The QB Competition

I’d like the open the floor to the readers thoughts on the QB competition. What do you like about each QB? Who do you think will be the starter come fall? Feel free to weigh in on the comment section or send an e-mail to iufan24@gmail.com and get it published.

Here is a breakdown from a fellow hoosier fan (Oxford Collapse):

After watching the game again, I believe that despite Kiel’s two picks, he’s the best potential QB on the roster for this fall. I’ll go through really quickly a couple thoughts on each guy that explain why I think so. At the same time, though, keep in mind that it’s a little tough on a really windy day to analyze how good a QB is going to be on a normal day in the fall.

EWB: Wright-Baker made some nice passes and showed a very smooth running motion. The big issue that I saw though was decision-making: he forced three or four passes that rightfully should have been picked (and might have been throwing against the First Team D as Dusty did in most of the first half).

EWB has a lot to work with and a nice arm as is displayed by the deep pass to Dre early in the game, but he still needs to work on diagnosing the coverage, seeing the whole field, and then making the right decision. At the same time though, with the nature of the scrimmage, we didn’t get to see as much scrambling ability from EWB as the play was blown dead every time a potential tackler got near him. Maybe in the fall, he breaks a few of those for a bunch of yards. You never know.

Follett: I really love Adam’s physical tools (you can’t teach 6’4 with a good arm), but I’m not sure I see him as “in” the QB battle like Kiel and EWB are right now. While he made some nice throws, he didn’t handle blitzes well at all. It seems he didn’t have the pocket mobility that Kiel or EWB do. When he got rushed, instead of stepping out of the way while keeping his eyes down the field to make a throw (as Kiel did on several plays), he panicked and scrambled in to the blitz, taking his eyes off his open receivers downfield.

Once he started scrambling, he didn’t reset his feet to make the throw. Just my opinion, but if we don’t get the line completely resolved, he’s going to face a ton of pressure from inside blitzes, and he didn’t handle them as well as Kiel did. He’s got a prototypical QB body with nice athleticism and a nice arm, but he’s not a finished product yet. He could turn it on over the summer and come out the starter, but I think that Kiel’s further along right now.

Kiel: Dusty had a good game Saturday. The Pick-6 was on him as he threw the ball well behind his target, but I think that the Heban pick was just a really good play by Greg. He showed very solid pocket mobility, the ability to put it where only his receiver could catch the ball (check out that DeMarlo TD pass again), and did a nice job taking what the defense gave him. It seemed like whenever Heban was coming on the corner blitz, Kiel immediately went to the bubble, and actually got a touchdown out of it on the opening drive. He hit Wilson in stride on a great 50 something yard pass, showing nice arm strength.

When feeling pressure, instead of scrambling out of the pocket, he stepped up, buying his blockers a couple more seconds, and kept his eyes down the field to make a good pass. That’s good QB play. He also showed nice wheels on a QB keeper, so we can still use a bit of the QB run game. Kiel wasn’t perfect, but he was about as good as you can reasonably expect a RS Fr with little game experience and a new offense to be during the spring game.