Just looking at some of the matchups and mock schedules, it's hard to imagine even the most talented teams making it through a 16 or 17 game season unscathed and of course the need to go undefeated or at the most have one loss is going to go away with the 4 playoff
I think the days of national champions regularly going undefeated is going to end. Looking at some of the potential schedules we see for SEC and Big 10, teams in these conferences are going to have to play 5-6 top 25 during the regular season, a conference title game against another top 5-10 team and then win 2-3 playoff games. I just can't imagine a group of college kids making it through a schedule that difficult unscathed on a regular basis.
I think we're going to see a lot more one loss, or even two loss national champions going forward.
I wouldn't exactly call it my burner, it's my primary. I am Liberiandawg on the 247 boards. Do you peruse every 247 board? You seem to be on top of things
Ewers not even included in his groupings of what tier this guys fall in…yikes. I’m not high on him or McCarthy, so interesting that the numbers seem to back that up.
Turn on a college football game any given Saturday and take note of how often you hear “run-pass option” — or “RPO” — mentioned by the broadcasting team. It’s hard not to notice how deeply RPOs have been woven into the sport, so much so that announcers sometimes are quick to (incorrectly) reference them for little reason beyond a quarterback’s lining up in the shotgun.
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In college football, because the hashes are so wide and offensive linemen are given latitude to block downfield on passes, RPOs can provide a significant tactical advantage. They’re also a great way to mask whether a QB is actually good enough to succeed at the next level.
So, when analyzing RPO-era quarterbacks with an NFL Draft lens, how can you control for scheme trends, talent disparities and the functional differences between college football and the pros to sort out who has a chance? That’s the question we’re tackling here, as we start to analyze the 2024 draft’s quarterback prospects.
The method
What’s the best way to find that context for the ’24 class? The answer begins with culling, because — counterintuitive as this sounds — it’s extremely difficult to get a clear picture of a passer’s profile by looking at the entire volume of their throws.
If we consider RPOs, throws behind the line of scrimmage or those in the “checkdown zone” to be noisy, low-value attempts from a scouting perspective, we’ll have a better idea of which quarterbacks carry the strongest indicators of future success. We’re looking for those who can make the downfield throws NFLoffenses need to survive. (Note: For the sake of this exercise, “downfield throws” are those that travel at least 5 air yards.)
Filtering out throws with typically high completion rates makes traditional metrics like completion percentage and yards per attempt less valuable. It’s also worthwhile to account for throws that traveled 5 or more yards but still fell short of the sticks, especially on third or fourth down. For that reason, we’ll use success rate to measure efficiency and expected points added (EPA) to track explosiveness.
None of this is to say that RPOs are worthless. Tua Tagovailoa threw slants in Miami; Aaron Rodgers threw bubbles in Green Bay; every coach under the Andy Reid tree runs them often. The more offenses adopt shotgun running games, the more we will see other traditionalists embrace the advent. But we need to be sure our metrics reflect the most useful elements of the game at its highest level.
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We’re building a baseline, using 19 prominent quarterbacks who will be eligible for the 2024 NFL Draft. In total, those players threw more than 2,900 passes of 5-plus yards last season without the use of an RPO or play-action fake. (Note: Tennessee QB Joe Milton, another 2024 draft prospect, didn’t have enough dropbacks under the set parameters to make this particular sample.)
Their numbers will be measured below against the averages of the 19-player sample. What can we learn about these prospects?
The numbers
We can start looking for potential trouble spots among next year’s prospects by finding those who fell below the averages on true downfield throws.
The tape reveals a common issue for those QBs: poor accuracy.
Texas’ Quinn Ewers, South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler and Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel acutely struggled in this manner last season. Strip away the deep shots off of play action — which negatively affect the stability of a passing attack — and it reveals their issues throwing with touch in intermediate areas, especially over the middle of the field. Passes often sailed or landed behind receivers, telltale signs that a QB is late on his progression, off-balance and trying to heave the ball before the defense can close the window. There are some ways to work around anticipatory issues in a quarterback, but not when they’re coupled with poor ball placement.
Next, let’s look at how the 2024 QB prospects fared against four-man pass rushes — a key to keeping offense on or ahead of schedule in the modern NFL.
2024 QBs versus four-man rush
PLAYER
SCHOOL
PURE DROP BACKS
EPA/DOWNFIELD THROW
SUCCESS RATE
OFF TARGET RATE
SACK RATE
SCRAMBLE EPA
Michael Pratt
Tulane
153
0.79
55.7%
14.8%
9.3%
3.4
Dillon Gabriel
OU
136
0.73
56.9%
18.5%
5.9%
7.31
Drake Maye
UNC
224
0.69
66.1%
13.9%
7.0%
7.79
Jayden Daniels
LSU
216
0.63
63.4%
13.8%
8.6%
12.63
Caleb Williams
USCw
180
0.63
55.1%
14.6%
5.8%
16.06
Spencer Rattler
South Cak
202
0.59
56.9%
21.5%
5.7%
9.54
KJ Jefferson
Arky
145
0.52
48.0%
13.3%
7.4%
11.27
Bo Nix
Oregon
204
0.51
63.0%
19.0%
1.0%
6.55
Devin Leary
UK
108
0.5
52.8%
15.1%
5.0%
-1.23
Jordan Travis
FSU
138
0.5
51.9%
19.0%
5.8%
10.03
DJ Uiagalelei
Oregon St
173
0.49
62.0%
20.3%
3.8%
2.97
Averages
179
0.44
55.6%
18.1%
5.9%
6.31
Riley Leonard
Duke
228
0.42
55.8%
21.2%
1.5%
13.01
Michael Penix Jr.
Washington
261
0.35
58.0%
19.6%
0.8%
-1.1
Sam Hartman
ND
127
0.34
58.9%
17.9%
9.9%
-3.25
Will Rogers
Miss St
245
0.25
54.3%
16.2%
6.6%
-0.83
Cameron Ward
Wazzu
269
0.24
49.1%
21.3%
11.6%
9.9
Grayson McCall
COAST
132
0.22
55.4%
18.9%
7.5%
10.41
J.J. McCarthy
Michigan
157
0.14
50.0%
17.9%
4.4%
4.95
Quinn Ewers
Texas
100
-0.07
42.4%
27.1%
4.3%
0.43
USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye are college football’s most punishing forces in the dropback game (which is why they sit atop the 2024 draft-eligible QB hierarchy), but the differences in their play styles are apparent.
Maye is the definition of polished as a dropback passer. If you’re looking for stylistic/athletic comparisons, I’d say he lands somewhere in the cluster of Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence. The velocity on his throws is more “good” than “great,” and he’s more of a sneaky/slippery athlete than a twitchy one. His balance and poise in the pocket are elite, though, and that body control is why he’s so consistently accurate and ready to deliver the ball at all three levels.
If there’s any nitpicking to be done at this point, it’s with how long Maye hangs in the pocket — but it rarely lands him in trouble.
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Williams exists on the opposite end of the spectrum. Some of his fundamentals are raw, but his arm talent and athletic ability are eye-popping. Williams is a chaos agent, often painting himself into a corner by locking on one receiver or part of the progression too long. But there’s no dissolving pocket Williams can’t squeak out of, and he can bring defensive coordinators to their knees when he breaks contain.
Even if coverage is tight or his throwing platform is awkward, Williams can generate velocity and accuracy from any launch angle, and he’s already built a significant highlight reel of long gains on scrambles. The issue with Williams is how often he misses guys breaking open on the backside of progressions, because of an over-reliance on his legs to get him out of trouble.
And there’s no way for a quarterback to fully avoid trouble. Pictures change rapidly before and after the snap at the next level. How an offense performs in those moments is an important gauge of whether a scheme has answers — and how consistently the quarterback can access them.
2024 QBs versus blitzes (five-man rush)
PLAYER
SCHOOL
PURE DROP BACKS
EPA/DOWNFIELD THROW
SUCCESS RATE
OFF TARGET RATE
SACK RATE
SCRAMBLE EPA
Bo Nix
PAC 12 Champs
64
0.98
68.4%
5.3%
0.0%
7.44
Caleb Williams
USC
84
0.68
45.0%
22.5%
11.1%
1.29
Jordan Travis
Free Shoes
89
0.62
53.8%
7.7%
5.4%
1.52
Jayden Daniels
LSU
115
0.6
57.9%
8.8%
13.0%
10.74
KJ Jefferson
Arky
52
0.6
55.6%
14.8%
12.5%
2.27
DJ Uiagalelei
Oregon St
82
0.6
46.8%
21.3%
7.7%
0.73
Drake Maye
UNC
135
0.54
51.6%
23.4%
14.5%
2.75
Sam Hartman
ND
127
0.48
60.0%
13.8%
9.6%
-1.94
Grayson McCall
Coastal
41
0.47
50.0%
4.2%
8.7%
1.34
Michael Penix Jr.
Washington
74
0.46
51.1%
15.6%
0.0%
NA
Riley Leonard
Duke
81
0.44
53.5%
23.3%
10.2%
2.52
Averages
77
0.35
51.5%
16.8%
9.0%
2.17
Michael Pratt
Tulane
74
0.3
54.1%
18.9%
7.1%
4.41
Devin Leary
Kentucky
25
0.18
69.2%
7.7%
5.3%
0.0
Dillon Gabriel
Oklahoma
37
0.16
42.9%
19.0%
14.3%
0.0
Will Rogers
Miss Stae
91
0.13
51.0%
22.4%
6.5%
0.0
J.J. McCarthy
Michigan
83
0.09
51.3%
23.1%
1.9%
4.39
Spencer Rattler
South Carolina
93
-0.03
36.4%
12.1%
14.3%
-0.91
Quinn Ewers
Texas
38
-0.13
28.6%
38.1%
6.7%
0.0
Cameron Ward
Wazzu
77
-0.54
28.6%
35.7%
21.7%
2.59
It’s in these circumstances that we see confirmation of Williams’ and Maye’s strengths and weaknesses. Maye can maintain success because of his control from the pocket and sharp execution of the progression, although he can get into trouble at times by holding the ball too long.
Williams, meanwhile, still can create explosive offense, but his down-to-down effectiveness takes a big dip when he’s blitzed. On tape, that extends to when coverage shells change. Williams struggled in the first half of last season when teams gave him different looks or dropped eight into coverage — he ranked 10th of these 19 QBs sampled in EPA per downfield throw against three-man rushes. Maye could benefit from borrowing Williams’ willingness to run, and Williams from Maye’s confidence in working through the progression.
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Beyond the top two, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon’s Bo Nix stood out against blitzing defenses. Those two are true veterans of the college game, so it’s not surprising they’d perform well against defenses they’ve probably seen hundreds of times. It’s still no less stark to see them with matching zero-percent sack rates here.
Nix has quietly improved year over year, and he’s beginning to make the connection between his physical gifts and his football IQ in terms of navigating the rush and cutting up defenses with his arm and legs.
Penix is a different case, after tears in both ACLs sapped some of the agility he had during his time at Indiana. At Washington, he’s become more of a pure pocket passer, which makes his combination of zero sacks taken and zero scrambles attempted against five-man rushes an anomaly. Penix is a capable passer who throws with touch and can diagnose defenses pre-snap to find favorable matchups. He was driving a Ferrari last season, though, with two legitimate No. 1 options at receiver and an excellent offensive line.
Beyond Penix’s supporting cast, even the biggest Washington fans would have to acknowledge that regression to the mean is more likely than a repeat of his 2022 season. That line of thinking applies to Nix at Oregon, too.
Still, whether dealing with a four-man rush, a blitz or a spy, what separates good and great QBs is how they handle pressure. Though almost every quarterback sees a production dip when rushers are closing in, finding a potential star means identifying players who don’t wilt so suddenly.
In that light, again, Maye and Williams have separated from the pack.
Not only did Williams register an EPA of just under .8 per downfield throw when pressured — an incredible number, by the way — but also his off-target rate (12.8 percent) was lower than against the standard four-man rush (14.6 percent). It can be bothersome to watch Williams create his own pressure at times, but there’s no denying what he can do out of structure.
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For Maye, I’m most impressed with how effective he is as a scrambler after being pressured. It comes back to stability and consistency across the board for him. There are so few instances in which you feel concerned about how he approaches the game mentally, nor are there any physical deficiencies to be exploited.
Two more fascinating QB prospects who haven’t come up yet: LSU’s Jayden Daniels, and Duke’s Riley Leonard.
Leonard is the dark horse of this QB class, although that’s mostly because not enough people watched Duke play last year. In terms of physical gifts and pocket navigation, Leonard has all the necessary abilities to thrive at the next level. He’s efficient in working through his progressions, places the ball well (especially in contested situations) and can escape pockets to create offense on his own.
Across the board, his production and play style didn’t change no matter what defenses threw at him in 2022. The only thing he needs to clean up is his misses in the intermediate area, which seem to happen when he’s trying to generate more velocity than is necessary.
Daniels’ passing production has fallen off a cliff when he’s been pressured, but he was exceptional as a passer by all other metrics. Under pressure, he breaks down in ways most QBs do: dropping his eyes and abandoning the progression downfield. However, because of his elite burst and long speed, Daniels isn’t a lost cause.
2024 QB tiers (and final notes)
There is plenty of time between now and the 2024 draft for evaluations to shift, but here’s how I’d split the top QB prospects headed into the summer:
Tier 1 (high Day 1 picks): Drake Maye, Caleb Williams
Both prospects should have a legitimate case as the top pick in next year’s draft.
The teams with more rigid schemes reminiscent of past eras will lean toward Maye — I’m thinking of Tennessee, Tampa Bay, New Orleans, Minnesota, the Rams, Las Vegas and Detroit. Those offenses still closely adhere to the original philosophies and structures of the West Coast offense. Those that are more open to the spread, to using their QBs as runners, and to embracing more volatility in a hunt for explosive offense will probably prefer Williams — think Washington, the Giants, Arizona, and Atlanta.
In the right fits, Maye can be the next super-computer QB, like Justin Herbert or Lawrence. Williams has drawn some obvious Patrick Mahomes comparisons (and I think Josh Allen is a possibility, too), but I’d caution against using the current version of Mahomes as a reference. If we see anything like 2018 and 2019 Mahomes from Williams, though, that’d be more than enough.
Tier 2 (late Day 1/early Day 2 picks): Jayden Daniels, Riley Leonard, Bo Nix
If Daniels runs at next year’s combine, I expect him to land in the 4.48-to-4.52-second range. He has grown enough as a passer and has the athletic ability needed to stay around the top five of his position.
Tier 3 (late Day 2 picks): Michael Penix Jr., Michael Pratt, J.J. McCarthy
Pratt will be a fascinating test case for what the NFL thinks about the classic pocket-passer type. The Tulane QB has legitimate arm talent, rarely puts the ball in harm’s way and has a clear understanding of how to read through his progressions. His problem is that he’s not a creative athlete or passer, and that’s why his numbers drop when he’s blitzed and crater when he’s pressured.
Tier 4 (early Day 3 picks): Jordan Travis, Sam Hartman, Devin Leary, Grayson McCall
No matter how wide you cast the net, statistical data can’t be a catch-all for the quality of a player’s performance. Hartman, Travis and Jefferson are prime examples in this upcoming class, as each player has produced metrics that belie what you see on tape.
Tier 5 (late Day 3 picks/potential UDFAs): KJ Jefferson, Quinn Ewers, Spencer Rattler, Dillon Gabriel, Cameron Ward, Will Rogers, DJ Uiagalelei
Jefferson is just not accurate enough outside the hashes to seriously consider as a top-end QB, no matter what the numbers say. Hartman lacks some necessary arm talent, and he manages the pocket poorly — Wake Forest’s unique scheme isn’t to blame for the latter. Travis is an excellent athlete and has a high football IQ, but he doesn’t have a strong enough arm to threaten defenses vertically.
Those three are examples of good college football players who lack the required elite abilities to make the leap to the next level.
In all of this, removing those “gimme” throws — like those we sometimes see off RPOs — not only gives us a clearer picture of which prospects are in the top tier as dropback passers, but also it provides definitive evidence of QBs who were disproportionately propped up by scheme. Similarly, removing all play-action fakes wipes out a large chunk of the max-protection, deep-shot offense that doesn’t translate to how a professional game is played.
By studying the tape to confirm the data, we can identify the dynamic athletes, the strong arms and the quick processors just as well as we identified those with accuracy issues or those who struggle when their first read is taken away.
Solving the problem of finding a franchise quarterback can’t be done in a spreadsheet alone, but the right data and context can inch us another step closer.
I’m kind of expecting something like that to happen eventually but don’t a lot of these programs essentially depend on “trickle down economics”?
If we get a champions league where only the top 50-75 programs play each other, those paycheck games are gone, and still nothing is going to stop those top programs from poaching whatever level is formed just below that champions league model.
These guys are going to have the same problems just less money.
I’m kind of expecting something like that to happen eventually but don’t a lot of these programs essentially depend on “trickle down economics”?
If we get a champions league where only the top 50-75 programs play each other, those paycheck games are gone, and still nothing is going to stop those top programs from poaching whatever level is formed just below that champions league model.
These guys are going to have the same problems just less money.
They don’t want to split from the P5/pro system friendly schools. They’re talking a lot because they hope the threat of a split will force the ncaa to act.
Prime would be lucky if it were just a foot problem. Sounds like a bloodflow issue, which is probably the case and if so, he'll be dead within 10 years if he's not taking it seriously (doctors surrounding him and a piggy here and there amputation doesn't mean he's taking it seriously, but maybe only as serious as he wants to believe it).
One of the docs hinted, if not explicitly said so in that clip anyway (bloodflow related), but the way they chop up the vid is misleading and I'm certain that's more my concern. Talking about nerves like everyone knows he was one of the greatest athletes ever, so just assume he ran too much and his feet paying the price now, instead of, in actuality, the nerve issue is a symptom of a/the precursor. I hope Dieon fully realizes that he's mortal and no others see this experiencing something similar decided to disregard or illegitimize because Deion did...perceivably.
. I am Liberiandawg on the 247 boards. Do you peruse every 247 board? You seem to be on top of things
North Carolina
Arkansas
USC
LSU
Notre Dame
Duke
Tulane
Florida State
Washington
Oregon
Oregon State
Mississippi State
Oklahoma
Coastal Carolina
South Carolina
Kentucky
Michigan
Texas
Michigan
