From @SethDSanders: who pays for george whitfield to tutor these qbs? In particular Golson, who is not on the team. Isnt is $1000's?
It's the responsibility of the QB or his family to pay for such training, and obviously his school's compliance staff has to sort out those financial records. I watched Everett Golson train on Thursday in San Diego with his private quarterback coach George Whitfield. The former Notre Dame starter has spent the past two months in Southern California working with Whitfield after being suspended for academic reasons. (The Irish QB admitted that the suspension stemmed from his getting caught cheating on a test. He first explained that situation in an interview with Sports Illustrated.)
I asked Whitfield and Golson about the cost of the quarterbacks time in San Diego. Whitfield usually helps quarterbacks find accommodations. For lodging, it was around $60 a day for the two months. For Whitfield's training, it was about $500 a week. So combined that's between $7,500-$8,000.
"At this point, I don't know if it's politically correct to say it like this, but it's a business decision for me," Golson said Thursday. "I'm hoping that it'll pay off in the future."
During Golson's time in California, he has spent a lot of time refining his footwork, and has even come around on gripping the laces of the ball. All his life, Golson had the unconventional habit of just grabbing the ball. He has even said in the past how he used to shuffle the ball not to get the laces. But now he's using the laces. In some situations, like on jet screens, just catching the snap and chucking the ball is best but those circumstances are hardly the norm for most QBs.
"You know how much strength you have to have to throw like that all the time?" Whitfield told me with a tinge of awe, underscoring the juice the 20-year-old QB has in his arm.
"My middle finger and my ringer finger always wanted to act as one, and because I was throwing without the laces they could do that. But throwing with the laces has made me have more dexterity in my hands and I can sense a difference for the better with more control," Golson said, adding that he does get even more velocity on some throws now.
"There's still an adjustment period with touch (passes) because you do have more grip with the laces but it is for the better, and mechanically, George has really helped with my footwork a lot. For a vast period of my career I depended on my arm -- all arm. George taught me to step through and have a base, and that's where I've seen the most improvement."
Golson has also muscled up in his time in California. He played in 2012 at 185 pounds, and was at 190 this summer, but is now up to 202. He said he plans on getting back to Notre Dame around mid-January.
Golson will return to South Bend as a more mature quarterback, but he also will come back as a more mature person. Lord knows he's had plenty of time to think about what he did and how many people he let down.
While the public humiliation was one of the toughest parts of his well-chronicled departure from Notre Dame last spring, Golson said the hardest part was telling his family about what happened, especially his grandmother. "I could tell she was really heartbroken." He said that he's very eager to get back with his teammates.
