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Billy Farris drops back, looks to see which of his four receivers the safeties move toward.
Then, the senior quarterback for the Colorado State University football team pushes a button on a controller to complete the pass to ... Reggie Bush?
It's a video game, EA Sports' Madden NFL 08 on a Sony PlayStation 2.
But this version, projected on a large screen in a team meeting room in the McGraw Athletic Center, has been programmed with all of CSU's passing plays. And the Rams' four quarterbacks take turns playing it every day, before, during and after meetings with quarterbacks coach Daren Wilkinson.
"It's good because you get to rep the plays a bunch of times in your head," said Farris, clearly the leader in a spring battle to earn the starting job next fall. "You call the play, run the play and kind of go through the reads in your head, and it helps you get some mental reads."
It's helped all four of CSU's quarterbacks get a better handle on the passing plays in new coach Steve Fairchild's playbook.
"His vision will drop back, he'll see the play unfold, and he'll see our players react accordingly to the defense," said Fairchild, himself a former CSU quarterback. "He can actually go through his read progression and try to complete the ball to the right spot."
It's a much more effective way of teaching quarterbacks how to read and react to what the defense is doing.
" ~ yordad
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