He was the voice in Johnny Manziel’s ear throughout practice on Sunday and his sounding board when he sat back and watched his fellow quarterbacks work in one-on-one drills.
As Day 1 of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ training camp unfolded, you hope that Manziel and Dan Morrison will get along, because they’re going to be seeing a lot of each other in the weeks and months to come.
At points on Sunday, Morrison, the Ticats’ quarterbacks coach, looked like he and Manziel were attached at the hip. He was there to offer feedback and answer questions that the team’s newest QB had through the first hour or so of practice.
When starter Jeremiah Masoli and the team’s four other quarterbacks broke for one-on-ones, Manziel watched with Morrison and they chatted. A veteran coach with a penchant for building productive quarterbacks — at the University of Hawaii from 1999 to 2007 under head coach June Jones, his QBs broke 35 different NCAA records — Morrison spent Day 1 trying to figure out Manziel.
“You wait and see who they are,” Morrison said. “Oftentimes it has little to do with what their background is. It has more to do with their temperament and personality and their psychology. How you speak to them, how you teach them.
“Some people, you can coach to what they do wrong. Some people, you have to coach to what they do right. You have to figure that out about them. He seems like he’s fine either way. He’s pretty strong, a strong kid. That’ll be just getting to know each other the next few days.”
