Georgia’s quarterback battle has drawn attention from football fans across the country, including a former Bulldogs star.
D.J. Shockley, who played quarterback at Georgia from 2001-05, has been keeping an eye on the team’s current situation. Although Shockley was able to sit and learn from an SEC championship-winning quarterback in David Greene before leading the team to another SEC championship in 2005, he has some advice on how Jacob Eason can handle his current situation.
“You have to first get the respect and get your teammates behind you, and I think that goes a long way because the comfort level has to be there,” he said. “And then also, you have to know exactly what’s going on. You can’t worry about any noise; you can’t worry about what the fans are saying or what they’re thinking. You’ve got to go out and just perform and get the respect of your teammates first, and then everything else comes along.”
The top dual-threat quarterback out of high school, Shockley knows a little bit about heading to Athens as a celebrated recruit. He believes Eason’s time at Georgia so far is similar to his own experience.
Both players were dynamic in their own way, but the Bulldogs’ latest 5-star quarterback recruit is expected to become the starter at some point this season. As a true freshman, it’s no easy task to transition straight from high school to playing in a game against Tennessee or Florida.
“If you come in with the mind-set of ‘I did this in high school’ or ‘I did this last year,’ then I think you’re already behind the eight ball,” Shockley said.
“Being a highly-recruited player, everybody expects you to come in and take off and be the savior. But I think, especially in the SEC, you’re going to have some growing pains. You have to make sure you know what happens before you get on the field because the game move so fast and you can’t really get too down on yourself and you’re going to have mistakes.”
Georgia fans have tossed around the word “savior” when discussing Eason. With names like Greene, Shockley, Matthew Stafford and Aaron Murray in the Bulldogs’ record books, Eason is expected to be the next in a long line of talented quarterbacks. Except, some fans expect more than that.
Some are placing the burden of an entire program on the shoulders of a kid who has yet to play his first real college football game. Shockley understands what Eason is going through, but he didn’t have to deal with the pressures of being a full-time starting quarterback until he was a fifth-year senior.
“It’s hard to block out everything and block out everyone telling him he’s the next best thing,” he said. “He’s supposed to be the savior for Georgia, it’s hard to block that out. At the end of the day, he can make it a positive. But he can make it a negative too, if he thinks every time he steps on the field he has to make every single pass, every single throw, he has to be great, he has to be looked at as a guy who doesn’t make mistakes.”
Eason has been on campus since January and has worked hard with the coaching staff in that time. In a way, the much-publicized quarterback competition is its own pressure-filled situation, just over the span of six months and not four quarters.
That type of learning experience can benefit a young quarterback just as much as it can hamper one. Again, Shockley (below) believes it all comes down to how each individual handles it.
“It’s going to make him compete,” he said. “It’s going to make him go out and put his best foot forward every day, and I think it can be a good thing for him.
“He’s in a position where he’s competing for the spot and every series counts, every practice counts. So I think the focus level of how much better he can be is heightened with ever practice because every practice means so much.”
There will be a learning curve for Eason in his first season. According to Shockley, the biggest transition occurs in the mental aspect of the game, not the physical. Eason’s 5-star tools are what make him so enticing to the Georgia faithful, but the coaching staff wants to make sure he is mentally prepared as well.
Even for a player like Shockley, whose shining moments came later in his career, there was a learning curve once he finally took over and became the man. Eventually, however, it clicked, and Shockley was able to create magic in his lone year as the starter.
“Going back to the last game of my junior season, Greeney had gotten hurt and I had to play against Georgia Tech. And my mind frame was ‘You’ve got to put your best foot forward because this is your chance, everyone’s looking at you, everyone expects this and can you be the guy next year,’” he said.
“In my mind, I was thinking about everything but playing the game and doing what you’re supposed to do, and I played terribly.”
Because it was the final game, Shockley’s performance stuck with him throughout the following offseason. By going through that tough ordeal, he learned that he couldn’t play like that. He just had to go out and relax and play football.
Shockley believes Eason may experience a similar situation against North Carolina. If he comes off the bench, the freshman may try to press a little more than he needs to. There will be excitement in the air, but Shockley would counsel Eason to play within himself and do what he is asked to do.
“Jacob’s going to go through that. Even if Greyson (Lambert) starts, he’s going to play and his mind-set immediately becomes ‘OK, if I get two series or three series, I’ve got to make the most out of these series so that they want to play me more.’ Sometimes when you do that, you force the ball and you do things you wouldn’t normally do, thinking you have to make the big play.
“Instead of trying to do too much, he just has to do what’s asked of him.”
Putting on his coaching hat, Shockley said he would start Lambert and bring Eason off of the bench. Combining the excitement of his first college start with the atmosphere in the Georgia Dome and the magnitude of the game, Shockley thinks Eason could throw it out of the stadium with all of the energy he will likely have.
He thinks allowing the freshman to watch and settle down will help him once he does get into the game. Shockley had a message for himself before taking the field in his senior season, and it sounds like the perfect advice for Eason as he prepares for his first season as a Georgia.
“Mentally, I had to tell myself, ‘you can’t win every single game on every single throw or every single series. Don’t get too high or too low, and don’t worry about every single throw.’”
