Confident Swogger well-armed
PULLMAN — With Washington State quarterback Josh Swogger, getting a first impression is the easy part.
Ask his Cougar teammates and coaches, and they’ll all sing a similar song about Swogger’s obvious natural ability, which is on display from the first throw of every practice.
“He’s got a big-league arm,” says his offensive coordinator, Mike Levenseller. “He can put the ball in spots that a lot of people can’t.”
“I said, ‘Man, watch out,’” safety Hamza Abdullah recalls, thinking back to the first time he saw Swogger as a freshman. “‘Three years and he’ll be the man.’”
“I just like his demeanor,” head coach Bill Doba says. “He throws a bad pass. Oh well. He’s got a short memory and goes on to the next one. He doesn’t brood and talk about it.”
But now, it’s no longer about first impressions for Swogger. He’s just eight days from his first start as a college quarterback, eight days from his first game as a captain — an honor he received despite being just a redshirt sophomore.
And, as many around him have acknowledged, he’s just eight days from playing a huge role in determining just how this WSU season turns out.
Swogger isn’t losing any sleep at night over it — at least not yet, he says. He does have the advantage of having faced plenty of adversity for someone who’s taken so few snaps in game situations.
As a redshirt freshman in 2003, he saw the field in nine games when starter Matt Kegel couldn’t stay healthy. Swogger completed just more than 50 percent of his passes and was spotty at times, throwing five interceptions to one touchdown. He failed in an attempt to help snap the Cougars’ losing streak in the Apple Cup after coming in off the bench.
“I wasn’t ready for it and it kind of bit me,” Swogger says. “You sit for a long time. My dad has always told me to prepare like you’re going to be the starter. And it’s kind of hard. You can say that, but it’s hard to prepare for the starting role with two or three reps at practice.”
Still, it was assumed that the job was his entering spring practice this year. Until Swogger struggled and his backup, Alex Brink, shined.
But WSU, perhaps with a little guidance from Doba, forged on with Swogger and anointed him an offensive co-captain despite the fact that he hadn’t nailed down the starting job. By all accounts, that’s when Swogger actively took up the transition of going from clipboard-carrier to commander.
By the time he got into fall camp, the job was once again his to lose.
“He’s just way more confident this year,” senior left tackle Calvin Armstrong says. “Going into the offseason he knew that, hey, this is my team now. And he took control of the offense over the winter and into the summer.”
The shift hasn’t been simple. His well-documented relaxed nature is a big part of what has endeared him to teammates. (Swogger has a tendency to smile and even let out a laugh when the term “laid-back” is used in his presence.) But it also runs counter to some of the charges that go with leadership on the field. It’s a tightrope that Swogger is still learning to walk.
“I don’t let too much get to me,” the Youngstown, Ohio, native says. “I grew up a Browns fan, watching Jim Brown and all those old clips. He always had the same face on, always playing the same way — never letting guys get a read on him. If he ran for 30 yards, he’d get up real slow. If he got hit in the backfield, he’d get up real slow. So you never really had a good read on him, and I don’t want guys to get a good read on me. I don’t want to show too much emotion out there. The guys, they know that and see it.”
If you watch closely this fall, it’s apparent that he has shed some of the nonchalance for a little fire. The Cougar offense hasn’t performed well in camp, most notably during the first two scrimmages. Swogger himself assembled stretches with completion after completion, only to follow with a string of disappointing play.
“The second scrimmage was just kind of a shock,” wide receiver Marty Martin admits. “He didn’t shy away from what his leadership role asked him to do. And he took it upon himself in his position group to say, ‘Hey, we need to do what we can to keep up the tempo.’
“I think he’s starting to learn how he can motivate the offense within the huddle instead of having the coaches from the sidelines trying to do it all the time.”
While Swogger learns what to do on the field, he managed to assert himself off of it by being a catalyst in the team’s voluntary offseason program. Along with his co-captains, Swogger helped make sure teammates were out practicing or in the weight room in the hope that the offseason work can speed up the learning curve once kickoff arrives.
“Even while all the rumors were swirling around, with him and Alex Brink competing for the starting spot, he kept calm,” Abdullah says. “We didn’t walk into the locker room and there was a Snickers there from Josh. It’s nothing like that. He’s earned it.”
The respect of his teammates is one thing. The respect of opponents is another, and Swogger probably hasn’t picked that up just yet. New Mexico is sure to flex its defensive muscles with a complex blitzing scheme designed to both confuse and harass him.
Should Swogger struggle in the face of it, not to mention the pressure applied by 10 other teams in the following weeks, even the people inside the program know it could spell trouble.
“He played (in 2003) at times when he didn’t have to do a whole lot to win,” Levenseller said. “Now it’s important that he understand the offense. He’ll grasp it. Because as far as he goes is how far we’ll go.”
The next step, then, has little to do with the classic 6-foot-5 quarterbacking frame or the strong arm. It’s got everything to do with wins and losses.
That’s a first impression Swogger can’t make on a practice field.
“I’m excited and I’m nervous. There’s kind of that nervous anxiety of being a sophomore, stepping into the starting role,” he says. “Once Matt left I just kind of looked at it as my offense and my team. It’s the quarterback’s team, usually.”