CAMAS — A number of minutes into Camas Excessive Faculty’s second lunch interval earlier this week, Adam Mathieson walked over to a big whiteboard pinned up inside his first-floor windowless workplace, grabbed a dry-erase marker, and turned to his quarterback.
“OK, riddle me this one, Batman,” the coach mentioned.
Senior Jake Davidson, who turned Camas’ single-season passing chief throughout final week’s semifinal victory and has 50 landing passes by way of 13 video games, didn’t hesitate to reply. The pinnacle coach and quarterback are breaking down movie of Sumner, Camas’ opponent in Saturday’s Class 4A soccer state championship sport.
Davidson is in Mathieson’s workplace for almost half-hour, because the coach flicks by way of a dozen or so clips on a 75-inch flatscreen tv. He peppers his quarterback with questions and Davidson solutions each one to the coach’s liking.
On the eve of Saturday’s title sport the place No. 1 Camas (13-0) and No. 2 Sumner (12-1) face off at 7 p.m. at Seattle’s Husky Stadium, Davidson and Mathieson haven’t modified their routine for the reason that faculty yr started in September.
Like clockwork every day throughout the B lunch interval at Camas, the quarterback sits at a desk in his head coach’s workplace, and solutions questions of their coach-quarterback movie session.
It’s simply one of many the explanation why Davidson believes he’s a distinct quarterback — “100 percent,” he mentioned — in comparison with his junior marketing campaign. He’s greater than doubled his passing touchdowns, thrown for almost 1,000 extra yards, and maybe the most important acquire is the play-making talents together with his legs in comparison with 2023.
However statistics are solely a part of the story.
“I’m completely different,” Davidson mentioned, “in every way.”
Preparation course of
When Mathieson joined Camas’ teaching workers in 2023 as an assistant coach — an offensive marketing consultant, he’ll inform you — Davidson admitted he knew subsequent to nothing about Mathieson or how his 25-year teaching background included tutoring future NFL first-round draft decide Jake Locker.
At Mountain View, Mathieson’s groups received 5 league titles, and reached the postseason 10 occasions from 2008-22.
Belief was imminent from the beginning, nicely earlier than Mathieson turned Camas’ new head coach in January, Davidson mentioned.
“I trusted him all the way,” he mentioned.
That is Mathieson’s seventeenth yr as a highschool head coach and his third faculty.
Ask opposing coaches about dealing with a Mathieson-led workforce with a veteran workers, they usually’ll say the preparation course of is time-consuming. In-game changes are the final word chess match.
Kelso coach Steve Amrine’s Hilander groups went 2-6 in opposition to Mathieson’s Mountain View squads from 2013 by way of 2022. Recreation planning for a Mathieson-led offense all the time was Amrine’s stiffest regular-season take a look at for plenty of causes. Chief amongst them was the offense’s complexity and elite quarterback play. In spite of everything, few native coaches have been so early to undertake the RPO (run-pass choice) like Mathieson, Amrine mentioned.
“He made it really tough to be right,” he mentioned.
Since 2016, 5 quarterbacks beneath Mathieson have been a league MVP. Davidson, this yr’s 4A Larger St. Helens League co-offensive participant of the yr, is the most recent.
That statistic doesn’t shock Amrine since he confronted 4 of them. For years, he watched quarterbacks succeed as a result of Mathieson and his workers place them in the most effective positions to take action. That’s largely fueled by revolutionary creativity forward of its time, Amrine mentioned.
“We’ve gotten into the age where quarterbacks can do both (pass and run),” he mentioned, “but he was always doing that for a long time.”
Mentoring QBs
Arriving at Western Washington College in 1994, Mathieson hoped to play quarterback after starring at Spokane’s North Central Excessive in a run-and-shoot offense. That plan lasted “20 minutes,” he mentioned, and switched to security. Now at age 48, Mathieson has spent 43 years taking part in, teaching or making an attempt to determine quarterbacks.
“I love the sports science behind it more than any other position,” he mentioned.
Mathieson has mentored quarterbacks of all sizes, strengths and skills: Baseball-first quarterbacks, 5-foot-6 quarterbacks and a future NFL starter in Locker when Mathieson coached at Ferndale.
Maybe it’s becoming Mathieson is mentoring one other Jake. At Camas, Mathieson’s first season as head coach meant he inherited a 6-foot-3, 190-pounder poised to be higher after Camas’ 31-14 upset loss to 14th-seeded Mount Si that ended the Papermakers’ 2023 season.
“I felt like I completely disappointed (my teammates),” Davidson mentioned. “I disappointed myself, too, because I wasn’t prepared in every way possible. I didn’t do what I needed to do.”
That’s why Davidson chooses to spend lunch every day in Mathieson’s workplace — to be taught, make investments and develop. It isn’t a one-way road, although. The influence goes each methods.
“I’ve learned more from him than I’ve maybe taught him,” Mathieson mentioned.
Mathieson calls Davidson probably the most rhythmic child he’s ever been round. Davidson works with non-public quarterback coaches, however the progress in his senior season goes past primary quarterbacking rules, he mentioned.
“I used to think a quarterback was just all fundamentals,” Davidson mentioned. “You see a guy open and you throw the ball, but that’s furthest from the truth. It is so much more mentally than it is physically in every way.”
He continued.
“Last year, I was able to throw the ball pretty well, but I just couldn’t understand the defense sometimes; it was just cloudy for me.”
Issues are fairly clear now. For pretty much as good of a junior marketing campaign as Davidson had (2,556 passing yards, 23 touchdowns), he’s at elite ranges in 2024. Davidson is finishing a shade beneath 70 % of his passes and his 3,four hundred and forty yards by way of 13 video games surpassed Reilly Hennessey’s 3,383-yard, single-season mark from 2013. Davidson’s 50 landing passes is also a single-season faculty file.
However data are removed from Davidson’s thoughts. His favourite second this season got here on the 13-play, game-sealing, clock-eating drive in opposition to Arlington when Camas rode its offensive line and ran the ball 12 occasions. The quarterback’s 12-yard dashing landing capped the state quarterfinal victory in a sport he started an ideal 8 of 8 passing.
The run sport
On an offense averaging 41 factors a sport, Davidson is second in dashing yards (373) and dashing touchdowns (5). Final spring, he went out for monitor and subject to enhance his velocity for soccer. That explosiveness is seen in 102 carries this season, and makes his coach smile.
“I love to watch him run — he’s got a burst,” Mathieson mentioned.
Mathieson has an inventory of seven attributes he’d search for in a quarterback if he was a school recruiter. One factor he stresses is toughness, each bodily and mentally. Actually, Camas coaches final season made a Hudl highlights bundle of all of the occasions Davidson bought pummeled in video games.
Why make that video? As a result of Davidson bounced proper up every time he bought knocked down.
“Some guys can go in the park and throw a football,” the coach mentioned, “but can you throw a football with 1,000 pounds of dudes chasing you?”
As their movie session wraps up, Mathieson seems to be at his quarterback and asks, “Are we good?”
Davidson says sure.
All through the 27-minute movie session, Mathieson made positive he and Davidson have been on the identical web page by asking, “Does this make sense?” 17 occasions.
Watching Mathieson dissect movie is magician-like. Outdoors of Camas’ personal longtime defensive coordinator, Dan Kielty, he additionally calls Sumner coach Keith Ross one of many state’s elite defensive gurus. Two weeks in the past, Sumner dispatched 4A Larger St. Helens League rival Skyview, 41-0, behind the stout play of Ross’ disciplined 4-2-5 protection. Camas hasn’t confronted tacklers pretty much as good as Sumner this season, Mathieson mentioned.
“They never miss,” he mentioned.
On the eve of Saturday’s Class 4A soccer state championship sport, similar to they’ve all season, coach and quarterback by no means miss, both.
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JAKE DAVIDSON BY THE NUMBERS
2023
Passing: 177 of 286, 61.9% completion, 2,556 yards, 23 TDs
Dashing: 39 makes an attempt for 49 yards, 1 TD
2024
Passing: 202 of 290, 69.7% completion, 3,four hundred and forty yards, 50 TDs
Dashing: 102 makes an attempt for 373 yards, 5 TDs