Every Monday during the season, Frenship football coach Jay Northcutt got to campus ready to share the week’s game plan with players.
Hudson Hutcheson already had his.
The Tigers quarterback spent his weekends studying film on the next opponent and would share his thoughts with Northcutt. Rarely was there any variance between the two.
“He would come in on Mondays and give me his scouting report first, before we went over the (coaches’) scouting report,” Northcutt said. “A lot of it was the same. It would be like as if he would have been here all weekend with the coaches. He was suggesting the same things or seeing the same things. And then sometimes he would have his own idea that maybe we hadn’t thought of.”
Hutcheson paired that preparation with his poise and physical talents to set multiple program records. He put his name among the Frenship quarterback greats, and now he’s the A-J’s big-school football player of the year.
“I’m not the biggest, fastest, strongest,” Hutcheson said, “but I wanted to be the most prepared mentally.”
Hutcheson completed 305 of 424 passes (72%) for 4,474 yards, 48 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He added 474 yards and seven TDs on the ground.
Astronomical numbers became the norm for Hutcheson, who rewrote the school’s record book. He now holds passing records for career completions (567), attempts (780), completion percentage (73%), yards (8,216) and TDs (84). His nine passing TDs in a game are also a program best.
Hutcheson wasn’t one to focus on personal achievements, but the nine-TD performance in an 87-58 playoff win over El Paso Eastwood made him double-take.
“I didn’t really know the number,” Hutcheson said, “and I was kind of like, ‘Dang, I didn’t know I did that,’ as well as the people around me. But it was what needed to be done to get the job done.”
Northcutt said Hutcheson benefited from watching quarterbacks Donovan Smith and Chad Pharies before him. The coach said Hutcheson’s ability to utilize his film study in stressful situations helped, too.
“You get in the middle of a game and the bullets are flying, sometimes the fundamentals go out the window,” Northcutt said. “Sometimes you can’t process under stress well enough to remember all that film you watched. I think it takes a pretty special person, especially in our offense where it’s centered around the QB, to be able to have the headspace to be able to perform like that when the bullets are flying.”
Northcutt entrusted Hutcheson with calling his pass protection, the only quarterback the coach recalled doing so. When the senior made an audible, it was the right call, too.
“I don’t even know if he ever called a bad play,” Northcutt said. “If he did, he made it work somehow. Sometimes I would see him changing the play and I’d kind of grimace a little bit. Then it would work out.”
Hutcheson led the Tigers to a 9-3 record for the second-straight season. He said he’s weighing Power 5 walk-on opportunities and Division II offers, deciding on the best fit. Coaching football may be in his future. If it is, he already has hands-on experience.
“I like to watch film,” Hutcheson said, “and being here with Coach Northcutt and learning the stuff he does and seeing how we handled things and the season. I kind of fell in love with the process. I feel like I could see myself doing that for a job.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Frenship QB Hudson Hutcheson is the A-J’s football player of the year
