Â
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Alex Hornibrook began making lists when he was in ninth grade.
"I would go into my notes folder on my phone and write up a bunch of goals for high school," he remembered. "A lot of them that I wrote down were pretty big goals, so I would check them after the season. Or even a year after. It was fun to look back on them."
Hornibrook still carries those goals on his phone. Goals from his formative years at Malvern Prep in suburban Philly. "I remember my sophomore year," he said, "I wanted to go to a (summer) camp and get a Division I scholarship on the spot. Other goals were All-State, all this …"
All-Inter-Academic, All-Main Line, All-City … Hornibrook was all that and more. As far as the early offers, he got them from Akron, UConn, Rutgers. The summer before his senior year, June of 2014, he committed to Paul Chryst, then at Pitt. When Chryst took the Wisconsin job, Hornibrook followed him.
"It's pretty cool to look back on those goals," said the 20-year-old Hornibrook.
Especially the notation on becoming a Division I starting quarterback. Hornibrook realized that goal last season with the Badgers by starting nine games as a redshirt freshman in what turned out to be a winning partnership with Bart Houston, a fifth-year senior. Hornibrook has new objectives for 2017.
"There are a few that I don't like sharing with anybody, a lot of them are private," admitted Hornibrook, who went 7-2 as a starter and threw for 1,262 yards. "I had some goals in the weight room, I had some for my body and I had some on the field — things that I want to accomplish.
"This year, it has amped up a little bit with what we've been hearing in the weight room from our strength coaches. They've focused on a lot of things outside of just lifting. So they've helped me a lot with that (setting goals)."
Before each off-season phase — winter conditioning and spring practice — Hornibrook has written his goals on a large white board that is hanging from his bedroom wall in a campus apartment that he's sharing with some of his UW teammates, including running back Alec Ingold.
Hornibrook has a smaller white board to diagram plays.
The bigger one serves as a daily, weekly, monthly planner.
"Things that I have to do and stuff like that," he said.
Beyond his personal goals, there are inspirational messages on the white board.
"I've got a couple of quotes up there," he said.
Such as, "The purpose to life is a life of purpose."
That quotation can be traced to the late Robert Byrne.
"Some I will have up there for a week and I'll change it," Hornibrook said. "But I've had that one up there for awhile, since I came back from winter break, so I will probably keep it up there."
Hornibrook spent winter break — and spring break — in San Diego with George Whitfield, Jr., a nationally-recognized quarterback tutor. Whitfield, 39, has his own training academy (Whitfield Athletix) and an impressive list of endorsements from Cam Newton, Andrew Luck and Jameis Winston.
Hornibrook got to know Whitfield when he was in high school.
"I kept in contact," Hornibrook said, "and reached out and asked if I could train with him."
Nebraska quarterback, Tanner Lee, a Tulane transfer, was also training with Whitfield.
One of the training sessions was staged on the sands of Mission Beach.
"We did it one day, a day we weren't throwing footballs," said Hornibrook, rationalizing, "You're not going to use it for throwing purposes because you're never going to be throwing on a beach. But it helps with balance when you're dropping. We were dropping into the waves … it was kind of fun."
Maintaining a strong base was one of Hornibrook's takeaways from Whitfield's instruction.
"I've been throwing the way I've been throwing my whole life and you're not really going to change that," he said. "But I can use my feet better to move around in the pocket. There were drills we did to work on that. I feel pretty good where I am on that and I can see on tape how it has improved."
Whitfield recommended some authors to Hornibrook. One was John C. Maxwell ("The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader"). Another was Tim Ferris ("Tools of Titans: The tactics, routines and habits of billionaires, icons and world class performers").
Hornibrook is currently reading Stephen R. Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."
Some passages stand out largely because they're more applicable to a quarterback and transfer more readily to football. "And I'll highlight them or flip the page on the bottom or put a sticky note on it," he said. "Then when I'm done, I'll write up a summary of the whole thing."
Leadership is always a popular and powerful topic among athletes.
"Obviously learning how to do it is one thing," Hornibrook said, "and doing it is another thing."
But he's starting to see how this piece of the puzzle fits into the maturation process.
"I was kind of looking for ways to improve during the offseason," he said. "When you're on the field, you can improve there. In the film room, you can improve. In the weight room, you can improve. Outside of that … you can improve being a leader … I was trying to get the whole picture."
And it has begun to crystallize for Hornibrook.
"Experience," he has discovered, "is definitely the best teacher."
Nobody agrees with that premise more than Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst.
"Alex is a tremendous worker, he's up here (the offices) constantly, he's growing," Chryst said. "And what he has got — that is the greatest thing and so valuable — is experience. He has done a great job of taking the experience that he has had and now, it's, 'How do I learn from it?'"
In respect to Hornibrook's reading material, and the various leadership themes, Chryst said, "I think he had all that interest in that before." The difference? "He could read the same book last year," he said, "and if he reads it this year, the application of it is so different."
There's another meaningful difference this spring.
"Going in you know this is yours," Chryst said of the starting job. "Whereas last year, he had good self-confidence, but until you do it, you don't know what you can do, right? I still believe, and will always believe, the competition is within yourself. It truly is.
"This winter and spring, we wanted to identify some things he could work on and get better. One was his understanding of the offense. For a quarterback, specifically, it's understanding the timing of a play; why if you're too quick on a drop, it changes the picture you're getting from the defense."
When that happens, he said, "Now you're making a decision before you're ready to."
Decision-making can obviously influence a quarterback's presence in the pocket.
"It's experience, it's trust," Chryst said. "Especially with guys who are competitive, it's knowing when to say when and when to extend (the play). Those are hard lessons. You're talking about decisions that have to be made in a split second. It's situation awareness and understanding the impact on it.
"There are times when understanding why you had success or why you didn't is important. But just because you had success on one play … Take that first play against Ohio State. He has a nice completion (28 yards to Troy Fumagalli) and then we run it again and he's looking for it again …"
But the defense makes an adjustment and the play is not there.
"It's learning those lessons," Chryst said.
Some are more painful than others. Hornibrook absorbed a pounding in a 14-7 loss at Michigan.
"I got banged around a little bit," he conceded. "But you have to execute."
Instead, he completed only 9-of-25 passes for 88 yards. He was intercepted three times.
"That was the big stage," Hornibrook said, "and it didn't exactly go how I planned it."
A veteran Michigan defense imposed its will on a young QB making his second Big Ten start.
"Now that it happened, what's your response?" Chryst posed of the early hits on Hornibrook. "Does that mean you speed it up? Or, are you trusting yourself and those around you and staying consistent? In that game, he got inconsistent and created some pressures that weren't there."
On the other hand, he cited Hornibrook's first pass attempt in his first career start, the Big Ten opener at Michigan State. On third-and-11 from the UW 15, Hornibrook connected with Fumagalli on a 19-yard play. "He stood in the pocket tall and took a hit," Chryst said. "It's a big conversion."
On the same series, Hornibrook hung on to the ball too long and lost it on a fumble. "There will be some hits that are unavoidable," Chryst said. "But there are also unnecessary hits. That's what is fun about him — he wants to learn and he will learn because he gets it. He's hungry for it."
Hornibrook already feels better equipped to handle the Big Ten's physical demands.
"I'm a lot stronger," he said. "That was one of the goals I had over the offseason. I changed my body composition around a little bit and made a lot of improvements in the weight room. I'm pretty much the same weight. But I dropped five percent body fat (and added muscle). I feel really good."
Wisconsin wide receiver Jazz Peavy has noticed some changes in Hornibrook.
"It's his leadership role, just his charisma, his overall charisma, I feel like it has come out a lot more," said Peavy, a fifth-year senior from Kenosha, Wisconsin. "It may be because guys are looking at him, 'You're the starter and you're supposed to be the leader in the huddle.'
"But he has taken that to heart for sure. I feel like he's embracing it and he's growing and he's becoming a much stronger and smarter leader for our offense."
That has translated to the practice field this spring.
"We've been throwing a lot of balls down field and I've caught a couple myself and they were right on the money when I came out of my break," said Peavy, who led the wideouts with 43 receptions for 635 yards and five touchdowns in 2016. "His timing and location have been spot-on."
Peavy, like Chryst, puts value on the experience factor.
"That's all it takes sometimes," Peavy said. "You get some experience and you'll grow a ton from it because you'll always remember your mistakes. And he's one of those guys that will correct his mistakes; he works on them constantly. I went through the same process. It's the best way to grow."
Some things come to mind when Hornibrook reflects on last season.
The Michigan game, for one, he thinks about.
"That's the one people always like to talk about — that was probably the low," he said. "The big thing I got from that is how to push through things … you have to remain in yourself throughout the game and not worry about anything, not that I was, I'm pretty good at staying poised and everything.
"But there comes a time when you might have thrown three interceptions in the first three quarters, and now you're in the fourth quarter, on the last drive of that game, and it doesn't matter what you've done (up to then). I remember Russell Wilson won a game at the end that way."
Sure enough, and it came at the expense of the Green Bay Packers in the 2015 NFC Championship game. Wilson completed just 14 of 29 passes for 209 yards. Moreover, he had four interceptions. But he put it all behind him and rallied the Seahawks to an overtime win.
"So much that happened last year, whether it was highs or lows, pretty much everything was thrown at me," said Hornibrook, reflecting some more. "It was a different perspective since my whole life I've been with my peers, people that are the same age or younger than me when I was playing."
Now, as a first-time college starter, a redshirt freshman, he was commanding a Big Ten huddle.
He learned from that experience, too.
"To get all of that under my belt," he said, "it has helped out a ton."
This spring, Karé Lyles, a freshman redshirt; and Jack Coan, a true freshman, have been splitting reps as Hornibrook's backup.
"The way some people look at it, if I mess up, I should feel fine, because I don't really have any pressure of getting replaced," he suggested. "But I think of it differently — there's more responsibility for me. I'm the guy who has to make plays, I'm the guy who has got to make this offense successful."
Hornibrook has generally attempted to deflect pressure.
"I've never had a weight on my shoulders," he asserted.
Thus, on being the clear-cut No. 1 QB, he added, "It's not a weight off my shoulders."
His goals haven't changed, in other words.
"I'm still focused on performing," he said. "But it gives you more motivation if you're the guy."
And he quickly noted, "You have to perform as the guy."
Last season, there were two guys, Hornibrook and Houston.
"When one of us wasn't doing well," Hornibrook, "someone else could pick it up."
That scenario doesn't exist anymore. "But it's good for me," Hornibrook said. "I like this feeling when you have to perform, when there is a lot expected out of you, I think that's when I play my best."
He just has to remember what got him to this point and what can take him farther.
To quote the late Covey, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."
To quote Chryst, "The more you learn, the more you realize there's more to learn."
More potential quotations for Hornibrook's white board.
