Matt McGloin leads the Big Ten with eight touchdown passes, against just one interception, and he is fourth in the conference with 229.3 passing yards per game.
The senior, much maligned in past seasons, may also be Exhibit A as to juggling quarterbacks isn’t that much better of an idea than juggling knives.
“I haven’t been trying to force myself to make big plays because I’m the clear-cut starter and I don’t feel like I have to go out there and try and make big plays to stay in the football game,” McGloin said Wednesday. “I don’t consider myself to be playing safe or anything like that. I’ve been doing a good job of making the right reads and delivering the ball.”
McGloin isn’t playing safe as much as he is playing carefree since the Scranton native has the quarterback position all to himself. He won an open competition in the spring, and Bill O’Brien made one of his best moves as a coach when he scrapped the idea of having co-starters — or whatever the heck McGloin and the since-departed Rob Bolden were the previous two seasons.
The security that came with that decision isn’t the only reason why McGloin has thrived through the first three games of the season.
O’Brien, who worked with Tom Brady while with New England, spends time with the quarterbacks every day save for the players’ off day. McGloin has thrived under that tutelage as well what he has learned from quarterbacks coach Charlie Fisher.
“I had to put the time in and just take the coaching,” McGloin said.
O’Brien said recently that he wishes he had a couple of more seasons to work with McGloin. He isn’t the only one who wouldn’t mind turning back the clock.
“He made me better than I ever thought I was capable of being,” McGloin said of O’Brien. “He’s opened my eyes up to so many different things as a quarterback, seeing different things, slowing the game down, making the right decisions. I feel like one of the luckiest quarterbacks in the nation. I feel like I’m in a really good spot right now.”
– Scott Brown
