Jared Bartlett believes in the phrase that greatness is mundane.
That simply boils down to if a player wants to truly take the next step in his development he has to first ensure that he’s focused on the basics and fundamentals of playing his position.
That means tedious and repetitive work on technique in order to not only be in position for the splash plays, but the routine ones as well. The splash hasn’t been an issue for Bartlett in his career as the three-sack performance against Virginia Tech stands out above the rest.
But finding a level of consistency will be the key for his development in his fifth season with the program. It might not seem like it but Bartlett has played in 37 career games for the Mountaineers but perhaps played the best football of his career this past spring.
“He’s playing the run better. Less wasted movement. He had a good winter. Put on some weight. Less false steps, using his hands better, setting up some of our movement stuff better and more patience which comes with maturity. Pleased with where he is,” head coach Neal Brown said.
His approach has a lot to do with that.
“Just getting back to my technique. That’s how you make routine plays,” he said.
Bartlett is focused on things such as hand placement, shedding blocks and gap responsibility in order to put him in position to make more overall plays. He understands that by being one of the most experienced players on the roster he is being counted on to be more consistent from snap-to-snap.
“I think that a lot of guys have to carry more weight now,” he admitted.
It seems easy enough but some of that is learned through trial and error as Bartlett, a once undersized edge rusher, had to realize that he wasn’t going to be able to bull rush an offensive tackle. That meant learning other ways to be effective in order to affect the play.
While a sack is ideal, there are plenty of ways to affect the quarterback either by hitting him or pressuring him and as long as that’s occurring it’s a win for the defense. But you can’t even make a play if you’re being blocked, which again shows the importance of doing the little things right.
And tackling is another aspect of that, which was a focus of Bartlett this fall. You have to not think and instead react.
Brown believes he is primed to take his biggest step yet this fall in large part because of how much he has advanced in other areas of the game over the past few years.
Bartlett is fine with boring because sometimes that’s exactly what it takes to get better.
And Bartlett now understands exactly why that’s the case.
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