WVU’s Daniels shows play-calling prowess
Associated Press
West Virginia quarterback J.T. Daniels’ ability to make adjustments to play calls on the field have paid off big for the Mountaineers.
Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com
West Virginia quarterback J.T. Daniels’ ability to make adjustments to play calls on the field have paid off big for the Mountaineers.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Running a football play right is difficult.
Running the right football play is more difficult.
That, even more than his passing skills, is why quarterback J.T. Daniels is so important to West Virginia offensive coordinator Graham Harrell’s ever-growing, ever-evolving Air Raid offense.
Daniels is a coach on the field with as much freedom to run the play he sees open in front of him as he is to run the original call that comes down from Harrell’s perch high above the field.
“If a quarterback feels really comfortable with a play, it usually works,” Harrell said.
He offered up a moment in last week’s victory over Virginia Tech that caught him by surprise as Exhibit A.
“I asked JT on the headset during the game if he wanted to throw something and he said, ‘Well, we’re running the ball pretty well,’ so we ended up calling a run play. He might be the only quarterback I’ve ever asked what he wanted to throw and had him say run it.”
That goes against the DNA of Harrell, an Air Raid coach who in his final three years at Texas Tech completed 1,366 passes, including 512 in one season.
Like Harrell, Daniels looks at the game from a dual perspective, that as quarterback trying to build his own career and take it beyond college but with the eyes of a coach trying to win football games.
Harrell not only accepts that – he welcomes it from him.
So do his teammates.
“Having that freedom as a quarterback and having a quarterback smart enough to do that I think is a big step up for a Power 5 program,” senior guard James Gmiter said. “There are not a lot of people who can pick apart a defense like he can.”
This brings us to Exhibit B from the Virginia Tech game.
“There was a play last Thursday where they had seven defenders on one side of the ball, we flipped (the play) to the opposite side and it make a huge difference. In the past, we’ve never done that so we would have run the play into seven guys and been outnumbered,” Gmiter said.
In the past there was a different coordinator and a different quarterback in Jarret Doege.
Exhibit C from the Virginia Tech game may be the most convincing example of what Daniels’ ability to think and communicate with his teammates means, for it might well have changed the game.
WVU had gotten the football back with 50 seconds left in the first half but was trailing 7-6 when it put together a drive.
“It created a huge momentum swing,” Daniels admitted.
The ball was at the Hokies’ 23 with 11 seconds showing. Daniels expected Tech to use what’s known as a Tampa 2 coverage.
“They don’t use it much but they do in situations when the other team needs to throw the ball,” Daniels explained. “Sam James had the inside seam vertical, so I talked to him before the play and told him if they had the same coverage, he’d attack the Mike linebacker and beat him.”
It was the same coverage; James attacked him and changed the game with a touchdown catch.
Run, pass … doesn’t matter to Harrell or Daniels.