Is Jake loosening up?
While I wasn’t blown away by Jake Christensen’s performance on the field Saturday in the Iowa football team’s final spring practice, I was pleasantly surprised by his demeanor afterward. He played pretty well — 10-of-16 for 134 yards, by my count, with a touchdown and an interception. The interception will be magnified by many because it came on his first attempt and was returned 53 yards for a touchdown. He was upset at the time, but I loved how he addressed it when I talked to him after practice.
“I threw it right to him. It was a bad throw,” Christensen said, laughing. “You’ve got to laugh about it — you’ve got to get angry about it, but it’s one of those things where, first pass of the day, if you let it get to you, you’re done. We all throw picks, we all make mistakes. Mine just happened to be on the first play.
“So, sorry, fans. Don’t kill me.”
That last part told me a lot, maybe more than Jake has ever told me before. He gets it. He gets that he can’t win here, no matter how good he plays, that the fans will always call for No. 2 the way they called for his No. 6 when Drew Tate was the starter in 2006. He gets that his highs will be forgotten long before his lows. And he finally seems at peace with it. He finally seems relaxed. He never would have made such a revealing statement last season.
The one thing I think took away from Christensen’s play more than anything last year was that he was just wound a little too tight — on the field and off. He was too afraid to make a mistake, too afraid to throw an interception, too afraid to say the wrong thing.
“There might be some truth to that,” Christensen said “I’m more relaxed, I’d say. It was a pretty stressful year last year for a lot of people. But it was a great learning experience. We took a lot of lessons out of it, and we’re ready to move on.”
What did he learn? How to fail, he says, which he showed Saturday. After throwing that pick early he came back and completed 10 of 15 passes for 134 yards and a perfectly thrown 45-yard touchdown to Trey Stross. Yes, he missed badly on some other throws — specifically a deep ball he overthrew by at least 5 yards — but he shook it off. Think about it. When had Christensen ever failed before last season? He played for a highly successful program in Lockport, Ill., where he won two state championships and nearly every game he ever played. He won a baseball state championship, too. And he’s like a five handicap on the golf course. Last year was a bit of a slap in the face.
“It hurts,” he said. “It’s something you think about every day until next season.”
Christensen, who threw for 2,269 yards and 17 touchdowns as a sophomore, has worked on his footwork and changed his grip on the ball. He no doubt has spent the winter torturing himself in the weight room and film room.
I’m not saying Christensen is going to come out and be All-Big Ten in the fall. Heck, I’m not even sure he’ll be Iowa’s starter Aug. 30 against Maine. (He and sophomore Ricky Stanzi looked fairly even Saturday, and I’m told they split reps with the first unit all spring.) But I see progress, if not on the field, in the personality. And, sometimes, that can make all the difference. That was what made Tate so good. His gung-ho, let-it-rip, I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-you-think swagger.
Something Stross said Saturday made me think. Stross was comparing Stanzi to Christensen, their styles in the huddle: “Rick is more of a quiet type than Jake. Jake’s very emotional, a competitor.”
Sound familiar? I went back and checked my tape. At least a half-dozen players said the same thing about Christensen last spring when comparing him to Tate.
Maybe Christensen is on his way.
