“He’s one of the most humble players I’ve ever coached.”
That is the first thing Liberty co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kent Austin has to say about his star quarterback Malik Willis.
I’m visiting Austin during a recent trip to Lynchburg and want to find out more about Willis. The Flames are one of the hottest topics in college football following a 10-1 season and victory in the Cure Bowl against previously undefeated Coastal Carolina.
Most of the attention, and deservedly so, is about Willis. The Auburn transfer thrived under the guidance of Austin and head coach Hugh Freeze, throwing for 2,260 yards and 20 touchdowns to just six interceptions while using his legs for 944 yards and 14 more scores.
Arriving at Liberty, Willis never played the big-time transfer card either.
“He’s really, really endearing to his teammates,” Austin said. “And that’s not in any way a manipulative or fake way. He’s just genuinely that guy. So he pulls people in right with his endearing nature and they know what he’s going through, his teammates know that Malik’s going to play as hard as he can to help them win the football game.”
Endearing, sure. But how would Willis’ success translate to the field once real-live competition began? Pretty darn good. It took him no time to adjust to his first starting role in three years.
The Atlanta native began the 2020 season by helping the Flames pull off an upset at Western Kentucky, throwing for 133 yards and rushing for a team-high 168 yards and three touchdowns. Questions, however, still remained how accurate of a passer he could be.
Austin has, and still is, working with his protégé on that.
“I think he has more natural talent as a passer,” Austin said. “He just needed to develop that a little bit more in particular, with respect to a couple of fundamental flaws that he had. And the thing about Malik is he’s really coachable and he really, really, really wants to be great. He’s got a strong desire for that. So we just had to work on a few things with respect to his mechanics, that at least the last part of his skill became more consistent on a step-by-step basis.”
A lot of those flaws disappeared and his arm became a bigger asset. On October 24 in a matchup against Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, Willis completed 77.4 percent of his passes for 345 yards and six touchdowns. Now, he was the complete package and, suddenly, became a dark horse Heisman Trophy candidate.
His accuracy, not the yards or touchdowns, was what impressed Austin.
“The quarterback, the number one thing you have to have as a quarterback in our opinion is, is to be a great decision maker because if you don’t throw to the right guy the probability keeps going down and with respect to poor decisions.”
Learning not to panic was also a key contribution to Willis’ development.
“Malik will need to learn how to move and get himself in a position to deliver the ball without being mechanically out of whack, if that makes sense. So know the difference between moving in the pocket and keeping his hips and transferring his weight properly and getting on top of the ball and getting rid of some of that sidearm delivery stuff that he had as opposed to committing to run and then trying to recover for a pass, that’s what he used to do.
“And so he’d get his body all out of whack, cause he was looking for escape lanes and then he’d realized, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I still got a pocket. I just needed to move.'”
Being the star of the offense at quarterback, Willis also became a leader, but not in how you would expect. Austin says Willis is not a “rah-rah guy,” but isn’t about to change how his quarterback leads on and off the field.
“He’s not going to be a quarterback that’s going to go over there and grab you and get your attention and get in your face. He leads more by example, and he’s got more of a teaching spirit to him. You’ll see him a lot after a series when we’re on the sidelines, he’s there with receivers talking through things to prepare for the next series, talking with the offense alone, with respect to protection and these types of things.
“Because when he’s in a game, a quarterback needs to learn how to, how to remove all the distractions and focus on the very next play and be able to execute the very next play with a great decision and we can handle it. We can handle those types of things easier on the sideline then we can during play. Cause we got to focus on the next play and make sure that we stay on the field and move the sticks.”
The expectations are sky high for Willis going into his senior season. He was recently named the Dudley Award Winner which goes to the best college football player each year in the state of Virginia and, in a piece for The Athletic, Bruce Feldman expects him to be the breakout quarterback for next year’s NFL draft.
Don’t expect that hype and attention to affect Willis, though.
“It’s very authentic with him,” Austin said.
