On Friday and Saturday, at a city park in the San Antonio suburb of Boerne, Texas, with a backdrop of pristine green grass and sunny weather, quarterback Ian Book was reunited with a Notre Dame pass catcher on the practice field in senior tight end Brock Wright.
There, over the course of two days and three practice sessions, Book threw close to 600 balls, fine-tuning his mechanics with long-time private quarterback coach Will Hewlett, who is a member of QB Collective and has worked with the Fighting Irish signal-caller since he was a freshman in high school.
As Book worked on his mechanics, Wright ran a variety of routes. It was the first time they had worked together since March 5, the date of the team’s first and only spring practice. While the focus was on Book’s development, Wright hails from Houston and made the three-hour drive for some much-needed quality time with his quarterback on the practice field.
“We’re not going to spend time perfecting route running,” Hewlett said. “It’s really about Ian working on individual skills that are gonna translate to his gameplay, but it’s nice to have one of your teammates there, so you can build more of a rapport with and get on the same page. It worked out really well.”
This trip is an annual occurrence for Book, who typically works with Hewlett via virtual training sessions. Hewlett will send Book drills, which the Notre Dame quarterback will film himself working on to send back to Hewlett for feedback. But once a year, it helps to work for them to get together in person.
Due to NCAA regulations, offensive coordinator Tommy Rees is limited in the amount of time he can spend with Book, especially during the offseason, so much of their focus, when together, is devoted to implementing the offensive scheme. So with Hewlett, Book’s is able to spend extra time focusing on his mechanics, from his footwork to his arm angle, on a variety of different throws.
On this particular weekend, Hewlett said Book excelled at longer throws. They worked on deep out-breaking routes of 30 yards or more, experimenting and improving Book’s consistency, timing and ball placement.
But when it came to the deep ball, Hewlett was especially impressed.
“This time I just kind of sat back and enjoyed it, to be honest with you,” Hewlett said. “He really just threw some great balls. That was fun to watch.”
Many of these throws required Wright, who ordinarily spends much of his time on the field attached to the line of scrimmage as a blocker, to run some routes and line up in different positions. For instance, he lined up at the “X” and “Z” wide receiver positions and was running slants, fades and even posts.
