For JT Daniels to be successful-
1. Monken needs to utilize his quck release, quick pass accuracy, and back shoulder fade accuracy. His quick throwing motion and accuracy allows receivers to create space early in the route and then try to make a play to gain chunk yardage. Something that Burrow excelled in imo. Threw the ball perfectly to his players to catch on the run and make plays.
2. Throw the ball to Pickens. (Of course)
3. He needs to believe that he doesn’t have to make the big play every time and force the ball down field to a guy double covered. We arnt 2018 USC we have a dominant Defense and very good running backs. Check the ball down, throw it away, or use your athleticism and try to gain us a few yards.
I’ve watched full game film of USC in 2018 since the news broke about Jamie. I wrote down things I noticed from every game and I thought I’d share the reoccurring ones. I tried to focus more on the games he struggled in the most like Stanford, Utah, and Colorado.
Kind of unrelated but man did I finally notice how much pass interference the pac gets away with. So many no calls that are worse than what we get flagged for.
1. He’s got an absolute cannon for an arm. Quick release and throwing motion and throws pretty well with a defender in his face. Very accurate over the middle deep. Not afraid to use the whole field. Escapes the pocket very well with sneaky quickness. He underthrew the ball a lot more than overthrows which tells me he wasn’t 100% confident when releasing the ball because we all know how strong of an arm he has. He did struggle with staring down his targets but he was a true freshman 17/18 yr old in a pass happy offense. You combine those two things and there is your reason for the interceptions (including a few where he was decked in the middle of throwing the ball)
2. USC offensive line struggled a lot with pass pro and teams keyed in on it and sent blitzers constantly.
3. Lots and lots of drops from WRs. Honestly reminded me of last year with Fromm. Daniels would get the ball to a spot where he’s just asking his WR to make a play 1 on 1 and guys consistently dropped them. So many dropped TDS in red zone where I said to myself “If that’s Pickens that’s 6 pts.” I will say though the timing that he and St. Brown had in 2018 was beautiful. You could see that chemistry from hs. Also he’s not afraid to throw it before the WR breaks their route so it’s on them when they turn to look at him.
4. He’s not going to kill you with his legs but he’s definitely more athletic than Fromm looked last two seasons. Most noticeable play is with 5 mins left in 3rd Qtr vs Stanford he spun under a defender trying to sack him and escaped the pocket for a big gain and 1st down.
5. Needs to have better ball security in the pocket. Not terrible but he put the ball on the ground a few times. I think I counted atleast 6 but only saw 1 or two that weren’t recovered. He was sacked 25 times(Fromm was sacked an average of 15 times the last 3 seasons with majority of last years coming late in the season). Daniels escaped a lot of sacks with his athleticism and still had 10 more sacks where as Fromm escaped them by throwing them away. Daniels reminds me a tad bit of Joe Burrow. The only differences obviously being he was a freshman, and his WRs were younger and a lot less talented than what Joe had last season in Chase and Jefferson. Both are around the same size/body type. Hard to compare their 40 times because usually players 40 times get a lot faster through training and such.
Now USC didn’t have much of a run game with I think around 1,500 yds (1,000 less than us last season) collectively. Teams won’t be able to sent all out blitzes against us because they will have to respect our play action and very stellar run game. Should help him a lot in the pocket.
6. I did see a few really bad throws that could have been easy interceptions. A good amount of them were after he escaped pressure or was hit while throwing. It seemed like he felt like he NEEDED to make the big play after dodging a sack. He was also a true freshman QB on a struggling football team and was being asked to throw the ball 30-50 times a game with a lacking run game and played from behind quite a bit.
*All in all JT Daniels is going to surprise a ton of people in the college football world this coming season if he wins the job. If he doesn’t, well then Dwan Mathis is also a lot better than everyone thought. Daniels stats do not tell the whole story of how good a QB he can be.
1. Monken needs to utilize his quck release, quick pass accuracy, and back shoulder fade accuracy. His quick throwing motion and accuracy allows receivers to create space early in the route and then try to make a play to gain chunk yardage. Something that Burrow excelled in imo. Threw the ball perfectly to his players to catch on the run and make plays.
2. Throw the ball to Pickens. (Of course)
3. He needs to believe that he doesn’t have to make the big play every time and force the ball down field to a guy double covered. We arnt 2018 USC we have a dominant Defense and very good running backs. Check the ball down, throw it away, or use your athleticism and try to gain us a few yards.
I’ve watched full game film of USC in 2018 since the news broke about Jamie. I wrote down things I noticed from every game and I thought I’d share the reoccurring ones. I tried to focus more on the games he struggled in the most like Stanford, Utah, and Colorado.
Kind of unrelated but man did I finally notice how much pass interference the pac gets away with. So many no calls that are worse than what we get flagged for.
1. He’s got an absolute cannon for an arm. Quick release and throwing motion and throws pretty well with a defender in his face. Very accurate over the middle deep. Not afraid to use the whole field. Escapes the pocket very well with sneaky quickness. He underthrew the ball a lot more than overthrows which tells me he wasn’t 100% confident when releasing the ball because we all know how strong of an arm he has. He did struggle with staring down his targets but he was a true freshman 17/18 yr old in a pass happy offense. You combine those two things and there is your reason for the interceptions (including a few where he was decked in the middle of throwing the ball)
2. USC offensive line struggled a lot with pass pro and teams keyed in on it and sent blitzers constantly.
3. Lots and lots of drops from WRs. Honestly reminded me of last year with Fromm. Daniels would get the ball to a spot where he’s just asking his WR to make a play 1 on 1 and guys consistently dropped them. So many dropped TDS in red zone where I said to myself “If that’s Pickens that’s 6 pts.” I will say though the timing that he and St. Brown had in 2018 was beautiful. You could see that chemistry from hs. Also he’s not afraid to throw it before the WR breaks their route so it’s on them when they turn to look at him.
4. He’s not going to kill you with his legs but he’s definitely more athletic than Fromm looked last two seasons. Most noticeable play is with 5 mins left in 3rd Qtr vs Stanford he spun under a defender trying to sack him and escaped the pocket for a big gain and 1st down.
5. Needs to have better ball security in the pocket. Not terrible but he put the ball on the ground a few times. I think I counted atleast 6 but only saw 1 or two that weren’t recovered. He was sacked 25 times(Fromm was sacked an average of 15 times the last 3 seasons with majority of last years coming late in the season). Daniels escaped a lot of sacks with his athleticism and still had 10 more sacks where as Fromm escaped them by throwing them away. Daniels reminds me a tad bit of Joe Burrow. The only differences obviously being he was a freshman, and his WRs were younger and a lot less talented than what Joe had last season in Chase and Jefferson. Both are around the same size/body type. Hard to compare their 40 times because usually players 40 times get a lot faster through training and such.
Now USC didn’t have much of a run game with I think around 1,500 yds (1,000 less than us last season) collectively. Teams won’t be able to sent all out blitzes against us because they will have to respect our play action and very stellar run game. Should help him a lot in the pocket.
6. I did see a few really bad throws that could have been easy interceptions. A good amount of them were after he escaped pressure or was hit while throwing. It seemed like he felt like he NEEDED to make the big play after dodging a sack. He was also a true freshman QB on a struggling football team and was being asked to throw the ball 30-50 times a game with a lacking run game and played from behind quite a bit.
*All in all JT Daniels is going to surprise a ton of people in the college football world this coming season if he wins the job. If he doesn’t, well then Dwan Mathis is also a lot better than everyone thought. Daniels stats do not tell the whole story of how good a QB he can be.
