Student of the game
August 30, 2017 | Football, Mike Lucas
An offseason invested in deep study of the playbook has prepared quarterback Alex Hornibrook to lead the Badgers
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — At the very moment of the solar eclipse, Alex Hornibrook sat in darkness. It was really nothing out of the ordinary for the 20-year-old Wisconsin quarterback who was breaking down the film of that day's practice.
On Aug. 21, the day the moon played press coverage on the sun, covering it up, Hornibrook was in his own universe. He went from the field to lunch to the QB meeting room at Camp Randall Stadium.
There, alone, he evaluated over 80 cut-ups, runs and passes, while still fresh in his mind; something which Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst, the quarterback whisperer, has always endorsed.
"It just gives him a chance to confirm what he saw or what he did or what he thought he did," said Chryst, adding that such a routine is fundamental in "continuing to learn" the position.
Hornibrook, a redshirt sophomore with nine career starts, knows the tape doesn't lie.
"I'm excited to watch it after practice," Hornibrook said. "I was just doing it on the field and now I want to see if there's something I missed, something I did wrong.
"I want to see if my reads were right, my footwork was right, all that stuff. I usually watch right after practice by myself because I like to see the film and take my own notes before I go upstairs."
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Upstairs is the eighth floor of Camp Randall, the football offices.
After buzzing through the film, jotting down thoughts, he goes over the same plays with Chryst. Together, they expand the picture and address concepts within coverages and related things.
"Every single step helps," Hornibrook said. "Watching it on my own, seeing it for myself and then there may be something that Coach Chryst is going to tell me that I can apply and learn from."
Each time you watch the film, he noted, something new may come up you didn't see before. Hornibrook has been conditioned to think this way since he first "peeked at film" in high school.
"I was a backup when I was a sophomore and that's when I got ahold of the varsity films," he said of his real starting point with video. "I'd fill up a notebook on every player and the scouting report."
By the time that he left Malvern (Pennsylvania) Prep, there was no shortage of quality film on No. 12, Hornibrook. He finished his career with a school-record 3,356 passing yards and 38 touchdowns.
"Over the summers," he said, "when I was at camps, and I went to a bunch of them, they'd teach you what to look for on film and so I kind of had an idea."
Hornibrook graduated at semester break and enrolled at Wisconsin in the spring of 2015. Like most freshmen, he wasn't watching film as much as he was watching TV, a standard line among coaches.
"College is a whole different animal," he said. "You're really honing in on what you're doing."
With his work habits, it didn't take long to get acclimated. The best way to steal reps without being on the field during the winter is by watching tape. The UW has a library full of game clips.
"Guys develop like they study off the field," Chryst said. "He's continuing to evolve. He puts a ton of time into it. I do like the way he does it. He has an edge to him as far as working.
"His knowledge is further along. And the more knowledge you have, the more you realize there's more to learn. You just keep peeling back the layers of the onion.
"In this camp, he's trusting in his preparation and it's helping him in his performance."
That self-assurance and trust has grown over the last year.
"I definitely feel a lot more comfortable when I'm on the field, just more relaxed," Hornibrook said. "I feel like I'm more in control of the play and everything going on with the offense.
"It's not like every single day is perfect or anything like that. There are still improvements to be made. And it can help me by watching these plays (on film) over and over and over again."
To paraphrase a rule of thumb in Wisconsin's quarterback meeting room: "If the read and decision is right, you give yourself a chance to win with timing and location."
After the Aug. 21 practice, Hornibrook earmarked some plays from the skelly period (7-on-7 offense versus defense, minus linemen). With clicker in hand, he supplied the soundtrack to the video.
Play No. 1
"When I'm watching this play, the first thing I'm looking at are the safeties. It's a three-man route and I'm looking for the one-on-one.
"The first thing I'm seeing on film is that guy taking out the safety with his route. And that's what I saw on the field. The next thing I'm looking for is over the middle. The only thing that could take him away is this linebacker right here (laser circling the inside LB).
"If my looks are cloudy at all, if it's not open, if I don't have a great look downfield, and the check-down is wide open, I take the check-down. It's first-and-10. It's not like I need to force a throw."
Play No. 2
"On this play, we had a five-man protection. So, if a linebacker is coming on this play, I know I'm 'hot' and there's someone unprotected. I see T.J. (Edwards) coming up in the gap (before the snap) and I'm thinking he might be pressuring. If he's coming up the field, I have to get rid of the ball.
"I have two 'hots' on this play. I can either throw it here (circle) to the running back or here (circle) to the slot receiver. I looked to the running back first and he was open, so I got rid of it."
But the pass was juggled and tipped into the hands of a defender. Interception.
"When you're watching this on film, you try to focus on the things that you can control. So, I'm looking at my read, my location and my timing. Sometimes you can't control what happens after that. Obviously, it was an interception. But I wouldn't see it as a completely negative play."
Play No. 3
"This play is designed to throw to A.J. (Taylor). This guy (circling Danny Davis) is consuming the safety. That's where the ball should be going (Taylor). But something kind of trumped it for me.
"I knew the safety was being consumed and I knew A.J. had a one-on-one, but there was also a one-on-one to that first read with the consumed route and nobody over the top. I knew I had Danny out there and he can make some plays, so I just put the ball out for him and he did the rest."
Davis, a true freshman, made a tremendous catch. He will be in the rotation this season.
"For sure, I would have taken the Dig, if I didn't have trust in Davis. It was a first-and-10. You know that you have two more downs to work with. You also want to get the ball moving so you don't have be forcing stuff like this (on third-and-long). If you have a shot, you might as well take it."
Chryst was later asked what he saw on Play No. 3 as it unfolded.
"The only thing I thought was, 'Don't wait on it to open up,'" he said of Hornibrook targeting Davis. "It's a two-man pattern and you want him to be conscious of timing. Everything you do has a timing element to it. Down and distance does matter. That was a dealer's choice, I thought."
To paraphrase another rule of thumb in the Wisconsin quarterback room: "You may not always know what a defense is going to do. But you want to know what they're not doing."
In late June, Hornibrook got essentially the same message from the Manning Passing Academy, a four-day elite skills high school camp managed by Team Manning (Archie, Cooper, Peyton and Eli).
Hornibrook was among the college QBs serving as counselors on the Nicholls State campus (Thibodaux, Louisiana). It was a full-circle experience since he attended the camp as an eighth grader.
"Peyton (Manning) said, 'People always thought I knew what defenses they were going to be in on every single play, and we'll just let the defense think that,'" Hornibrook related. "He was being modest. He probably knew what people were going to do a majority of the time.
"But he said, 'Sometimes, it helps just to know what they're not going to be playing.' If you can eliminate three coverages based off the pre-snap read then it will help you figure out what coverage they're actually playing. That made a lot of sense. That stuck with me."
At the camp, Hornibrook naturally gravitated to the other Big Ten quarterbacks: Purdue's David Blough, Indiana's Richard Lagow, Michigan's John O'Korn, Northwestern's Clayton Thorson and Nebraska's Tanner Lee. His roommates were from the SEC and Pac-12.
Star power abounded with Louisville's Lamar Jackson, the Heisman winner; USC's Sam Darnold, Alabama's Jalen Hurts, and Wyoming's Josh Allen among the 40-plus counselors. Hornibrook more than held his own competitively, taking second to Texas' Shane Buechele in the Air-It-Out Challenge.
The exercise involved hitting moving targets: sign boards mounted on golf carts at 15 yards (moving left to right) and 25 yards (moving right to left). The final task was putting the ball in a 3-by-3 truck bed on a golf cart moving vertically away from the QBs starting at the 25-yard line.
"I almost won it," said Hornibrook. "But I didn't get the last target."
Not only did Hornibrook get to renew his friendship with Lee, the Tulane transfer who will be starting for the Cornhuskers — they first met in San Diego while training under George Whitfield — but he filled up a good number of notebooks from what he learned at the Manning academy.
"I was just trying to soak in everything I could," said Hornibrook, a meticulous note-taker.
His closet is full of spiral notebooks. He has saved everything.
"I have one active notebook, I guess you could say, of what we're doing right now," he said. "I'll have one sitting on my desk in my room for things that are happening daily."
Like a diary? "A little bit," he said. "I also have an app on my phone; kind of a notes folder."
He prefers hand-to-paper because he retains more. Hornibrook went to school on former UW quarterback Scott Tolzien, who's also known for his commitment to film study and note-taking.
Hornibrook asked Tolzien, who's now with the Indianapolis Colts, "When you write down all these notes, what do you do with them? Do you look at them every night?"
Good questions. So were the answers.
"He (Tolzien) says after each day he will go back and highlight everything that is relative and important and review that. Once done with that notebook, he'll highlight again, while still relevant.
"That helps you retain the information."
By now, you should have a pretty good idea of what goes into the making of a quarterback. At least this 6-foot-4, 215-pound, left-handed throwing quarterback from West Chester, Pennsylvania.
During a recent Big Ten Network interview in Madison, Fumagalli cut to the chase on Hornibrook when he stated in no uncertain but colorful terms, "Alex works his (bleep) off."
Fumagalli was seated next to Hornibrook on the BTN stage.
"He wants to be great," Fumagalli said.
