The potential future starting Husker quarterback looked on as the former one fired footballs in front of the windbreaker-wearing men.
It should come as no surprise that Zac Lee was in attendance at Nebraska’s Pro Day given what Joe Ganz had to say after his workout’s completion on Thursday at the Hawks Championship Center.
Ganz said he and Lee, the junior quarterback figured to be the lead candidate to replace Ganz as NU’s starter, are close friends and talk all the time.
“He deserves it,” Ganz said of Lee. “He’s worked really hard. I just wish I could come back and compete with him and kind of push him a little bit.”
Ganz said it was boggling to him why Patrick Witt, a sophomore-to-be, left the program before spring football had even started.
“I didn’t really understand it. I don’t understand why a guy would want to leave,” Ganz said. “All you can ask is a chance to compete for the starting quarterback job at the University of Nebraska. I don’t understand why you would leave when he had such a good opportunity. ... It’s tough to see a kid kind of waste all that time he put in here.”
Ganz continued.
“You know, stuff’s not going to be given to you here. This is the University of Nebraska. Things are not going to be handed to people. People are not going to be playing favorites and you’re going to have to compete for everything you get. You’re going to have to compete, compete your butt off and win that job.”
Ganz said he wouldn’t have asked Pelini if he’d name a starter right after the spring season, as Witt was said to have done by a source close to the program.
Pelini didn’t want to comment on the matter then, but Ganz guessed at what the coach’s reaction might have been had he made such a request while he was a Husker quarterback.
“He would rip my head off,” Ganz said with a laugh. “First off, I would never go to Coach Pelini’s office and demand anything. ... I would never think about doing that to Coach. No way. I have too much respect for the guy, too much respect for his opinion and how he goes about his business and what he does and how he gets this team ready. I would never do that.”
With Witt departed, Nebraska’s quarterback race seems between Lee, true freshman Cody Green and redshirt freshman Kody Spano.
Given his experience in the system, Lee enters as the favorite when spring practices begin on March 25.
“I’ve been telling him not to get too big of a head. People are going to come up and tell you you’re the next big thing,” Ganz said. “Just don’t listen to anything people say. You know what got you here. You know how hard you have to work to stay here at this level. Hopefully, I set a good example of how hard you have to work and how you have to push guys to get this team back to the winning ways.”
Ganz said that he and Lee are very similar as players.
“I think he has a little stronger arm,” Ganz said. “But we’re very similar. We’re both shorter guys, both mobile, like to get out of the pocket, like to make things happen. In spring drills, he gets happy feet sometimes. We kind of kid him about it, taking off running a little too early. He likes to be the checkdown instead of letting other people get hurt. We just told him if you’re going to spend a whole season, you’re going to have to check the ball down and let other people get hit instead of you.
“He’s learning. He’s still young. He’s a lot like me. Of course, I’m a lot smarter and a lot better looking. But he’s kind of got that ‘it’ you talk about with quarterbacks. He’s a confident kid and I think he’s going to be a good leader.”
Ganz said he has spoken with Green and is impressed with how “grounded” he is despite all the hype surrounding him.
As for the adjustment period for Green, Ganz said: “It’s tough. Obviously coming from high school, it’s going to be a lot different. Vocabulary, what we ask a quarterback to do here. ... It all depends on the kid. I’ve talked to Cody a couple times and he seems like a kid who’s not going to let everybody on the outside get to him.”
While Ganz would like to play football at the next level in the upcoming years, he said coaching someday still remains a hope, saying it’d be his “dream job” to be back in the Husker program in such a role in the future.
“We’re all kind of cut from the same cloth, me and Coach Pelini and Coach Wats,” Ganz said. “We were never given anything, worked for everything we got. We don’t play favorites. That’s kind of how I would be as a coach. I have two great role models to model my coaching career after. Hopefully I don’t have to do that for a while.”
After all, his interview complete, Ganz was about to go take a personality quiz with the New England Patriots.
