Notre Dame Receiver Tobias Merriweather Stays Patient As He Looks For More Opportunities

Freshman Notre Dame wide receiver discusses his first career catch, a 41-yard touchdown vs Stanford, the road it took to get there and working for more opportunities

NOTRE DAME, Ind. - “Be quick but don’t hurry”. It’s a phrase John Wooden used all the time in UCLA basketball practices to help mold Bruin greats like Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton. The point of the phrase was to teach the importance of patience and keeping realistic goals in mind.

Notre Dame wide receiver Tobias Merriweather obviously never met Wooden, but that phrase coined by one of the all-time great coaches fits the budding star receiver’s mentality. While many fans and observers of Notre Dame football were in a rush for the speedy freshman former four-star recruit to see the field this season, he never had that mentality coming out of his first training camp in August.

"I don't think I really had an understanding of play time,” Merriweather said this week in his first official media opportunity at Notre Dame. "I didn't really care where I was. The things I was talking about with coaches (were) just getting better. Like, if I get in, I get in, but, I just want to get better. Because I have time."

Time is still on the freshman’s side. He is just six games and a handful of plays into his college career. As quick as Merriweather can get in and out of his breaks on the field, he’s never been in a hurry to push his own career at the expense of the veteran teammates who have populated the depth chart in front of him this season.

"A lot of these guys don't have time,” Merriweather added. “Like Braden (Lenzy), like, (Lorenzo Styles is) a sophomore. All my guys are sophomores. I'm the youngest here. So I have time. I just want to get better and play when I get in (and) take advantage of my opportunities.”

Merriweather’s first opportunity ended abruptly. He saw the field in mid-September in Notre Dame’s third game of the season against Cal. Lined up on the right side of the Irish offensive formation, quarterback Drew Pyne called for Merriweather to go in motion to the left, but the motion never came. Pyne ran left on the play, but was stuffed without the would-be blocker in front of him.

“I won't blame, but that was just a miscommunication between ... because when I was coming in, I was coming in for (Styles) and he was tired,” Merriweather explained. “So I got the play from the sideline, but I was rushing on and then it just ended up looking really bad.

“I didn't know the motion,” he continued. “I just heard the play, not the motion. (offensive coordinator Tommy) Rees saw that and that was the last play of the game. That's how it works. Just roll with the punches.”

Merriweather concedes the moment probably got to him a bit. The rush of getting on the field for the first time, combined with the 80,000 green-clad fans inside Notre Dame Stadium, the rushed nature of getting his first call to the field. The moment just got too hurried and too much thinking crept into his head.

"That's my biggest problem I think a lot of times, I try to think too much, because I understand so much needs to go through my head fast,” Merriweather admitted. "So I just think too much. And then I get my own head. And then I do sometimes mess up plays and stuff like that. Since then, it's just slow down. Between that Cal game week three and week six now, the game has gotten tremendously slower for me.”

The game may have slowed down, but Merriweather has not. The 6-4 receiver who Pyne has called a “speed demon”, showed his high-end speed on the first play of the fourth quarter against Stanford with his first career catch.

He exploded off the line of scrimmage, made a quick jab step to his left, followed by a feint to his right. By the time Stanford defensive back Kendall Williamson came out of his Merriweather-induced 360 spin, the freshman was waiting for Pyne’s 41-yard pass to hit his hands as he made one final leap to secure the ball before coming down in the end zone to give the Irish their first lead of the night.

"It's just a surreal moment,” Merriweather said of his breathtaking play. "My whole life I've been watching guys on Saturday on TV, just scoring touchdowns and I want to be that. .... I knew it was going to happen because the play, we ran it all week, if you get this look, you're going to score but you can't fathom in your brain scoring in front of 80,000.

"I watched it back and I'm like, is that even me,” he continued. "It's just like a surreal moment. It'll take me a while to digest, but hopefully there's more to come soon.”

But that play is still just one play. Merriweather knows there is still more in front of him, but he is also mindful of the steps it took to get to that point. Merriweather would have liked to have been on the field more and whoever runs the “FREE TOBIAS MERRIWEATHER SZN” is in the same boat. But the freshman is fully invested in the steps it’s taken to get there and beyond.

"I think it's just part of the journey,” Merriweather explained. "Every guy has taken their turn, sitting down, waiting, you know, getting better in practice every day. That's what it is about. It's not that Tommy didn't want to play me. He's told me he wants to play me, but I have to be ready. Because imagine I go in that moment and I'm not ready for it. Then I don't run the right route, I get the play wrong, drop a ball, then the whole media is like, everything's a lot different story. Waiting for that moment, I think was just part of the process part of my process. We're working every day to get more reps in the game. That's what it's about. We (have) six games left.”

Ingesting a college offense has been a substantial part of the process for the freshman from West Camas, Wash. He concedes his high school run and shoot system was “simple”. Nothing like learning “a thousand plays”, with new ones being installed each week on top of learning the coverage schemes of each week’s new opponent.

It does help to be roommates with the quarterback, though. Rees roomed Merriweather with Pyne to push the freshman’s early development.

"Every day he's quizzing me on plays,” Merriweather said of Pyne’s tutelage. "We're going over the script. He's like, so what do you got here? What do you got here? And I think that helped me a lot.

"We have a good connection,” continued the freshman wideout. “I think you saw on the on the post last game. A little bit of missed timing on the (3rd quarter) up route, but we have a good connection. Every day in practice he's chucking it to me. He's trying to get me the ball, trying to get me involved.”

The 41-yard touchdown catch is the second-longest reception by an Irish receiver this season. Merriweather says he has already packed on 15 pounds of muscle since arriving on campus, and it obviously hasn’t slowed him down.

The two passes that went his way against the Cardinal were “tagged” to go to him specifically, but he knows that the more he learns the quicker he will be on the field in the future.

“We study, we have tests before games,” Merriweather said of his play book studies. “A lot of it turns over to different plays. Like it's like a certain concept will have the same checks. It's just a part of the offense. You have to learn it. It's hard. But nothing easy is worth doing.”

Expect to see more of Merriweather moving forward.

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