QB's hope to move forward after rough Saturday; Vedral ready for his shot
For the most part quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco has been very happy with his quarterback room this spring.
However, this past Saturday was a different story. For whatever reason Verduzco said his guys weren't at their best for Saturday's scrimmage, and he's hoping that can change moving forward over these final two weeks.
“What jumped out after looking at it on tape and all that business? It was a tough day for the QBs man on Saturday,” Verduzco said. “It was one of those sorts of goofy days, I don’t know why. It was just one of those days for us. It didn’t seem like we could ever get ourselves in rhythm and that hasn’t happened in a long time just in my recollection, so it was just one of those days.”
Sophomore Noah Vedral agreed with Verduzco about Saturday's scrimmage performance.
“We had a rough day as a unit,” Vedral said. “Made a couple of mental errors and bad throws. Coach (Verduzco) will get us right today. We’ve got meetings tonight and meetings tomorrow morning where we’ll get to watch that again, and we’ll get those corrected. I would agree with him though. It was a pretty rough day.”
As for Vedral himself, he's right in the thick of things at the quarterback position battling with Andrew Bunch, Matt Masker and Luke McCaffery behind starter Adrian Martinez.
2018 was a tough year mentally on the Wahoo native, first having to sit out before being ruled eligible, and then getting hurt late in the year.
As Vedral looks at this spring, he knows it's a fresh opportunity for him.
“Coming off a season where I didn’t get a lot of reps, I just wanted to get back to feeling comfortable and fast again with my decision making and seeing things clearly,” Vedral said. “I’m getting there every day that we get to practice. These next five practices for me are important for me to knock that rust off and bring myself back out of the closet and ready to go.”
Last season tested him in a lot of ways not being able to play and then getting the call before the Northwestern game he was eligible.
Before that, he was only taking scout team reps in practice since he was forced to sit out after transferring from UCF.
“There were a couple of hard parts. Sometimes the hardest part is just not getting to compete," Vedral said. "Kind of getting to watch your buddies like Matt (Masker) and Andrew (Bunch) and Adrian (Martinez) take those reps and say: ‘I wish I could run our plays again, then doing your time with the scout team.'
"It was exciting to come back when I did get the news, and it was fun to get back and knock the rust off again. I got hurt towards the end of the season, which sucks to have to stand on the sidelines and watch. It makes it a little bit sweeter coming back and being able to play again in the spring.”
And in a lot of ways, Vedral was a pioneer for quarterback transfers. He was the first one to apply for immediate eligibility and eventually got it.
That has paved the way for guys Tate Martell (Ohio State to Miami) and Justin Fields (Georgia to Ohio State) to be ruled immediately eligible this season - what Vedral fought for all along.
“I’m not bitter about it. That stuff was out of my control,” Vedral said of last year's waiting process. “We filed it and we did what we could. I’m happy for the guys (that got waivers). Having sat out, you don’t really want that for anyone. I think the NCAA is doing the right thing by just kind of looking at the scope of everything and the landscape and just giving it to them.”