“He understands me and I understand him,” Bridgewater said. “I grew up without my father really being there for me throughout sports. Coach Watson arrived on campus around the same time I arrived, and ever since our relationship has just been tight. He took me in, and I trust everything he tells me. In our situation, it goes beyond football.”

“Pittsburgh announced Thursday evening that it has hired Indiana quarterback coach Shawn Watson as its new offensive coordinator.”

Wednesday, Narduzzi didn’t mention loyalty or continuity as considerations for this newest hire but insisted that his foremost priority in picking his offensive coordinator would be character.

“Shawn is, first and foremost, a wonderful person and father,” Narduzzi said of Watson. “As a football coach, he is extremely knowledgeable, an excellent recruiter and will be a tremendous strength in the quarterback room and offensive staff room.”

“He sat me down as a young coach and taught me how to work with wide receivers in my first full-time job at Miami (Ohio) in the early 1990’s. Ever since that time, we have always talked about being able to reunite on the same staff again.” Today, that dream came to fruition for Narduzzi.”

“Don Fischer catches up with with Indiana’s quarterback coach Shawn Watson.”

“With Watson running the offense in the final two and a half years of his tenure, Strong’s Louisville teams went 27-5, won two conference titles, turned Bridgewater into a Heisman candidate, whipped Florida in a BCS bowl game and earned national respect that landed Strong on the national coaching search firm radar.“

“I thought Teddy was a talent in high school before I ever got a hold of him, so when I got here, he was coming in and I was just knocked out at the type of kid he was, how easy he learned, and a great, great work ethic to go along with it. It became a really good marriage,” Watson said.

Creativity always had been part of Whitfield’s arsenal. He learned the position’s finer points interning for Chargers offensive coordinator Cam Cameron in 2006 and volunteering at countless college camps. He first saw a coach use a broom as a teaching tool when then-Nebraska assistant Shawn Watson swept it at the feet of quarterbacks.

“We call him ‘the quarterback professor’ on our staff,” Allen said. “He does such a great job dissecting that position and teaching those guys to be able to make their reads and do the little things that it’s going to take to be successful.”

The piece also goes on to tell the story of how Bridgewater ultimately shut down his own Heisman Campaign all because he wanted to be treated as an equal and not be viewed in a different light by his teammates.