Setting up your young Qb for success

• By Keith Grabowski

Regardless of the level - NFL, college, or high school, having a plan to set up your young quarterback for success needs to be at the forefront of your planning for the next season.

Two offensive coordinator/quarterback coaches recently shared their thoughts on this at the Lauren’s First and Goal Clinic.  Dave Patenaude is the OC/QB Coach at Georgia Tech, and Joe Davis is the OC/QB Coach at Albany.

Coach Dave Patenaude has a track record of developing quarterbacks over his 30+ year career.  None of these was a bigger task than when he was given the task of converting the Georgia Tech offense from an option-based scheme to a pro-style, spread attack. This included using a freshman quarterback in the first year of their tenure.

In a world of cool drills, complex plays, and numerous philosophies on developing a quarterback, Coach Patenaude has simplified his job down to one simple concept - alleviate stress and anxiety on the quarterback. He uses the analogy of taking a test and that preparation leads to confidence. He explains his philosophy here:

Patenaude develops all three phases of the quarterback - mental, physical, and emotional.  On the mental side, he starts with understanding the learning styles of his quarterback which he does with a V.A.K. test - visual, auditory, kinesthetic, so he can match his teaching to what his student quarterbacks need.

On the practice field, the physical component, Patenaude keeps it simple with using a bag and a net, and keeps them on edge throughout the practice by constantly talking to them, reminding them, and coaching them up throughout every second of practice. He explains more here:

Lastly, Patenaude develops the emotional side.  He invests personally in each of his players.  This ranges from talking to them about issues outside of football to having them around his own family.

Coach Patenaude’s entire clinic “Developing a Freshman QB” can be found here.

While he hasn’t accumulated the season of experience of Patenaude, Davis has coached quarterbacks continuously since 2003 at the Division III, II and FCS levels and he's left each place significantly better than he found it.

Joe Davis has become known for his ability to develop quarterbacks as well. In his clinic talk he focused on utilizing concepts that are easy for a quarterback to understand and execute.

“Today everyone is running versions of the same stuff.” To be great at advanced plays, you have to be great at the basics first.  It comes down to being so detailed that they run it better than anyone else.

Davis gives an overview of his thoughts on the landscape of today’s offenses and how to be better on offense here:

 For Davis, it starts with a mission statement so both he and his quarterbacks can evaluate where they are at:

On the practical side, it all starts with utilizing concepts that can start drives, boost confidence, and build the quarterback’s ego.  He believes within all the concept that are available, you can create a menu that allows the quarterback, especially the young quarterback to be successful as he explains in this video:

Coach Davis illustrates all of the concepts that fit this profile in his clinic video from Lauren’s First and Goal “Easy Completion Concepts for Developing Young Quarterbacks.”

Coach Patenaude and Coach Davis have had success with their approach at multiple levels.  They show the importance of developing the person and the quarterback as well as being intelligent in our choices as coaches and the situations we create for them in playbooks, game planning, and play calling.