McNichols (shoulder) is already highly familiar with Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter's offense, having played under the same system at Boise State, Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times reports. "Jeremy's going to walk in there and be football intelligent. He's going to know protections and speak the language," said Boise State coach Bryan Harsin, who played quarterback for Koetter at Boise State. "He'll understand what they're teaching, and that's a carryover from my time with Dirk."
While his pre-training camp preparation will be compromised to an extent by his recovery from post-Combine labrum surgery, the fifth-round pick will at least have a solid knowledge base to carry with respect to the offense he'll be playing in. In addition to playing quarterback under Koetter when the latter helmed the Broncos' program, Harsin also served as the team's offensive coordinator from 2006-10 before returning as head coach in 2014. His play-calling tenure included four seasons coaching Bucs running back Doug Martin, a Boise State alumnus to whom he compares McNichols favorably in terms of power and elusiveness. McNichols can largely erase the stigma of his draft freefall by mirroring the path of former college teammate Jay Ajayi, who rushed for 1,272 yards and eight touchdowns with the Dolphins in a breakout 2016 campaign after dropping to the fifth round in 2015 . "I feel like he was as ready as Jay when he came out," Harsin said. "Jay went through some of that, too. He dropped a little bit from what people expected, and look where he's at now."