There’s no doubt that Russell Shepard is physically gifted. The highlights of his wasted freshman year show that pretty clearly:
But as Shepard emerges as a primary image and voice of this LSU team, it’s also becoming clear that he’s got the goods upstairs, too. The camp-opening quotes of his from The Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) this morning really show how much he understands the mental side of the game.
“All the great NFL receivers, I kind of studied what they did when they prepare for their season,” Shepard said.
“And a trait they shared is they caught balls every day. Catching balls is something you can never do too much of. So every day, from the beginning of summer until now, I’ve been catching between 75 to 150 balls a day.”
Shepard said he has embraced learning the little things about the position as well.
“Catching, running routes, that all came natural because I consider myself a pretty decent athlete,” Shepard said. “The thing I had to learn this summer were the small things, the mechanical things — how to catch a back-shoulder fade, how to run a perfect route, how to do the small things to make me not a good player, but a great player.
“It’s something I’ve been working on to this day, and it’s something I’ll be working on through the rest of my career, as long as I am playing football.”
It’s a little disconcerting that a 19-year-old would be more articulate, analytical and thoughtful than his head coach, but it looks like Shepard’s leadership could have a big impact on the offense. He’s the last interview in the clip below, and in that he talks about sitting down with Jordan Jefferson and studying the great college quarterbacks to understand JJ’s strengths and weaknesses. Jefferson is the third interview, and he rambles through the typical jock speech about being hungry, working hard, having more experience, etc. etc. We get a little bit of that from Shepard, but you really get the sense he’s a guy looking not only at the specifics of his development, but at the offense as a whole.
Hopefully Shepard is on the field most of the time this season. It seems like he and Jefferson are working specifically on understanding how to overcome the problems that plagued the offense last season. And it sure looks like Shepard is a guy who can bring focus and confidence to the huddle. That might just make a huge difference this year.
EDSBS rip-off.