While many of Ian Book’s Notre Dame classmates took off to Mexico or Las Vegas for spring break, the Fighting Irish signal-caller went on a trip to Omaha, Nebraska, to stay with former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels and his three kids.
“He even helped me cook,” Rosenfels said. “I told him, ‘One day, you’re going to be in your 40s not playing quarterback anymore and you’re going to be raising kids, living in the suburbs and making dinners.’”
While Book’s time in Omaha provided him with an early introduction to life as a family man, his real purpose was to use some of his time off to work out at a local facility and study film in the movie room of Rosenfels’ home.
A former professional and collegiate quarterback, Rosenfels spent 12 seasons in the NFL with five different franchises, including two separate stints with both the Miami Dolphins and the Minnesota Vikings. He is now a radio host, a writer for The Athletic and a coach with QB Collective, a group of NFL coaches and world-class experts working together to train the nation’s most talented young quarterbacks.
Book and Rosenfels were put in touch through a mutual connection in Book’s private quarterbacks coach Will Hewlet.
“[Book and I] worked for about two and a half days,” Rosenfels said. “We watched a lot of film and we did some throwing, including some under center stuff that they don’t do a lot of at Notre Dame. We wanted to try to develop some of the skills that maybe he hasn’t done before, but for the most part it was more the mental training to really understand different coverages, fronts and protections.”
This involved breaking down Book’s film from the past season and watching several current NFL quarterbacks, including players that are comparable in height to the 6-0 Fighting Irish signal-caller, such as Drew Brees and Russell Wilson.
Like those quarterbacks, Book is accurate but also has the ability to take off and run. At times throughout the past season, his mobility was a detriment.
According to Pro Football Focus, Book was sacked 14 times in 2019 and 11 of them were considered his fault for leaving the pocket too early or running into a defensive lineman.
“We talked about moving around in the pocket, staying in rhythm and also staying in throwing mode rather than running,” Rosenfels said. “He’s such a good athlete and he’s a very quick, a former lacrosse player. There is an instinct for him to run a little bit more than he probably needs to.”
