You guys are going to like this.
In light of 2019 QB Cale Millen's commitment to NU over the weekend, I'm working on a story about the importance of landing a quarterback early in recruiting. So I reached out to NU Player Personnel Director Chris Bowers to get his perspective. He can't comment on individual prospects being recruited until they sign, but he did give me a lot of great stuff about NU's QB recruiting process.
I'm going to use some of this for the story, and I got some input from Rivals' Josh Helmholdt. But Bowers gave me so much insightful content that I'm just going to post it here, word-for-word, unedited.
Enjoy....
"QB recruiting tends to work a little differently than other positions for several reasons. First, the position is so critical. It’s really hard to win at any level without a really good QB that fits your system. Second, in recruiting, you are generally looking at each team taking one. Since 2011 we have taken one in every class and didn’t take one in 2012, I believe. So in big-time college football, the Power Five conferences, that leaves you 64 scholarships a class. You can narrow that further when you look at the systems: clearly Georgia Tech and Washington State run different systems.
"Lastly, for us, we won’t offer a QB unless Coach McCall has seen him throw in person. We have been fortunate in that we’ve been able to get Mick out to see the right guys early on. So all of that makes QB recruiting unique. From all parts of the evaluation, to the scarcity of opportunities.
"Coach McCall is able to focus a vast majority of his recruiting time on QBs and he does a great job building relationships. So when we know we are going to move forward with a prospect, that relationship really makes an impact. As with all offers, Coach Fitz has the final say and is very involved. But since head coaches aren’t allowed out on the road in the spring, the early in person evaluations fall on Mick unless the prospect is in camp.
"Tracking it for the last few years it’s been pretty clear that by January of a prospect's junior year, 12-15 QBs are committed. You can debate that they are the top 12-15 in the nation, or at least fall in the top 25-30. That means potentially half of the guys we would want are off the board, so if we don’t work ahead, we could find ourselves in a challenging situation. Sometimes that doesn’t matter. You have years when someone like Andrew Marty dealt with an injury, was under recruited, and we could get him later on. He had a tremendous senior year and everyone could see what Mick saw in spring workouts.
"It gets a little dicey when things speed up. We absolutely have to do our research. It’s a critical position and we are only taking one. So we have to be thorough, but we have to be efficient and decisive. I’d like to think we’ve done a great job of that in recent years."
In light of 2019 QB Cale Millen's commitment to NU over the weekend, I'm working on a story about the importance of landing a quarterback early in recruiting. So I reached out to NU Player Personnel Director Chris Bowers to get his perspective. He can't comment on individual prospects being recruited until they sign, but he did give me a lot of great stuff about NU's QB recruiting process.
I'm going to use some of this for the story, and I got some input from Rivals' Josh Helmholdt. But Bowers gave me so much insightful content that I'm just going to post it here, word-for-word, unedited.
Enjoy....
"QB recruiting tends to work a little differently than other positions for several reasons. First, the position is so critical. It’s really hard to win at any level without a really good QB that fits your system. Second, in recruiting, you are generally looking at each team taking one. Since 2011 we have taken one in every class and didn’t take one in 2012, I believe. So in big-time college football, the Power Five conferences, that leaves you 64 scholarships a class. You can narrow that further when you look at the systems: clearly Georgia Tech and Washington State run different systems.
"Lastly, for us, we won’t offer a QB unless Coach McCall has seen him throw in person. We have been fortunate in that we’ve been able to get Mick out to see the right guys early on. So all of that makes QB recruiting unique. From all parts of the evaluation, to the scarcity of opportunities.
"Coach McCall is able to focus a vast majority of his recruiting time on QBs and he does a great job building relationships. So when we know we are going to move forward with a prospect, that relationship really makes an impact. As with all offers, Coach Fitz has the final say and is very involved. But since head coaches aren’t allowed out on the road in the spring, the early in person evaluations fall on Mick unless the prospect is in camp.
"Tracking it for the last few years it’s been pretty clear that by January of a prospect's junior year, 12-15 QBs are committed. You can debate that they are the top 12-15 in the nation, or at least fall in the top 25-30. That means potentially half of the guys we would want are off the board, so if we don’t work ahead, we could find ourselves in a challenging situation. Sometimes that doesn’t matter. You have years when someone like Andrew Marty dealt with an injury, was under recruited, and we could get him later on. He had a tremendous senior year and everyone could see what Mick saw in spring workouts.
"It gets a little dicey when things speed up. We absolutely have to do our research. It’s a critical position and we are only taking one. So we have to be thorough, but we have to be efficient and decisive. I’d like to think we’ve done a great job of that in recent years."
