Dillon Gabriel: Things I Know

My dad has been coaching me all my life. When I went to high school he was my quarterback coach. He's really good about knowing what to say and when to say it. If I have a good game he's very critical about how I played. If I have a bad game, he knows nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. When we do end up talking about a particular game, he knows when to cut it off. He knows it's about helping me out on the football side, but also just being my dad. He's the first guy I call after a game and we go through it. I like hearing from him because he's been around me my whole career. He's been hard on me, but he knows exactly what to say. He's been very helpful. 
 
When I was young, I just kind of knew football was going to be my thing. I played basketball and had a lot of fun doing it, but it wasn't my thing. I fell in love with baseball as a pitcher—but at the same time when football season came around that was the most exciting for me. And, compared to the other sports, that's what I was best at. Once I got into middle school it started getting serious and once I got to high school I put all my time into football.
 
When I was in high school, I followed a lot of the other quarterbacks who came from Hawaii. Marcus Mariota from Oregon was huge. Then Tua (Tagovailoa) when he was at Alabama and then McKenzie (Milton) obviously was someone I was really close to. Jordan Ta'amu at Ole Miss was another. I was just big fans of all the quarterbacks from Hawaii.
 
I'm not a real big TV guy. I don't necessarily sit down and watch every NFL game. If I do anything I'll catch a few highlights here and there. During the season it's all our stuff.
 
I spent a lot of time working with my dad in the offseason when I was home. I'd lift weights five times a week. It would be 8 a.m. in Hawaii and 2 p.m. in Orlando and we'd do film with (UCF quarterback) coach (Joey) Halzle--three days with the whole quarterback group and then just he and I would spend some time a couple of other days during the week for maybe an hour and a half. We did the mental part, and then I'd go out and work on some of the physical things with my dad. We'd lift and go run and then throw. I had some guys back home I could throw to.
 
I had some things to work on—comfortably throwing across the field, throwing the deep ball, things like that. Certain throws I wanted to fix or get better at. We had a list of about five throws that I wanted to improve on. We attacked it every other day to figure out how to get better.
 
Compared to when I was a freshman, I understand a lot more now about how to take care of your body, how to deal with your mental health. It's about how to re-set and have a clear mind going into a week. Sometimes I used to try to compare one week to another. But each week is individual--each play, each drive is individual. I've learned to play each play and each game on its own. Then you have to pace yourself and learn how to take care of your body over a long period of time.