ATLANTA — In two seasons as Mississippi State’s starting quarterback, Nick Fitzgerald has never had a season completion percentage greater than 56 percent; only seven times in those 25 starts has he finished a single game above 65 percent. Now he plays for a coach, Joe Moorhead, who expects a 65 percent completion percentage for the season.
Even while rehabilitating a gruesome ankle injury, Fitzgerald spent an offseason working his way to that number.
At Southeastern Conference Media Days Wednesday, Fitzgerald revealed that he has spent some time this offseason tweaking his throwing motion.
“It’s very small tweaks that are going to make me a more consistent passer,” Fitzgerald said.
The senior — back in his home state of Georgia for the event — added most of the tweaks came in his lower half and his left arm, the non-throwing arm. Generating more power with the legs was an emphasis, but so was footwork, both in the pocket to avoid pass rush and using it to unlock even more power from his body.
“It’s trying to get certain degrees of pronation. Your lower body should be going first before you start pulling, so it’s trying to perfect that along with small tweaks with my off-hand and my off-shoulder, trying to keep that tight and keep it consistent so I’m not throwing away from myself,” Fitzgerald said.
Moorhead added, “I think the things he did from an upper body mechanics standpoint were very sound and solid, a lot of working with making sure his feet are aligned at the target and throwing off a rhythm and things like that.”
Naturally, a SEC quarterback toying with the mechanism he is most known for is not an easy process, and one that takes months to truly trust. It started back in the spring, which is when new quarterbacks coach and pass game coordinator Andrew Breiner got involved.
“Very involved. He makes drills for the me, he’s the guy I’m talking to when I’m watching film, he’s the one coaching me as I do it,” Fitzgerald said.
Breiner is far from the only one involved. Moorhead had a hand in it before Fitzgerald took to the summer quarterbacking circuit, including the Manning Passing Academy, where he got more insight. He also did what most modern quarterbacks do, visiting a private quarterbacks coach over the summer. Moorhead recognizes that and is perfectly OK with it, but did not that most of the work Fitzgerald did with Breiner was focused on the lower body. It’s possible all of this went hand-in-hand with the later stages of his ankle rehabilitation, which he says transitioned to balance and mobility over the summer.
Fitzgerald believes the tweaks will make him a more consistent passer, thus a more accurate passer. He also thinks the system will do him some favors, and the evidence is in the numbers.
Only once in the last six years has Moorhead’s starting quarterback finished the season with a completion percentage less than 63 percent, and that was his first season at Penn State; the quarterback in question, Trace McSorley, corrected the situation by completing 66.5 percent of his passes last year. Moorhead even coached Michael Nebrich to an incredible 73.5 percent completion percentage over 480 attempts in 2013.
“His playcalling, the concepts we have, the way we read them, it seems more natural to me and it’s a little bit easier for me to make those reads compared to what it was last year,” Fitzgerald said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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