John Tomlinson tracked Notre Dame’s spring practice from a distance, trying to check on Avery Davis without actually checking on Avery Davis. The prep position coach of Notre Dame’s now part-time quarterback wanted to give Davis space. He also wanted to know how a player who led Cedar Hill to a Texas state championship as a sophomore and closed his senior year at AT&T Stadium with a 463-yard passing, 109-yard rushing and six-touchdown performance was adapting to a new role.
Just fine, as it turns out.
Davis got 13 touches for 54 yards during the Blue-Gold Game and continued to flash what he showed during spring ball’s second half, an agility in tight spaces that could make him a weapon for offensive coordinator Chip Long.
“If there’s anybody who can make the transition, it’s Avery,” Tomlinson said. “I think with him being 6-foot, maybe shaving a little above, he could do it only because he’s always been multi-faceted. He is who he is.”
That athleticism needed to mix with self-awareness to make this transition work considering quarterbacks can see position switches as failures more than opportunities. And Davis admitted he had to check his ego before buying into Long’s idea about getting touches in a new way
Davis knew what was in front of him – Brandon Wimbush and Ian Book – and what was behind him **– incoming freshman Phil Jurkovec – when making the decision, which he called “mutual” with the coaching staff. The fact he embraced the change without polling his support network in Texas speaks to the sophomore’s maturity.
“It was a personal decision. It’s my life,” Davis said. “It was my decision to come here. I’m living with it. I’m really happy with it, to be honest.”
When Notre Dame does its off-season testing to set summer conditioning baselines, Davis said he expects to run 4.5 at worst and should get into the high 4.4’s. He knows adding muscle to his shoulders and chest is a must to hold up catching passes in the flat and taking jet sweeps.
Because he’s mentally embraced transitioning out of the quarterback room should be a sign he’ll embrace the physical challenge too, which should let Long run more two-back sets than last season.
Notre Dame carried just 41 times out of two-back sets last regular season and totaled 346 yards when it did. That’s 8.43 yards per carry, by far the best figure of all Long’s personnel groups. Maybe Davis won’t improve that production, but he should enhance its usage.
“Making plays for Notre Dame, it’s a dream,” Davis said. “I’m looking at the field from a whole different perspective. I’m looking at the defense from different angles.”
“I love the quarterback position. I played it my whole life. But that red shirt season … and then standing on the sidelines knowing that you can make an impact, knowing that you can make plays, that really pushed me to, ‘You can do this.’”
Tomlinson has no doubt about that and plans to reach out to Davis at semester’s end to reconnect. The former Cedar Hill assistant coach spent last fall as an offensive quality control and quarterback assistant with the Cleveland Browns and is now weighing his next move. When he does, Davis should count as a resume line even if he’s not playing quarterback.
At a minimum, that experience at Cedar Hill with Tomlinson helped shape Davis into the kind of film junkie necessary to work at multiple positions. Most weeks Davis watched film on his own, helped craft the pass game with his receivers and then took a Tomlinson test the day before games.
He aced most of those exams.
“I think he can make the transition better than most people because of his skill set,” Tomlinson said. “You can be standing with him in a phone booth, you could be that close to him, and he can suddenly move directions and still get the ball out.
“People are gonna see what kind of guy they have with him.”
