Boyd getting a small sampling of life as Peyton Manning

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Mar 28 21:58:48 GMT-04:00 2011

CLEMSON – Tajh Boyd says Clemson fans may see Tiger quarterbacks look a little more like Peyton Manning before the snap than in years past.

New offensive coordinator Chad Morris puts more of the responsibility of the pre-snap reads and line protection calls squarely on the shoulders of his signal callers, which Boyd says is going a long ways towards making him a “complete quarterback.”

In last year’s system, the quarterback would get the play call from the sideline, and it was up to center Dalton Freeman to make the line protection calls based on what he saw from the defense. This season, Morris said he wants his offensive linemen to concentrate on getting set to block the man in front of them.

“Tajh, he will call the protections, and the running backs will also call some of the protections,” Morris said following Monday’s practice session. “All they have to worry about is getting up there and getting set. We are going to make it easy on them.”

Boyd smiled when asked about the added responsibility, and he said he welcomed the opportunity to raise his game.

“It’s a little more Peyton Manning-ish,” Boyd said. “There isn’t that much involved, as far as what you have to learn, but it’s still pretty hard. We have more responsibility than we had last year, but this builds you more as person, and you always have to be thinking. It doesn’t let you come out and have a brain lapse.”

In fact, Boyd took it a step further – he asked Morris to go in-depth on what the protection calls mean because he has a very selfish reason for getting the call right every time.

“The line will still sort of make the calls once they get set, but now I call the protections,” he said. “I would call the protections in the past, but I never really knew what they meant. So I asked Coach Morris, and he showed us everything they [the offensive line] do and how they know which defenders to block.

“I know that what they do isn’t easy, and I now have a greater respect for them. I didn’t exactly know what they were doing before – just like they would know a play would be a pass play but they wouldn’t know the routes. Now I make that call, and I know that if I call it wrong I will probably end up in the hospital.”

In Morris’ system, he will be on the sidelines, and Boyd will follow a certain sequence – look to Morris first to see if he has anything to signal in, and then he will look at the color-coded cards which will tell him everything he needs to know about a play.

For instance, one of the “live” colors might be green, and that will let the offense know which group of receivers and running backs are supposed to be on the field. Another live color will tell him which side of the field the play will run to, and what the protection call is supposed to be.

Once he turns to the line of scrimmage, he then needs to read the defense – check the positions of the safeties and the corners in order to figure out what the “hots” are going to be for that particular play, and yet another series of events are set in motion.

Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins explains, saying, “If I come up to the line, and it’s press coverage, I am going to adjust my route from what it would be. It depends on how the defensive back is playing me. But the receiver and the quarterback have to be on the same page, or it could mess up the whole play.

“On some plays, we might have hand signals where Tajh comes up to the line and lets me know what he sees. There are other times where he really doesn’t have to look at me, he just has to glance out there and he will know the route I am going to run. It’s simpler [than last season] in some ways, but the tempo is harder. It’s like a turtle that has always walked slow, and now you’re telling it that it has to run.”

Boyd stayed in town over spring break in order to delve even more into the offense, going as far as to say that he felt like Will Smith in “I Am Legend” in the WestZone with everybody out of town.

But the extra work paid off during Monday’s practice.

“Sometimes, the receivers have to actually change the routes they might run,” he said. “It might be based on the safety or based on the defensive formation. Jaron [Brown] earlier had a deep, deep dig route that he was supposed to run. But we both read the safety, and we both knew he was supposed to run the out, and I hit him. Something is always going to be open, you just have to read the keys.”

Hopkins said he can’t wait for Clemson fans to see Boyd’s development.

“He is doing great. I can’t wait for the season to start, so everybody can see what we’ve been working on out here.”