking for someone who can see the defense and make the necessary decisions off of what he is seeing. The old saying goes that the eyes are the window to the soul. Well, in football, the eyes are the window to the opportunities to move the ball downfield.
Advertisement
“For a quarterback, once he understands what the defense is trying to do and what they are trying to take away, it’s really easy for him to manipulate the defense,” Patenaude said. “He has to have an unbelievable understanding of what we do but a deeper understanding of defenses so that he knows where to go with the ball.
“Once he does that, it’s really easy to step back there and throw it.”
For Oliver — who saw a multitude of opportunities to read defenses in real-time scenarios in games last season — this might very well be the part of his game that he capitalizes on the most in Patenaude’s offense. For Johnson — who has been plagued with injuries that have kept him off the field — he explained Thursday just how important this part of the anatomy of a quarterback is while also saying it is something he is working to improve on.
“That’s really the biggest adjustment,” he said, “reading the defenses and knowing you are making the right reads.”
The mouth
While Johnson is working to improve his eyes, Oliver is working to improve his mouth.
As any quarterback in any scheme would say, communication is one of the most — if not the most — important aspects of the job. Oliver explained that it is a priority for him to work on as he fights for the starting job.
“There’s a lot more talking,” Oliver said of Patenaude’s game plan. “Last year we checked every other play, but this year there is a lot of talking, a lot you have to say pre-snap. So (what he needs to work on), it’s been to be more vocal.”
Oliver said that the terminology of Patenaude’s offense took time to get to know and fully understand. But he explained now that the team has started spring practice, the terminology of the new offense is starting to take hold.
“It’s more of a challenge, but it’s more fun to learn,” Oliver said. “The terminology, it was difficult when we first got it, but getting out on the field makes it a lot easier.”
The arm
The biggest misconception about the Georgia Tech quarterbacks is that they don’t have the arm to do the job. But just because these quarterbacks haven’t had many chances to show off their arm strength at Georgia Tech doesn’t mean they can’t get it done in the new offense.
On Thursday, all three — Graham, Oliver and Johnson — were showing off their arms and slinging passes up and down the practice field.
Advertisement
“The misconception is that these are quarterbacks who are run guys who can’t throw,” Patenaude said. “If you have watched our practice the last two days, that’s a fallacy. Those three guys can really throw the football.”
While the thought is that Paul Johnson only recruited quarterbacks who could run, if you talk to the quarterbacks he did recruit, they would say running is just a part of their game. In fact, that’s something Paul Johnson said the day he announced he was stepping down from the head coaching position.
“These kids are football players, and very few of them, if any, ran this offense in high school,” he said. “People act like it’s going to have to be a total transition. None of these kids grew up in the fifth grade lining up in a double slot, and that’s all they’ve ever played their whole life. They’re all football players. It’s not like someone is going to have to come in and start over.”
When it comes to the quarterback position, the statement made by the Yellow Jackets’ former head coach many months ago still rings true.
“I ran an offense similar in high school, so learning the playbook now I kind of revert back to what I did in high school as far as learning plays and footwork. I am picking it up pretty fast,” Oliver said.
Lucas Johnson concurred, saying, “It’s a lot similar to what I ran in high school. It gives us a chance to drop back and throw the ball. It feels good — feels like my old days.”
Patenaude explained there is a certain learning curve that comes with the implementation of a new offensive scheme. But it is to be expected this early in the process.
“Now, they don’t know what the heck they are doing,” Patenaude said with a laugh. “They may be looking around, may be looking the wrong way. But they have a lot of things (they have to do). They are having to change protections and bounce backside.”
Advertisement
So, Georgia Tech’s quarterbacks do have the arms they need after all. The process now is to figure out how best they can use them.
The legs
In saying that, Patenaude would be shooting himself in the foot if he decided to not capitalize on the speed of the quarterbacks he has on his roster, which brings us to the final part of Patenaude’s quarterback anatomy: the legs.
If you were to look at Patenaude’s history as a play-caller, he is usually right down the middle of 50 percent run, 50 percent pass. But he has made it clear that if his personnel calls for — let’s say — 70 percent run, 30 percent pass, then he will be willing to change.
“A good offense is going to be one that can move the ball,” Patenaude said. “So if we are better throwing it, we will throw it a little bit more. If we are better running it, we will run it a bit more.”
It’s that simple since Patenaude said the No. 1 play for his offense always has been the zone read.
“We have some really, really good quarterbacks, so it would be counterproductive to take those guys out of that role,” he said.
Patenaude wants this offense to be a power run team that includes quarterback runs, something Georgia Tech knows fully well it can do. The difference this year is what is being asked of the quarterback: Who best fits the entire anatomy of what Patenaude is looking for at the position? Who has the best legs, the top arm, the sharpest eyes, the loudest mouth and the quickest brain? Who has it all?
“It’s all a competition,” Graham said. “We are all competing and pushing each other the same. Whoever Coach picks, that’s going to be the guy.”
(Top photo of Tobias Oliver: Danny Karnik / Georgia Tech Athletics)