Josh Bellamy vows to be more coachable as a senior next football season. University of Louisville wide receivers coach Ron Dugans smiles when he hears that.
To Bellamy, being more coachable means focusing on the fundamentals Dugans is preaching. Bellamy might be U of L's most explosive wide receiver, but that doesn't matter if he doesn't hang on to the football.
He said he had too many drops last season, and he knows one way to fix that.
“It's just trusting the coaches,”
he said. “Not doing it the way I want to do it, instead doing it the way the coaches are telling me to do it. It's looking the ball in. I had a lot of drops. This whole offseason we're just focusing on catching the ball. We haven't had a lot of dropped ball this spring.”
Bellamy's first year at U of L out of junior college was productive — he's the team's top returning wideout with 29 catches for 401 yards and five touchdowns. But Dugans said that in his zeal to make plays, Bellamy didn't always secure the ball.
Dugans said receivers can get away with a lack of fundamentals in high school and junior college but not in major-conference football. He should know. He was a wide receiver for Florida State, which won the 1999 national championship his senior year. He wants his receivers to keep their eyes on the ball until it is safely tucked away in their arms.
The Cardinals were plagued by dropped passes last year, starting with five of them by the wide receivers in the season-opening loss to Kentucky.
Dugans said developing better technique will help Bellamy.
“That was one of his biggest deals,”
Dugans said. “He tried to run before he caught the ball. You go across the middle and you feel like you're going to get hit. You're going to get hit anyway, so you've got to catch the ball. We felt that he went up, got the ball but didn't look it all the way in.”
Dugans added that fundamentals sometimes break down when players are fatigued. In spring drills the Cardinals are working on playing the position correctly even when they're tired.
