In Matt Davis’ first four years of college, he had four offensive coordinators at three different schools. Every offseason, he had to learn a new scheme.
This past offseason, he didn’t. For the first time in his career, he will go back-to-back seasons with the same offensive staff and the same system.
“It’s easier just doing the same things,” Davis said Tuesday. “It sounds simple, but that’s what it is. Every year I’ve been forced to learn something new, get adjusted to a new coach, a new scheme. For once, I got to sit back and say, ‘same people, same scheme, let’s get better at it.’”
In year two under Chad Morris, SMU wants to play faster offensively than it did last year. SMU drifted away from its speed and shrunk the playbook after a few games in the 2015 season because the defense couldn’t get consistently stops.
Morris is going back to his emphasis on playing up-tempo this season. The coaches think Davis will benefit from the extra snaps that come from playing faster now that he’s been operating the scheme for a second year.
“He knows our system in and out, makes the proper checks, gets us in the right protections, and he can do it at a fast pace,” offensive coordinator Joe Craddock said. “The biggest thing that helps him is that we’re going to snap it more plays in the game and give us a chance to score more points.”
SMU has worked to limit the hits Davis takes in the running game this year. On some of his team-high 187 carries in 2015, he didn’t slide and took some hard hits.
“Matt has done a great job in fall camp of pulling out some baseball slides,” Craddock said. “He learned his lesson the hard way last year. This year, from a designed run standpoint, we’re going to run him when we need him. But when it’s not a designed run and we haven’t scripted that he’s going to run more than six, seven, eight times a game and he pulls it and runs, he knows now he needs to get down.”
Morris has previously that he wants to avoid depending on Davis too much in the running game. Davis led SMU in carries, rushing yards (761) and 100-yard games (four) in 2015. That’s 35 more carries and 127 more yards than SMU’s top running back, Xavier Jones, posted last season. With increased comfort in the offense thanks to continuity, Davis feels he can stay in the pocket and throw instead of take off and run.
“As a quarterback, you like to sit back there and get touched as little as possible and let your playmakers make plays,” Davis said. “I did learn the hard way with some things last year, waking up at 3 in the morning after the game and hurting pretty badly. I’m going to try and avoid that as much as possible and just be smart. I have been practicing my slide. I can’t promise I’ll do it every time, but I’ll at least think about it on Saturday.”
