Fresno State QB Marcus McMaryion has a new vision as he heads into senior season
Fresno State quarterback Marcus McMaryion now has 14 games, 15 spring practices and countless film sessions excavating even the tiniest details to the success and failure of a play or series of plays and now, when flipping on that video, the optics have changed.
At the Mountain West Conference Media Summit on Wednesday he described it like this: “Having experience in the offense and knowing how everything works, I kind of just feel like a teacher watching his student when I watch film sometimes. I just think, well, I know this now ...
“It’s something I can use to kind of catapult me, I guess you could say, this year.”
That is about all coach Jeff Tedford and offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer could hope for headed into a season that is full of promise, the Bulldogs picked to win the West Division in the Mountain West Conference after going 10-4 a year ago in one of the largest and most surprising turnarounds in college football history.
Dissecting that 2017 season that started midway through fall camp and taking mostly the basics into games, there was plenty of good and plenty to focus on this offseason for the Bulldogs’ quarterback, who transferred in from Oregon State midway through fall camp.
Third downs, for one. McMaryion, throwing the football a year ago ...
- First down: 99 of 133 (74.4 percent), 9.8 yards per pass
- Second down: 77 of 116 (66.4 percent), 7.6 ypp
- Third-and-1 to 3: 7 of 16 (43.8 percent), 1.8 ypp
- Third-and-4 to 6: 12 of 24 (50 percent), 9.9 ypp
- Third-and-7 plus: 22 of 59 (37.3 percent), 4.2 ypp
- Third down: 41 of 99 (41.4 percent), 5.2 ypp
Fresno State ranked only eighth in the conference in third-down conversions, moving the chains only 35.6 percent of the time.
But McMaryion with that work behind him feels good about his development in the offense and about the Bulldogs’ chances to improve those numbers, even though that film was not always easy to watch.
“Night and day, just being able to pick Coach Tedford and Coach DeBoer’s brains all offseason and kind of challenging them to not only show me how we’re doing it, but then I get to ask them why we’re doing it or, ‘When you call this play, what are you trying to attack?’” he said. “What side of the defense or what are you trying to get out of a play?
“It’s a night-and-day difference being able to learn those details where last year I was more concerned on trying to remember what guys were actually doing on my side of the ball. But now I know the whole defense and the whole picture of it.”
That could play very well for the Bulldogs and their quarterback. McMaryion will have an array of skill to work with at the receiver positions, at running back and at tight end; they return 95 percent of their rushing yards and 83 percent of their receiving yards along with seven starters from a defense that ranked 10th in the nation in scoring defense.
“Marcus has studied really hard this summer,” Tedford said. “I hear it all the time: ‘Marcus was watching film on his own’ and things like that. He brings some of the receivers in and they watch it together. He’s putting a lot of time and energy to it.
“There could be a little bit of a double-edged sword there, because you have to be careful that you don’t overanalyze and all of a sudden it’s paralysis by analysis. But he’s better off with his foundation. As we get into camp and the coaches can be out there with him, I think we’ll get a pretty good gauge on where he is. I know it’s going to be light years ahead of where he was at this time last year.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2018 at 12:14 PM.