Western Michigan - upcoming opponent

[admo]

No doubt this time: Hiller is QB

by Graham Couch | Kalamazoo Gazette

Thursday August 07, 2008, 12:01 AM

Junior earns trust of Cubit, teammates

 

Hiller is QB

 

 

KALAMAZOO -- The tension in his chest is gone. The ringing in his ears has lessened.

 

And the hook that threatened his status as Western Michigan University's starting quarterback has been replaced by a guiding hand that trusts him.

 

"Do you think, maybe next year, just for one year, you could get to the point (performance-wise) where I could just come out here and relax?" Broncos coach Bill Cubit asked, tongue-in-cheek, of Tim Hiller after a practice early this week.

 

Hiller, the subject of Cubit's criticism during most of a trying 2007 season, simply smiled and jogged off the field.

 

Such barbs between coach and quarterback have reached the lighthearted stage. For the first time in his career at WMU, Hiller IS the Broncos' quarterback -- no competition on his heels, no sharing first-team reps, no doubting his abilities, no teammates wondering who will be calling the shots in their huddles.

 

"You've got to earn that first, and if you haven't earned it, you don't give anybody anything," Cubit said Wednesday of the 6-foot-5 redshirt junior, who started all 12 games during a rocky 2007. "I think he has earned it, there at the end of the year, in the spring."

 

"It's a lot different feeling than last year," said Hiller, whose play throughout the spring and the first week of fall camp has elicited fewer outbursts of frustration from his head coach. "I feel more confident because coach Cubit has put his faith in me. I feel more relaxed, as well. I know what I'm doing, and I can go back to prior experiences. 'This is what we've done in the past in game situations,' and now I know what to do, whereas last year I was kind of swimming a little bit."

 

Hiller's career at Western Michigan has been blessed and cursed by opportunity.

 

As true freshman in a program short on depth at quarterback, he was the best option to fill in for the injured Ryan Cubit.

 

With future second-round NFL draft picks Greg Jennings and Tony Scheffler as his targets and a fairly weak schedule in front of him, Hiller put up expectation-raising numbers -- 20 touchdown passes against three interceptions -- which culminated in Mid-American Conference Freshman of the Year honors.

 

A knee injury in the 2005 finale allowed Hiller to redshirt in 2006, when Ryan Cubit returned, but did nothing to dissuade outsiders from perceiving him as being on the verge of greatness.

 

That is, until last season. Then, with the full offense at his disposal for the first time, Hiller held off Drew Burdi and Thomas Peregrin in a three-man QB competition, arguably by default, before being pulled in three different games during the season for poor play.

 

"It's humbling," Hiller said of the situation surrounding last fall's 5-7 season, during which he finished with 3,021 yards passing, 20 touchdowns and 15 -- sometimes costly -- interceptions. "But it teaches you to be thick-skinned and mentally tough. It teaches you to persevere through adversity. And it teaches you to keep working and eventually you do get better. We ended up finishing the year strong. And that's what we needed to do.

 

"It was hard, but we learned a lot from it."

 

Barring injury, Hiller will be under center for the Aug. 30 opener at Nebraska, with either Burdi, now a sophomore, or redshirt freshman Robert Arnheim as his backup.

 

That Hiller has been given the reins unequivocally, his star receiver says, adds to his credibility with teammates.

 

"It definitely sets the standard for us and lets us know, this is who we're rolling with in Nebraska," senior wideout Jamarko Simmons said. "This is the guy we're going with. Coach Cubit put out a statement, (by) just letting him play. It's great. It feels good just to know we have one starting quarterback. (The receivers) get with him every day to let him know, no matter if it's good, bad or indifferent, we're together in this, man."

 

One might think not having to worry about a daily battle for playing time would allow Hiller to look forward to Nebraska. That, however, he made clear, goes against the lessons of 2007.

 

"I think the challenge is not to do that," Hiller said. "Because I think last year we got so caught up in looking to a MAC championship, looking to a bowl game, looking ahead to West Virginia and we lost getting better here (at camp). So what we're doing now, is coach Cubit's changed our mindset to one-day-at-a-time. So that's my mentality. I'm just going to worry about fixing today's mistakes and going on to tomorrow and getting better tomorrow."

 

And, for the first time, he's shown enough to do so without looking over his shoulder.

[GSG]

Pretty good article. Hope he has a great season, except for that first game.

[admo]

Totally agreed. I think the more I know about the team the Huskers play, the more I can understand & appreciate the game.

 

It would be great to shut these guys out, but they do have some great wideouts and a QB that has some success in the past (as a frosh) & is expected to have a better season then last year (turnover machine).

 

The O-line is their downfall from what I read. The Huskers d-line should win that battle b/c if they do struggle, heavy work will be needed.