Will Gardner stays focused as Cards' QB
Will Gardner's 10-hour drive home isn't for the faint-hearted, with 45 minutes of back-road driving on the final leg to his parents' house in Douglas, a county seat of 11,000 nestled in the heart of south Georgia.
It's certainly not for anyone with a short attention span, either.
When the University of Louisville's next starting quarterback goes home, taking a route that leads him through Nashville and Chattanooga and Atlanta, he stops only for gas. No leisure. No rest.
"When I have something set on my mind, I don't want to take any detours," he said.
The road to replacing Teddy Bridgewater wasn't any easier. That U of L quarterback reached local celebrity status usually reserved for basketball players and left a daunting challenge for whoever followed him.
Gardner, a 6-foot-5, 226-pound redshirt sophomore with a big arm and a soft Georgia accent, "ran to the front of the line" in the days after Bobby Petrino took over as coach in January, Petrino said, leaving behind two torn ACLs and two years of limited action.
He led winter workouts and claimed the No. 1 spot in spring drills. He did everything a starting quarterback should do, his teammates say, right down to frank critiques of the defense during practice and film study.
For someone who didn't say much as a backup — "just a quiet guy who was eager to learn," Bridgewater said — Gardner made the leap look natural.
"You can tell he wants to step up and be a leader of the offense and of the team as a whole," senior linebacker Lorenzo Mauldin said.
Gardner grew up a University of Georgia fan in the heart of Southeastern Conference country, playing football and hunting and fishing in his spare time. His dad, Glen, works for a company that builds modular homes. His mom, Lin, works for a light company.
Gardner said is dad is laid back and reserved, quick to laugh but with some stubborn in him, just like Will. His mom's quieter but just as easy with a smile.
"They are very calm people, very humble," said Ken Eldridge, Gardner's Coffee High School coach who's now a few hours north at Swainsboro High. "They're exactly like Will. Exactly."
By the time Gardner reached eighth grade, he was on Eldridge's radar, even though he was a "skinny bean pole."
"We knew he had a chance to be good," Eldridge said.
He was 6-4 and 196 pounds as a high school junior. He quit baseball that spring and added 20 pounds of muscle. His 40-yard dash time shrank by 0.16 seconds, and he focused on sprinting and running hurdles.
He started looking like a college quarterback, and scholarship offers rolled in, from Louisville, Alabama, Mississippi State and Southern Mississippi.
But so much of the progress he made as a high school junior, including leading a 42-27 victory over Wayne County and future Virginia quarterback Greyson Lambert, was erased in the first game of his senior season.
He tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
"I really think it's harder on the brain than it is the knee," Gardner said. "You have to realize that everything happens for a reason and move on from it."
That attitude and experience carried him through the second time he tore that same ACL, just months into his first summer at U of L. He redshirted his freshman year and spent the 2013 season learning under Bridgewater.
The two weren't close friends and didn't hang out much outside of football practice, but Gardner admired what he called Bridgewater's calm approach to "just about everything."
"You could tell he wanted to take in as much knowledge as he could," Bridgewater said. "Whenever he had questions, he would ask me. He pays close attention to detail."
That's what's required of a quarterback in Petrino's system with its intricate, lengthy playbook.
"When (Petrino) first got here and we were going through spring, we weren't on the same page a lot," Gardner said. "He would call a play and look at me like, 'You don't realize why I called this play. This guy's going to be wide-open.' You really have to learn from what he's telling you."
The reviews so far have been positive from Petrino, who said Tuesday that Gardner is making progress. He's not perfect, but no one is in preseason camp. He's focused, Petrino said.
That comes naturally to Gardner, and it translates to golf, his new hobby, and those 10-hour drives home. It's just him and the road, him and the fairway, him and his receivers. No detours.
"You can't let pride get in the way," Gardner said. "Guys on the team were counting on me and trusted me. I had to show them and prove to them I could do it."
Reach Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter @jeffgreer_cj.
U OF L QUARTERBACKS AT A GLANCE
QB - Ht. - Wt. - Yr. - Exp.
Will Gardner - 6-5 - 226 - R-So. - 1L
Reggie Bonnafon - 6-3 - 205 - Fr. - HS
Kyle Bolin - 6-2 - 203 - R-Fr. - RS
Brett Nelson - 6-4 - 220 - Sr. - JC
Pat Thomas - 6-4 - 190 - So. - JC -
Position coach:
Garrick McGee is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, the same roles he held under Bobby Petrino at Arkansas for three years. He was a finalist for the 2011 Frank Broyles Award, given to the nation's top assistant coach, but struggled in two seasons as the head coach at UAB, finished 5-19.
Strengths
: Arm strength and speed are evident in the two quarterbacks most likely to play. Gardner can throw a deep ball, and his 4.55-second 40-yard-dash makes him a sneaky threat to run. Bonnafon is more of a dual threat but still makes the throws Petrino and McGee ask him to make.
Weaknesses:
Experience just isn't there. Gardner threw 12 passes last season, and Bonnafon is a freshman. Neither Bolin nor Nelson played last season.
Watch for:
How Gardner fills in for Teddy Bridgewater, who left big shoes to fill as the leader of the offense. Gardner seems up to the task and is talented enough to succeed, but game atmosphere will be new to him.
Bottom line:
Everything in a Petrino-McGee offense sets up for the quarterbacks to thrive, and that's the expectation among the UofL coaches. How quickly Gardner adapts to the big-boy role will determine how big a season he has.
-- Jeff Greer