Great Article On Fitzgerald's Passing

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Moorhead and Bulldogs quarterbacks coach Andrew Breiner broke out their QB drills from their days at Fordham to help improve Fitzgerald’s eyes and feet, two factors that are essential for their West Coast drop-back pass game. “I think his upper-body mechanics are very good,” says Moorhead, a former QB at Fordham who drills his quarterbacks on getting their hips and feet aligned to their target — and making sure they’re throwing on time within the progression of the offense with the proper number of hitches.

They also stress teaching pre- and post-snap coverage reads — man vs. zone, access vs. no-access. Instead of just memorizing a play, Moorhead wants his QBs to understand the concept of where to go with the ball and why.

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In the past, Fitzgerald worked off of “sweep” reads and would look to see if a receiver was open. The Moorhead system is training his eyes specifically on defenders and looking for specific reactions to them.

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One of the mechanical tweaks Fitzgerald is working through is a subtlety that Breiner noticed early in spring football involving the QB’s left foot upon release. Specifically, Briner has worked on getting Fitzgerald’s left toe to open up just past the target line, which will enable him to open his hips more and thus generate more velocity.

This enables Fitzgerald to have better balance and keeps him from putting all of his weight on his front foot. Breiner observed that when that happens, Fitzgerald leans to the left, causing him to have the tendency to miss high and to the right.

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Fitzgerald also has worked with private QB coach Ken Mastrole, a protégé of Tom House, the country’s top sports biomechanics expert, to improve his balance through his hips and his footwork in his alignment and delivery.

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Breiner said he’s really been impressed with Fitzgerald’s development, especially in the last week to 10 days.

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In Moorhead’s system, the staff expects the QB’s completion rate to be at least 65 percent. Last year, Moorhead’s quarterback at Penn State, Trace McSorley, was near 67 percent — up from 58 in 2016. Breiner has been charting everything in camp and says Fitzgerald is right at 65 but is trending upward and was at 74 percent Monday.

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