Raw ability, elite work ethic will define Gerry Bohanon's future
The dreads. The athletic build.
The big arm. The quick feet.
You might need to do a double take. All Gerry Bohanon needs now is the No. 10 jersey.
At first glance, the Baylor freshman will remind college football fans of former Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. That's fitting considering Bohanon arrived in Waco exactly 10 years after Griffin set foot on campus the first time in the spring of 2008.
An early high school graduate, Bohanon is only 10 practices into his Baylor career and is cleary behind sophomore quarterback Charlie Brewer on the depth chart. Griffin didn't start the first game of his career against Wake Forest, but the resistance to get to the top of the depth chart wasn't nearly as tough.
From Copperas Cove, Griffin also had the luxury at playing at a high level of Texas High School Football while Bohanon made his way to Waco in January from Earle, Arkansas and will be the first to admit that he needed to increase his uptake in football knowledge as soon as possible.
"I feel that it was very important because where I’m from I didn’t have a quarterback coach like this so I needed it," Bohanon said. "I know I needed a lot of work because of lack of knowledge in my area so I felt like it was the best thing for me to come early. Trying to learn as much as I can with Coach (Glenn) Thomas."
Thomas, Baylor's co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, spent seven seasons in the NFL including four as the quarterbacks coach for the Atlanta Falcons, guiding Matt Ryan to the most successful season of his career in 2012. The NFL veteran threw for 4,719 yards and 32 touchdowns that season.
Ten practices or 100 practices, Thomas knows what he has in Bohanon who has proved to be exactly what the Baylor staff believed he would be when they were recruiting him out of Arkansas.
"You see the transformation just in the short time we’ve been on the field of being able to take the classroom study onto the field," Thomas said of Bohanon. "So that brings a lot of excitement as a coach that there’s good things ahead for him."
Recruited as an athlete with plans to change his positions in college by many, Bohanon wanted his shot to play quarterback at the next level.
According to Thomas, as raw as Bohanon's skills were leaving the small town located 45 minutes outside of Memphis, his work ethic will groom his own skills naturally along with the help from the Baylor staff.
"I tell ya, obviously he’s got physical tools that are very elite," Thomas said. "Great person, great work ethic. Striving to be elite, really, at the end of the day. He’s very critical of himself. He’s very open to being coach which I appreciate."
Bohanon will be the last to say his tools are elite, calling his arm "decent" and his legs "a little mobile," but that's not as close to the truth as the former. Bohanon used his natural athletic ability to dominate high school opponents on the football field and the basketball court.
As a senior, Bohanon threw for 2,675 yards and 34 touchdowns while rushing for 1,200 yards and an additional 17 touchdowns. In his career, Bohanon threw for 11,362 yards, rushed for 5,925, and scored an astounding 212 total touchdowns.
The athletic ability that led him to his high school success, the reason he held offers from Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU and many others during in his recruitment, could be his biggest hindrance at this stage of his career.
Simply put, potential is a dangerous word.
"There’s just an element of being a quarterback," Thomas said. "That’s one of the hardest things to do in the world. At the end of the day, when the bullets start flying, how do you react?
"There’s the calm before the storm before the snap, but after the snap there’s a lot of things that have got to happen. It’s not a thinking mentality, it’s a reacting mentality after the ball is snapped. So trying to educate him as much as we can pre-snap to what’s happening and after the ball is snapped how do we react and do what I need to do with the football."
As Bohanon knew when he graduated high school early and made the decision to enroll for the spring semester, there is a lot of work to do before he arrives at the place he wants to be as a player.
"I’m excited to see where I go because I have a lot of coaches and a great quarterback coach," Bohanon said. "I feel like all the coaches around are the best of the best and they’re all teaching and helping us out and making sure we do it right. They’re not looking over it when someone is messing up, they’re always correcting it. I feel like that’s a big part of what we’re doing here."