What would we do without Ian Williams? As much as I’m ready to banish the idea of Todd McShay and Mel Kiper from my head, the upcoming NFL Draft means more weekly musings from Williams as he prepares for the NFL Draft at the South Bend Tribune.
Since you guys should just go over there and read about it I won’t post the whole thing, but here are a few snippets that I found interesting.
Williams on the Blue-Gold game:
“The weather was crappy as usual, but besides that the team looked pretty good.”
(Having stood about 10 feet away from Williams on the sideline I can definitely agree with both statements.)
Probably of more interest to Irish fans were Williams’ thoughts on touted freshman Aaron Lynch, and quarterbacks Andrew Hendrix and Everett Golson.I like how Aaron Lynch plays. He makes a lot of plays but he may not be in exactly that right gap that Coach Diaco or Coach Elston may want him in.
Just for him to be able to go out and make tackles and be able to run around and have fun is half of it. I think this summer he’ll work hard on memorizing his plays and getting stronger.
On offense, quarterback Andrew Hendrix has gotten much better than where he was last fall, running the scout team. In the spring game, he looked really comfortable. When he was back there against us for scout team in the fall, you could tell he was a freshman, so he made a few mistakes.
But you could see at times he had glimpses of great throws, and he’d break out of the pocket and make a great run. So he has all the ability. He needs to put it all together, which he will soon.
Freshman quarterback Everett Golson brings that elusiveness. You could probably do a package with him or put him out at receiver. I don’t know what Coach Kelly has in store for Everett, but it’s hard to keep athletes like Everett off the field.
Williams appraisal of Lynch is probably one of the best you’ll find, considering he knows the schematics being taught to the talented freshman by Diaco and Elston, but he’s also able to acknowledge the potential Lynch has without messing with the player-coach dynamic.
It’ll be up to Lynch to work this summer with his teammates to get mentally prepared for a season where he’ll have the opportunity to contribute immediately. One thing that’ll be a great advantage for Lynch is having two veteran defensive ends in front of him. It might be tougher for Lynch to take snaps if Ethan Johnson and Kapron Lewis-Moore need to come off the field for it to happen, but he’ll have two tutors that have played a ton of football in front of him and teaching him in the months where it’s up to the veteran leaders to organize and run football activities.
