During passing drills, college coaches fortunate enough to have large staffs often have student managers hold up light pads to simulate defensive lineman getting their hands in the air to tip the ball, with the emphasis being that the quarterback find the right passing window to throw an accurate ball.
While down at a Notre Dame practice years ago, I saw the Irish staff had rigged up a backpack contraption to simulate the same thing, while keeping the guys’ arms free, which, as someone who always enjoying out-of-the-box solutions, I found it really cool.
Then, this morning, I came across this video from Temple where they mic’d up offensive coordinator / quarterbacks coach Dave Patenaude, and instead of bags, or some fancy backpack contraption, they’ve instead decided on using giant cut-outs (like you’d see in the background of a college basketball game to distract a free throw shooter) to hold up and simulate a rush to the quarterback.
The cut out on the far right of the screen shot is most definitely head coach Geoff Collins, just inside that appears to be the character Rajesh Koothrappali from the CBS hit comedy Big Bang Theory, and the third pass rusher I’m not able to identify good enough to even take a stab at.
If a giant cut-out of the head coach staring you down in the pocket during your drop isn’t effective enough to deliver a completion…you may be in trouble.
Check out the full video of coach Patenaude mic’d up with the quarterbacks below. The pass rush bit comes around the 30 second mark.
“Everything is going to build, and we’re going to be better for it.”@Coach_Pnode → Mic’d Up #TUSpringBall17 #theSTANDARD pic.twitter.com/6KhQ0bdnth
— Temple Football (@Temple_FB) March 22, 2017
Update: The third head has been indentified, and some clarity on why Raj from Big Bang Theory is used.
@CoachSamz Actor that plays Raj went to Temple. Other head is Tyler Matakevich.
— Kyle Gauss (@kylegauss) March 22, 2017
