Jack Coan has embraced all that’s required to excel as a quarterback
December 31, 2019 | Football, Mike Lucas, Varsity Magazine
Junior QB has the Badgers prepared for Pasadena
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Sayville High School football coach Rob Hoss felt like the timing was right for a heart-to-heart with Jack Coan, who was then completing the eighth grade.
The year before, Hoss had promoted Coan, a seventh grader, to the junior varsity team. Now, he was preparing him for a much bigger jump.
"I was really hard on him when he was young — obviously, I knew he had the potential," said Hoss, who won five Long Island Class III championships and posted a 130-29 record (.818) over 15 years.
"As a coach, you figure out every kid is a little different and every kid needs to be treated a little differently. Some kids respond to yelling; some kids respond more to encouragement."
Hoss was tough on Coan because of what was at stake: the varsity's starting quarterback job.
"We had a kid who was a junior who had been in the system longer," Hoss noted. "I kind of spoke to both separately, but I said to Jack, 'You're going to have to beat this kid out. The bottom line, all things being equal, I may go with the upperclassman just because he has earned the right to play.'"
Because Hoss didn't want to lose the locker room, trumping age with youth, he made it clear to Coan, "Look, you're just better than him, not only as a player, but you can handle the emotion of the game, the highs and lows. But you're going to have to beat him out.
"He was OK with it. It was not something he saw as a threat or a mountain too high. That's just the way he is. He competes in everything. I play him in ping pong, he has to win. I play him in golf, he has to win. At the beach, you're playing corn hole and he has to win. He has to win everything."
In the end, Coan won the starting assignment based on his talent and unflappable demeanor.
"He's always been one of those kids," Hoss said, "no matter what happened during a game — whether it be a mistake, a turnover, a misread — he would come off the field and sometimes I would give it to him pretty good, but he just never got too low with a mistake.
"Even with an amazing play, and obviously there were a lot of them (during his prep career), he never got too high. He was one of those kids who almost had a flat line of a heartbeat. Everything was always the same, he was so even-keeled."
Coan's leadership emerged with maturity, Hoss suggested. Teammates gravitated towards him (It has been no different with the Badgers, some of whom have playfully referred to him as the "Long Island Laser." His O-linemen even broke out "Jacky Heisman" T-shirts earlier in the season).
"He was a captain for me before he was a senior, which is very rare in our program," Hoss said. "He's not going to say a whole hell of a lot. But he's always does things the right way. Rarely if ever does he make a mistake saying anything that could bring bad attention to him or his team."
Despite calling Coan the "ultimate teammate" — a powerful endorsement at any level — Hoss has often pondered, "What makes this kid tick?" Coan is not an open book or easy to read sometimes. Even for people in the inner circle like Hoss. His actions have always spoken louder than his words.
"You're intrigued by him because he doesn't let you all the way in," Hoss said. "I've known Jack for a long time and everything is at arm's distance a little bit. I don't know if that's a self-protection mechanism or not. He was sort of an old soul and he always had that aura about him.
"He didn't act like other adolescents or high school kids. On Sundays, I would be at his house and while his friends were watching football and eating wings, him and I would be studying tape. He was always willing to put his social life — and his life — on hold for the team. He was the captain of the ship."
Though that ship sailed from Sayville for Hoss, who retired in 2017, and Coan, they've stayed in touch. "He's very comfortable with who he is," Hoss said. "The fans always want you to be something that maybe you're not. But he's never going to step out of himself because it's not who he is."
Badgers in Pasadena by Wisconsin Badgers on Exposure
• • • •
Almost everybody knows something about Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, the "academic Heisman" recipient (Campbell Trophy) and the lynchpin of a Quack Attack that is averaging 35.9 points per game. Only Marcus Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner, has posted better career numbers for the Ducks.
The 6-foot-6, 237-pound Herbert, a senior from Eugene, Oregon, has thrown for 10,403 yards and 95 touchdowns in 43 career games. On the season, he has 32 TD passes and just five interceptions with two stretches of 100 or more pass attempts without a pick. He looms as a Top-10 selection in the NFL draft.
On the other hand, what do we know about Jack Coan? What makes him tick?
"Jack is Jack," said his dad, Mike Coan. "He's a guy who's all in. He's all about football. He's all about team. Jack has been like that his whole life. He's a pretty determined kid and once he has his mind set on something, he conquers it. He's just a different type of kid.
"I remember my wife (Donna) says to me, 'Mike, you've got to see Jack. He's 2 years old and he's riding a two-wheeler (bicycle) already.' I go, 'What?' Sure enough, I go to the park and I see him riding a two-wheeler around the park. I knew then that he was a little different."
Mike Coan recalled waking up in the middle of the night to a banging noise in the backyard. "I'd look at my watch and it would be 12:30," he said, "and Jack is outside throwing the lacrosse ball against the backstop. It's freezing out and he's out there by himself at midnight. He's that type of kid."
Jack Coan was all-county in lacrosse and verbally committed to play the sport at Notre Dame as a freshman. But once the football recruiters started calling, including Michigan's Jim Harbaugh, who got him to visit Ann Arbor, he focused on following his dream and honing his skills as a quarterback.
"People started noticing Jack," Mike Coan said. "Phil Simms called me one day and says, 'I'd love to meet him and throw with Jack.' We walked into the bubble (a local indoor training facility) and within 30 seconds Phil says, 'This kid can spin it.' Phil calls me all the time about Jack."
Simms, 65, a CBS color analyst, played 15 seasons for the New York Giants. After throwing for over 33,000 career yards, the Giants retired his No. 11 jersey. A first-round pick from Morehead State, he was the MVP of Super Bowl XXI completing a record 22 of 25 passes against the Denver Broncos.
In short, he has impeccable credentials to council quarterbacks, especially developing ones.
"We text every now and then throughout the season," said Jack Coan, who ironically grew up a fan of the New York Jets, not the Giants. "I know he's always watching our games, him and his son Matt are always keeping in touch. Great guys."
One of the things that the 6-foot-3 Simms taught him was to be was "violent with your feet when throwing." He also tutored the 6-3 Coan on his throwing motion, making sure to keep it more compact. He has proven to be a quick study.
This season, Coan led the Big Ten in completion percentage (.701) while throwing for 17 touchdowns and just four interceptions. Only Scott Tolzien (.729) and Russell Wilson (.728) have completed a higher rate of passes in a single season at Wisconsin.
What makes Coan tick? His physical tools.
What else? His toughness.
Unbeknownst to the public this year, Coan played through a high-ankle sprain, an injury that frequently sidelines players for multiple weeks. He didn't miss a start and took most of the snaps in practice.
"I sprained my ankle once before — and I had to sit out one game in the lacrosse season — but it wasn't a high-ankle sprain," Coan said with a sigh. "The most you feel it is in practice. There were some weeks where I was just hoping to be good going into the game. But you just fight through it.
"You think about the guys around you and you want to do whatever you can to help the team, so you do whatever you can to get healthy. It helped me grow up. With my mom and dad always pushing me to be tough and fight through little injuries, and stuff like that, it definitely helped me."
Coan is grounded, humble, smart. He says much of that comes from his mom, Donna.
Coan is passionate, tough, industrious. He says much of that comes from his dad, Mike.
"I get a lot of my fire and competitiveness from him," Jack said. "He always like to say, 'You got your heart from me.' To this day, he's by far the hardest working man I've ever met in my life. I don't think anyone can come close to him … he's a non-stop worker."
Hoss confirmed as much about his friend Mike Coan, the owner of a landscaping company.
"His dad is crazy, a workaholic; it's always work, work, work, work," Hoss said. "He doesn't have to work, they do well, but he works. He doesn't have to dig ditches. He doesn't have to mow lawns. But he owns the business and he's never going to send his guys out without him being there.
"He'll be in the middle of working — it can be 96 degrees out, sweating, bee stings — and he'll go to the gym in his work boots and with grass all over him. And he'll do a 45-minute workout and then he'll go back to landscaping. There's no doubt where Jack gets his work ethic from."
His father set the bar very high as far as never taking any shortcuts.
"He'd come home and everything would be full of dirt. You'd shake his hand and they were callused like nobody else's," Jack said. "Seeing him go to work before I'd wake up and come home really late at night, it just made me really look up to him and I wanted to work as hard as my dad."
What makes Coan tick? His work ethic.
What else? His competitiveness.
There was no escaping the hype and hoopla surrounding Wisconsin's signing of quarterback Graham Mertz, a four-star prospect with suitors from all the major teams in Power Five conferences. Mertz, an early enrollee, went through spring drills and was seemingly always trending on the internet.
"I would always ask about it and Jack would say, 'Yeah, dad, he's good,'" Mike Coan said. "Jack is not afraid of competition. He wants it. He embraces it. It makes him better and just works harder."
Before leaving Sayville, Jack Coan was ready to compete with whomever, wherever.
"I felt like coming into college, anywhere I would go, there would be a lot of competition from guys who were older and some that were younger than me," he said. "It wasn't a surprise to have a bunch of competition. It always brings out the best in you.
"It's good because nothing is ever going to be given to you."
Plus, he emphasized, "You wouldn't want it any other way."
The quarterback room has been as solid as it has been in years at Wisconsin. Coan, Mertz, Chase Wolf and Danny Vanden Boom have formed a bond, a mutual admiration society among friends.
"A lot of people have asked me, 'How have I helped him (Mertz)?'" Coan said. "We're always talking to each other and he's helped me just as much as I've helped him. All the quarterbacks are asking each other, 'What are you seeing on the field?' and stuff like that."
Mertz downplayed all the noise that accompanied his arrival and presence on the roster.
"I really don't listen to it. I'm not on Twitter, I go on Instagram a little bit," said Mertz, who has retained his redshirt by appearing in only two games. "Recruitment goes away once you get here. For me and for him, it was just competing every day. We never really saw it that way (me against him).
"Constant competition is a great thing. I think we push each other every day and we know it. That's where our competition just rises. As far as helping each other out, I know during film and stuff, we can ask each other questions; the more the better, that's how you go into a game … ready to go."
What makes Coan tick? His readiness to be a leader.
"I'd say from last year, my leadership definitely grew a good amount," he acknowledged. "It's just my chemistry with all the guys, having a whole offseason preparing with them — throwing routes, being around the linemen and everyone on the team — and just meshing with them."
Now that he's on the clock to play in his first Rose Bowl, Coan remembered watching previous ones with his dad; slightly more detached, obviously, than he is right now.
"We were usually in Florida over one of our winter breaks," he said, "and we'd go to a pizza place and watch the game. Probably the most memorable one for me was two years ago when Oklahoma and Georgia played into double overtime (a CFP semifinal won by the Bulldogs)."
Meanwhile, Mike Coan conceded, "I still have to pinch myself. I can't believe it."
But he had a keepsake, a father-son moment from watching the Rose Bowl together.
"I'd say, 'Jack, can you imagine playing in this game someday?"
"And he'd say, "Yeah that would be crazy.'"
Not so anymore.
"This whole experience is a dream come true," Jack Coan said, "just to be around a program like this one with a group of guys that are best friends and love each other. It's pretty special."
