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NFL DRAFT
Davis Webb

Cal QB Davis Webb just might coach himself into first round of draft

Tom Pelissero
USA TODAY Sports
Davis Webb

PROSPER, Texas – When Davis Webb went to Alabama for the Senior Bowl in January, he arrived two days early to adjust to the time change and throw with receivers from a nearby university.

“Derek Carr did that,” Webb told USA TODAY Sports, referring to the Oakland Raiders’ young stud quarterback, as he sat in his parents’ house recently here in the heart of football country.

“You’ve got to do a lot of research. That’s the biggest thing: I try to gather as much information as I can to maximize myself. Because if you’re just standing still, you’re going to be a dinosaur and everyone else will go around you. That’s like my biggest fear.”

If you’re wondering why Webb – a graduate transfer who threw 37 touchdown passes in his lone season at the University of California last fall – could be a first-round pick in the upcoming NFL draft, consider that his former coach at Texas Tech, Kliff Kingsbury, calls him “a sociopath work ethic guy” and means it as a compliment. One NFL executive invoked the name Peyton Manning in describing Webb’s approach.

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He’s more than a grinder. Webb is a hoarder of football knowledge. He yanks a stack of wrinkled yellow legal pads from his backpack and rattles off the contents of each, including plays he saw during the pre-draft process, and will add to hundreds of others in the personal playbook he has been building the past four years. A little black book contains notes on meetings with NFL teams and coaches he’d like to work with one day.

Webb grew up with two dreams: Play Division I college football and use that as a springboard into coaching. The NFL dream came later, though when you hear the stories, you can see where the commitment to the first two made it possible. (Being 6-5, 229 pounds with a big arm and surprising athletic ability doesn’t hurt.)

He started as a ball boy on teams coached by his father, Matt, who was on staff at Keller (Texas) High School with Kevin Atkinson when Webb’s parents first let him play football in middle school.

“I went to his house for an after-game party when he was in seventh grade,” Atkinson said, “and I went into his bedroom and I found a spiral of index cards full of plays, diagrammed – things that he had seen on a Sunday or a Saturday that he wanted his dad to give to me to run.”

Football didn’t come easily. So, Webb worked his way up – from the “B” squad to JV as a freshman to full-time varsity QB as a junior. By the time the family moved to Prosper before his senior year, Webb had his scholarship.

“I’d be shutting the fieldhouse down at 7 o’clock, and he’d be back in there putting himself through drills,” former Prosper coach Kent Scott said. “I coached for 22 years. There’s not another kid that I have ever been around that was like that. There were a couple of periods a day that he had some open time, and he would be down there in the coaches’ office, on his dad's computer watching film. I don’t know if Davis ever slept.”

Davis Webb

Webb enrolled early at Texas Tech, knowing it’d boost his chances to play immediately. (“My spring game was the day of the prom,” he said. “I didn’t go to prom.”) He’d jump the fence of the practice facility at night to throw, until the equipment managers found out and gave him a key his sophomore year. He ran his own meeting on Thursdays, using tips he picked up by studying Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan on HBO’s Hard Knocks.

“You’ve got to kick him out of the film room because he just wants to know more, wants to learn more, is always writing down plays and having ideas,” Kingsbury said.

When an injury allowed fellow first-round draft prospect Patrick Mahomes to take his starting job in 2014, Webb didn’t complain, Kingsbury said. He kept preparing through the 2015 season, determined to be ready if his chance came. He even did daily tutorials with the Red Raiders’ young receivers.

“He definitely lived football,” Mahomes said.

Within an hour of getting a grade in his final class last June, Webb was making the roughly 1,400-mile drive to Berkeley, Calif.

“I get to campus,” Webb recalled, “I have my mom (Donna) drive my stuff to my apartment, and I throw.”

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Jake Spavital, Cal’s offensive coordinator at the time, had committed to helping Webb over the summer when coaches normally take vacation.

“I didn’t literally think it was going to be every single day,” Spavital said, “but it was awesome to watch how motivated he was to get where he wants to go.”

At night, Webb organized get-togethers with teammates, who voted him captain after two months on campus.

During the season, Webb got homework out of the way on Mondays and was in the football facility most days from 7 a.m. to at least 10 p.m. He’d make film cutups to sell concepts to Spavital and for the meeting he ran on Fridays. After throwing two interceptions late in a loss to Arizona State, Webb slept at the facility to get a jump on the next week’s preparation. (Cal upset undefeated Utah.) The undermanned Bears finished 5-7, but several scouts said Webb’s tape and traits compare favorably to his predecessor: last year’s No. 1 pick, Jared Goff.

The biggest knock on Webb is sporadic accuracy, which he attributes to mechanical inefficiency. So, he attacked that like everything else in his pre-draft work with former NFL coach Jim Zorn. His release didn’t look as free and natural at the combine, but he threw well in bad weather at his pro day last month. The duo also worked on Webb’s ability to identify and understand defenses as he transitions out of the “Bear Raid” offense. Webb got one of Cal’s video guys to load about 30 NFL game tapes onto his laptop so he could chart them at night.

“His study habits were pretty dramatic,” Zorn said. “He did those things that nobody had to tell him to do.”

Some of the teams Webb has met with on visits (Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets) and private workouts (Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Francisco 49ers, Jets again) have seen a player who operates more like a coach. He’s obsessed with controlling the controllable and accomplishing goals, such as being Senior Bowl MVP (check) or finishing top-five in every drill at the combine (check).

As a leader, Webb is demanding. He reloads plays in practice if something isn’t right. He runs gassers with receivers, lifts weights with linebackers and gets fired up if others don’t match his effort. With such extreme work habits, some worry he’s almost too much of a machine.

“To me, they’re not extreme, though,” Webb said. “When I get into the zone – because I’m focused, I’m determined, I’m driven – yeah, I’m going to come across (like a coach), because it’s important to me. That’s my job. If it’s not important to you, then something’s wrong with you.

“I want to coach for 40 years. I want to play for 20. It’s what I want to do.”

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Follow Tom Pelissero on Twitter @TomPelissero

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