What Makes Emmett Morehead The Right Guy To Lead BC?
If you missed it Monday night, Coach Hafley joined myself, John Sarianidies and Adam Kurkjian on the New England Football Show.
We only had coach for 36 minutes unfortunately, but he gave us some good stuff. One of the things I asked him during the interview is what makes Emmett Morehead the right guy to be the next "face of the franchise" for lack of a better term. We've seen his poise on the field, particularly against NC State and his arm strength basically any time he throws the ball. Zay Flowers asked him to throw to him at his Pro Day.
Whenever we've had the chance to meet with him during Tuesday availabilities or after games, I've always believed he screamed leader, much more than Jurkovec ever did. But, there's a lot that we still don't see and there's a lot Morehead is still learning about being 'the man' as well.
"I think he's still becoming that leader," Hafley said. "I think every day he works on it. He started the last four games last year and he had the respect of the team immediately on both sides of the football. I think it's his work ethic. I think he's come in, waited his turn, and when it was his turn, he took over last year. At the end of last year, that was his team. The first game started were the first ones since his junior year of high school because he didn't play his senior year because of Covid. He through for about 400 yards and if we had any time left in that game...we just kept coming back in the second half. We looked unstoppable.
"We go to NC State and he throws some bad picks and put us in a bad position, but he didn't flinch. He led us back in the two-minute drive and threw the game winner after going through adversity. I think he showed a lot. Now, he's got stuff to work on going forward just like everybody else does. He's got to compete and show us every single day. But, when you talk to him, he's got a great presence. He's smart and he studies the game, he's one of the first guys in and he wants to win. He's been pushing this team and holding our team accountable."
While he's the leader of this team in 2023, there are some talented guys coming up behind him and Hafley and the rest of the staff are going to make him keep earning it.
"We've got good guys in that room and we brought in another guy. I want competition, we've talked about it up front," he added. "I want our guys going into training camp and I want people pushing people. We haven't had that here. We haven't had the depth here, but we're starting to. It's probably what I'm most excited about. "I've got a ton of respect for Emmett. How he handled last year, how he handled this spring and what he was able to do. I think the leadership ability is growing because he works at it. That's the key with him. He works at it and I'm just excited he's around."