September 3, 2007

Lucas: Gilreath gets his first lessons at UW

During a midweek teleconference, Washington State quarterback Alex Brink volunteered a scouting report on one of his offensive weapons. Sizing up the freshman receiver, Brink said: "His speed is certainly a factor, but he's still a freshman and they're going to press him in coverage and probably be physical with him. So it will be important to see how he responds to that. There's no guarantee he's going to get open, or be open or run by everybody or score a touchdown. But we know he's good enough to play at this level as a true freshman, which is pretty special, and it's hard to deny his speed."

Brink was talking about No. 85, Jeshua Anderson, a 6-foot-2, 184-pound freshman from Mission Hills, Calif., who made his debut for the Cougars during Saturday's opener at Camp Randall Stadium. Based on his description of Anderson, he could have been talking about another No. 85, David Gilreath, the 5-foot-10, maybe 5-foot-9, 160-pound, maybe 158-pound University of Wisconsin freshman receiver from New Hope, Minn. That's who Badger quarterback Tyler Donovan was talking about Sunday night.

"I think he did an excellent job for a freshman -- just the way he came out and made some plays for us," Donovan said. "There was no question that he was ready to play. And besides some of the runs (end-arounds), he was also out there on some routes. I thought he was just one of the guys and that says a lot about his maturity. He can be another weapon for our offense with his speed. He brings another element that we can use on Saturdays and I know coach (Paul) Chryst will find a way to use him."

Gilreath, one of four players designated for Sunday's interview session, was being fed a handful of trivia questions by a student reporter from one of the campus newspapers. For one, he listed the five UW receivers who caught passes in the 42-21 victory over Washington State (Luke Swan, Travis Beckum, Garrett Graham, Paul Hubbard and Xavier Harris). On another, he failed to ide.jpgy Mount Union as the Divison III team that set a new NCAA record by scoring 52 points in the first quarter of a 75-7 rout of Averett University.

"I could have guessed that one," said Gilreath, mildly upset for not at least taking a stab at the answer; another indication, perhaps, that he places higher expectations on himself than anyone else could. The first sign? When he was asked to assess his college debut, Gilreath said: "By the way everyone was congratulating me, I guess it was pretty good. But, in my eyes, when I walked off the field, I was kind of down. I guess, all in all, it was all right for my first game."

There were many positives, including an 11-yard gain on an end-around and a 26-yard kickoff return, matching the longest return during the entire 2006 season by Jarvis Minton against Iowa. But as Gilreath jogged up the player's tunnel Saturday, the source of his frustration was a fumbled punt, even though he was aggressive enough to fall on it. Imagine the consequences if Washington State would have recovered it. "That would have been bad," Gilreath conceded with a sigh. "That might have been my last time back there."

But once the ball slipped through his fingers and hit the turf, Gilreath said, "My eyes lit up and I jumped on it. There was some guy who punched me under there, too. I didn't know who it was. All I knew was, 'Don't let go of the ball.' "

To his credit, he didn't let go, avoiding a costly turnover. Although considerable time was spent during training camp getting the freshmen up to speed on the tempo of the college game, Gilreath confirmed that things happened a little bit faster Saturday than he had anticipated. That Chryst, the UW's offensive coordinator, would get him the ball on the end-around happened faster than he thought it would, too. "We had practiced it a few times during the week," Gilreath said. "But I didn't know if we were going to get to it. I was like, 'They're not going to put that play in for me already.'"

And when they did call his number late in the first quarter on a first-and-10 from the Washington State 14? "My heart started beating," Gilreath recalled, "and I was just thinking, 'Run for your life.'"

Gilreath is no stranger to running the ball. As a high school senior at Robbinsdale Armstrong, he rushed 28 times for 504 yards and two touchdowns. (He finished with over 1,000 career rushing yards.) In addition to being used on end-arounds, there also were instances when he would take over as a running back. Gilreath even lined up as a quarterback out of a shotgun formation. Mostly he ran. Any throws? "I was 0-for-1," Gilreath said. "Threw an interception. I thought I was Doug Flutie."

Some think he could be Brandon Williams, the former UW wideout and kick returner who found different ways to compensate for his lack of size. "It's all it's hyped up to be -- the speed and the size of the players," Gilreath said of the college game. Not that he wasn't forewarned about the competition. His father played basketball at Cal State-Fullerton. He had a cousin who played football at Minnesota. And he had an uncle who played basketball at Florida Atlantic. Some things he had to learn on his own, though.

"When they threw all those plays at me," Gilreath said of the UW playbook, "that kind of overwhelmed me a little bit." What about the challenge of blocking? "That was the biggest difference in training camp," he went on. "Once you get your hands on them, they don't just sit there like they do in high school. They fight, and they pushed me over a few times. Allen (Langford) and Jack (Ikegwuonu) did a good job of doing that to me."

Even though the undersized Gilreath was no match physically for such experienced cornerbacks, Langford, for one, has been impressed with the way he has handled himself. "He's a young kid who's willing to learn, and that's what you want your freshman to be," Langford said. "He's fast, he's quick, and he can stretch the field vertically. He brings a lot to the table that the coaches are looking for. But I just like the fact that he's really into his playbook all the time."

A sign that he's willing to do what he has to do to get better. And Gilreath knows where he has to improve. "I've got to get into the film room more and I've got to get into the weight room," he said. "They kind of manhandled me (Saturday). They put a couple of nice hits on me. But I got hit like that more than once in high school." All in all, Gilreath summarized, "I'm pretty excited for the future. They gave me the ball in the first game? OK, maybe in the future, I might get some more opportunities."

As for the immediate future, Gilreath was asked about his anxiety level for the start of classes Tuesday on the Madison campus. "It's going to be exciting to be in class with 300 people," he said. The student reporter, who had been quizzing him on trivia, shot him a look and said matter of factly, "It's not that great." His college education has officially begun.