Sean O'Malley: A late addition, but a fast learner

Freshman Sean O'Malley will be Lafayette's starter on Saturday. Photo courtesy of Lafayette College.

Is Connor Wedington the new Christian McCaffrey at Stanford? The freshman receiver is wearing McCaffrey’s #5, and he caught six passes for 82 yards in a 62-7 win over Rice in the first game of his college football career last week.

Why should we care, you wonder. Or, why should we care about Hunter Bryant, a tight end at the University of Washington, or David Cormier, a running back at Air Force, or Parker Cardwell, a wide receiver at the University of California.

I mention them only because, in May of 2016, they had four of the top five scores in an Elite 11 Seattle camp featuring mostly high school juniors. The camp had more than 40 quarterbacks among the group and one of them was a kid named Sean O’Malley of Beverly Hills, Calif. 

It was a truly elite group, and O'Malley fit right in.

Maybe O’Malley didn’t have the reputation of those other four guys at the time, but he was ranked second best among the quarterbacks. That should have been enough to get him some strong looks from premier football schools, but when National Signing Day 2017 came and went, he wasn’t among the signed players. 

He was not forgotten, however, and about six weeks after NSD, he was announced as committing to Lafayette College.

At the weekly football luncheon on Tuesday, at which Leopards coach John Garrett officially announced O’Malley as his starting quarterback for Saturday’s opener at Monmouth, This is the way Garrett described the surprise catch.

“Well, one of the great ways to build a team is through walk-ons, and he was a guy we investigated and found out and we went through the process like everyone else,” Garrett said. “We evaluated the tape, liked how he played, got to know him, did our research on him, talked to his high school coach. Then when he came to visit, getting to know him and his parents, it was very clear he loves football, clear that it’s important to him, He’s smart and really wanted to do this and made it very clear that he was the guy and we’re very fortunate that his family situation was one that he could come to Lafayette. It’s going to be a great story.”

A great story, indeed. In an original field of eight quarterbacks, O’Malley wasn’t the only no-scholarship player. Obviously, a choice of college was about more than the football program. An education at Lafayette costs more than a quarter of a million dollars. Talk about commitment!

Well, O’Malley came to Easton this summer knowing that the path to the starting job was wide open after the graduation of Drew Reed and Blake Searfoss. He knew the four holdover guys had no experience – Josh Davis’ 20-yard completion in Lafayette-Lehigh No. 150 in Yankee Stadium in 2014, was the only pass thrown by the four guys.

“From Day 1, Sean has come in here and grabbed the bull by the horns and really made it clear he wanted the job,” Garrett said in his announcement. “He prepares every day; he plays with urgency; he is a natural leader, really competitive. He learned the offense really quickly.

"I’m actually just unbelievably impressed with all our players, but particularly the freshman quarterbacks, to be able to come in here and be able to learn the offense this quickly. All of them did really well. Sometimes it’s hard for them to even call a play at the pro level when you first put an offense in, but these guys had it down quickly. I told them that in Week 1, you guys are unbelievable. It’s a credit to the smart student-athletes that are able to come to Lafayette College. But Sean made it pretty clear by his play that he earned the job. He performed consistently well all the time and in all the situations and he’s prepared every day. He earned the respect of his teammates. It’s going to be a great, great memory and I have great confidence that he’s going to play well and lead the team.”

“One of the things that’s important as a high school quarterback is versatility and having evidence of tape of doing different things. He had experience of being under center but also being in the gun. And we’re multiple that way. And, so, to have a guy who has experienced taking a snap from center … there are guys that right now go into the NFL, listen to this now, they go into the NFL and they played four years of high school and four years of college and they’ve never called a play in the huddle or taken a snap under center. So, everything is going spread offense now. We’re multiple. We like to put the quarterback in different positions. We believe it’s harder for the defense to have him in different spots, doing different things, and Sean had the experience doing that, which is an advantage because you’re doing it prior to coming to an offense that is asking you to do the same thing. So, I think that prepared him well, but his demeanor, his natural leadership, his urgency, his competitiveness, his accuracy and just his ability to play and earn the job were impressive from Day 1.”

I talked with senior tight end Dylan Wadsworth after the luncheon. He and the rest of the receivers had to do a lot of concentrating during practices, taking passes from so many different players with different deliveries and skill sets. I asked him if he was aware of how the co,mpetition for the QB spot was going from, day to day.

“You don’t really worry about it or notice it because you’re focused on what you’re doing, but you kind of see who’s getting more reps today or who got more yesterday,” Wadsworth said. “It’s a credit to our coaching staff because everyone had an equal opportunity. You could see some players picking it up and getting more reps. I think it created great competition for a quarterback. It brought the best out of our quarterbacks and our offense, knowing that every day each brought the energy they want to lead the team, It’s been great for us.”

“We had like double practice ... split the offense in half. Same plays, up tempo, conditioning, everyone getting reps, an opportunity to play, getting evaluated. I think that’s the great success. Truly, for the first two weeks camp, there was no set team, everyone was getting the same amount of reps. Running the same plays. No one standing around waiting for one or two reps here or there. It was great.”

So, come Saturday afternoon, all eyes will be on the 6-2, 200-pound righthander. Supporters of Lafayette football who were able to watch most of the training camp practices, were impressed at how O’Malley always seemed to throw to the right receiver and at the right time.

If there is any possible concern it might be the fact that throughout training camp, the quarterbacks wore yellow jerseys, letting defensive players know they were not to be hit.  So, it’s very possible that O’Malley has yet to be floored by some charging linebacker or defensive end. The hits he’s likely to take from Monmouth may come as a bit of a shock to him, but Coach Garrett is confident in him and he knows what he’s talking about. Quarterbacks are his specialty. He’ll be watching closely, too.

It should be quite an afternoon. If the offensive line is able to protect him – and I suspect there will be lots of catch-and-throw situations for short gains and hoping to break a big one here or there – the Leopards may surprise people.

As Wadsworth said at Tuesday’s luncheon, “It’s been a great opportunity working with Coach Garrett, and I think we have some veteran players who are able to adjust to the new offense and we’re excited and very confident in Sean and his ability to lead and execute what we have going on. I think we have a lot of great pieces and I think coach is going to put us into a lot of positions to make a lot of plays. I think we have a lot of positive things going on and we’ll be ready for the game.”