When Dak Prescott was in college, he learned to play quarterback by watching clips of Alex Smith.

Prescott's head coach at Mississippi State, Dan Mullen, used video clips of Smith in college at Utah. Mullen was Smith's position coach at Utah.

"Half the plays we ran were brought from Utah," Prescott said. "He would show clips of Alex running them, stuff from the shovel pass to the option to stuff in the pass game. I was honestly in college trying to mimic what Alex was doing at Utah.

"I just know a lot of Alex through Coach Mullen. Oftentimes Coach Mullen, in coaching or just trying to give a reference, would mention Alex. I didn't know him before the NFL but I just know a lot about him and his game through Coach Mullen."

Smith and Prescott met at last year's Super Bowl.

"I keep track of him, for sure," Smith said. "We have mutual college coaches, so I definitely followed him all through college and the last couple of years. How could you not be impressed with what he's done up to this point? To step into that role, you're not expected [to play]; you've got big shoes to fill, obviously, with Romo going out.

"To come in and to make the plays that he's done as a young guy, that's hard, really hard. To be as consistent [and] to do the little things, that's the thing you see as well. You see both. He's got the big-play ability, but then coming in and also being so solid, doing the little things play in and play out, giving his team a good chance. I've been really impressed and obviously a fan of his. Just not this week."