The read on Clark: He’s ready
Joel Clark was wrong about a lot of the reads he made as a freshman quarterback at Whitworth College last fall.
Not only in the pocket – where his nine interceptions stand as further testimony to the confusion most first-year quarterbacks encounter, but in the Pirates’ huddle, as well.
It was in that huddle where Clark, a former standout at Mt. Spokane High School and the first rookie to start under center in coach John Tully’s 10-year tenure at Whitworth, sensed he might now have the complete confidence of his veteran teammates.
“There was definitely an intimidation factor coming right from high school into a new huddle and being the guy that everyone was looking to,” Clark admitted. “I had the feeling that not everybody in there was sure I should be the guy.”
As it turns out, Clark was as far off target about his teammates’ take on his talents as he was about the break-off routes he thought some of his receivers were going to run.
“It wasn’t like we ever had a lack of confidence in him,” said Tyler Neely, a senior center on this year’s Pirates team, which will take a 2-0 record into Saturday’s 2 p.m. non-conference home opener against Eastern Oregon at the Pine Bowl. “We were looking at some of things he was doing and thinking, ‘Wow! And he’s only a true freshman.’ “
Still, with Clark sharing the quarterbacking duties with Joe Gore through the first half of the 2003 season and then taking over as the full-time starter in Game No. 6 against Pacific Lutheran, Whitworth finished a disappointing 4-6 overall and 2-3 in the Northwest Conference.
But much has changed this season. The Bucs, coming off a bye week, are 2-0 following road wins over Redlands and La Verne, a pair of California schools. And Clark has settled in as the kind of confident leader Tully had hoped he would be, having completed 32 of 51 passes for 459 yards and three touchdowns – without throwing an interception.
“That’s part of the growth process,” Tully said of Clark’s improved numbers over last year, when he completed 55.3 percent of his passes and threw for 1,414 yards, but had those nine perplexing picks to go with just four touchdown passes. “He’s more familiar with the offense this year, which makes a huge difference. He’s also more familiar with his receivers, and he’s making very, very good decisions with the football.”
Adjusting to the speed of the college game has helped, too, Clark admits.
“Going from high school to college and just seeing how much faster everybody was really something,” he explained. “If you throw a bad ball in college, it’s going the other way for a touchdown, where in high school you could get away with stuff like that.”
Clark came to Whitworth with some impressive prep credentials. During his senior year at Mt. Spokane, he threw for 1,959 yards and 12 TDs, while rushing for 120 yards and five more scores. He was a first-team, all-Greater Spokane League pick and finished his high school career as the league’s second all-time leading passer with 4,878 yards – just 187 fewer than former Shadle Park, Washington State and NFL star Mark Rypien.
“Joel came in with a tremendous knowledge of the passing game, based on what he ran in high school,” said Tully, who also coaches quarterbacks and coordinates the Pirates’ offense. “They ran an offense similar to ours at Mt. Spokane, so that’s a great advantage.”
But none of that was enough to shelter Clark from the uncertainty and lack of confidence nearly every freshman quarterback faces.
“My first year of coming into a new program and not knowing the receivers and how they played was kind of difficult,” Clark admitted. “Coach always preached to us that you don’t have be perfect, but you still have that sense of urgency that you sometimes need to try to throw the ball in there and make something happen.
“I was kind of hesitating on some of my throws last year, with the speed of the defensive backs and stuff. But this year, I have a much better idea of what’s going on. And I’m a lot more confident in my own abilities.”
Over the past summer, Clark was able to spend a considerable amount of time working out with his teammates – something he was unable to do following his senior year in high school.
“Coming in as a freshman, that wasn’t the case,” he recalled. “I didn’t really know any of the guys here or anything, so I kind of had to do most of my working out by myself or with high school guys I knew who were still around.
“But after last year and getting to know everyone, a lot of us guys stayed in town over the summer and met every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to go 7-on-7 and stuff. That really helped me develop more of my reads.”
Growing up, Clark admits, has made a major difference in how he feels and performs on the field.
Still, guys like Tully and Neely, who observe him every day in practice, don’t seem the least bit surprised by the accelerated pace of Clark’s maturation process.
“Obviously, he’s more confident going into the huddle this year,” Tully said. “But I thought the team respected his abilities from the get-go. I never sensed that they thought he couldn’t do it.”
“With him being a true freshman, there were some concerns last year,” Neely added. “But he always seemed real mature; real chilled. It didn’t seem like anything rattled him.
“But this year, it’s even more so. This year he seems even more confident and more comfortable in the huddle and with his audibles.
“He’s grown up a lot in a year.”