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Bulldogs QB
David Carr
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Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles previewing the top NFL
prospects, by position, for the 2002 draft.
With Drew Henson and Joe Borchard signed to long-term, baseball-only contracts and
Michael Vick entering the NFL early last year, it looked as though this would be a very
down year for QB prospects. However, while the situation is still far from rosy, Fresno
State’s David Carr has emerged and looks like a first-round pick and
a possible top-of-the-round pick.
At 6-3, 225-235 pounds, Carr has the size the NFL looks for in a quarterback these
days. Carr is a very tough and competitive young man who has the ability to elevate those
around him.
He sets up well, has a quick delivery and has a quick, live, strong arm that lets him
zip the ball down the field and throw the deep sideline routes. He also shows touch on his
throws and does not throw a heavy, hard-to-hold-onto ball. He can thread the needle and
responds well to pressure. His performance at the end of the Colorado State game was
Elway-like.
On the downside, Carr is a semi-sidearm thrower with a lower release point than teams
would like. Carr tends to be a little streaky and at times is not quite as accurate as
teams would like. However, other times he will really thread the needle. As is the case
with most strong-armed young quarterbacks, he’ll force some passes because he has too
much confidence in his arm. Perhaps the biggest problem he has is that while he is not
slow and can get outside the rush at times, he is not a very shifty, quick-footed, nimble
or elusive runner who can buy time behind the line of scrimmage by scrambling around
similar to an Elway or Tarkenton. But Carr can throw while sprinting out.
Coming into the NFL, Carr will be further along in his development than most drafted
quarterbacks because he spent five years running a pro-style offense at Fresno State and
received very good coaching. As a freshman and sophomore, Carr learned behind Billy Volek
and then redshirted in 1999 so he would be able to start the next two years. In 2000, he
looked like a bust after throwing four picks and seeming to panic in the opener, but he
seemed to learn from that and has shown great improvement ever since.
If Carr continues to take the bull by the horns and improve and then does well in the
Senior Bowl, he might even move into the Houston Texans’ thinking. However, if he
struggles later in the year, he could drop out of the first round.
Illinois QB Kurt Kittner became a starter as a freshman and has
started ever since. Playing in Ron Turner’s pro-style offense has made him a lot more
NFL-ready than most college quarterbacks and will bump him up in the draft.
Kittner has good mechanics and a nice delivery and looks as though he is in charge of
his team and has been well-trained on the finer points of the position. When he gets hot,
he can throw the ball as well as anyone in the country. He generally is a very, very
effective three-step drop passer who looks like he could run an NFL West Coast offense.
Kittner is decisive in his reads, is making better decisions with the ball and really
stands in against the rush. He also has learned the throw the ball away when nothing is
there. However, he is not quite as consistently accurate as teams would like, and he also
has games when he just looks average. While Kittner has a solid arm, it is not a howitzer.
At times he will underthrow the deep ball, and it is hard to tell if this is by design or
because of a lack of great arm strength. He is not a sitting duck in the pocket by any
means, but he is basically a dropback passer who is not going to hurt a defense with his
running very often.
Oregon may have done Joey Harrington a great disservice by promoting
him as a Heisman candidate. Harrington is a very good quarterback with a very good knack
for bringing his team from behind at the end of close games. In fact, in his career, he
led the Ducks to victory six times after they were trailing or tied in the fourth quarter.
However, he is not a superbly gifted quarterback like Michael Vick or a miracle worker
like Doug Flutie.
Harrington is a big, smart, dropback passer who throws well when his release point is
consistent and he is not forcing the ball. However, his mechanics are very erratic
overall, and as a result, so is his accuracy. While he will really hum some passes when he
is throwing the ball off his ear and has the ability to step into his throws and get his
body into them, he also can be all over the place when he starts dropping down and does
not have great arm strength.
While he gets top grades for his competitiveness and classroom smarts, and his coaches
all rave about his learning ability and intangibles, there are times on the field when
Harrington will make very dubious decisions with the ball (as in the Oregon State game in
2000). He also tends to lock on to his primary receiver and at times does not always stay
poised when things start falling apart on him. When he gets pumped up, he tends to get
wild high. Harrington is not a pinpoint passer and will often make his receiver work for
the ball instead of letting him run through it. As is the case with Carr and Kittner,
Harrington can do himself a lot of good if he goes to the Senior Bowl, responds well to
the NFL coaching he gets during the week and plays well in the game.
Stanford QB Randy Fasani has great size and very good athletic
ability, but the former high school All-Am-erican still gets mixed reviews for his play at
quarterback. Because Stanford had so many super-gifted quarterbacks before Chad Hutchinson
and Joe Borchard opted for baseball, Fasani spent much of his early career playing on
special teams and filling in at tight end and inside linebacker before claiming the
starting QB job the past two years, after Todd Husak graduated and Borchard signed a huge
baseball-only contract with the White Sox (Hutchinson signed a baseball-only deal with the
Cardinals earlier).
Fasani has an NFL arm and throws pretty well on the run but is far from a pinpoint
passer from the pocket. He tends to hold the ball low and has some stiffness in his
throwing motion. He tends to blow hot and cold as a passer, but he can run with the ball.
Perhaps the biggest knock on Fasani is with his intangibles. The general feeling is that
he tries to do too much himself and wants too much to revolve around him, which leads to
some poor decisions.
Fasani still has not really emerged as a true team leader on or off the field. While he
can throw the ball well, he does not come close to having the passing potential of
Hutchinson and Borchard. Another big problem for Fasani has been injuries, which cost him
three full games and parts of two others in 2000. Now he is out with a right knee injury
suffered in the Oregon game, which is expected to force him to miss a month of action and
possibly the rest of the season. The injury came at a time when he appeared to be turning
the corner. Before getting hurt, Fasani had a 12-2 TD-interception ratio for the year and
was playing very well in the game against Oregon.
Tulane QB Patrick Ramsey is an up player in a down program who could
spend part of the year watching his team train superbly talented underclassman J.P.
Losman, who was supposed to be the second coming of Troy Aikman when he signed with UCLA a
couple of years ago.
Ramsey is not as mobile as teams would like and has a poor 40-time. However, he is
quicker than his time and has a quick trigger to go with a strong and generally accurate
arm. He has excellent intangibles, does the extras, watches the film and shows great
courage standing in against the rush. He is very similar to former Louisville QB Chris
Redman, but Ramsey is not quite as accurate and may have a little more zip on his
fastball.
After backing up Shaun King as a redshirt freshman, Ramsey took over a team on which
almost everyone — including the head coach — left along with King. As a result,
Ramsey has never had much of a supporting cast around him. However, he has always hung
tough and given his team a chance to win in many of its games against better opponents.
LSU QB Rohan Davey has the size, arm and leadership qualities but has
not been able to stay healthy long enough to establish himself. At times, Davey looks
big-time, and most people feel he, not Josh Booty, would have started this year had Booty
returned, based on Davey’s leadership ability. Davey can be erratic throwing and
tends to hold on to the ball too long, and his lack of experience shows in his play.
David Garrard of East Carolina has to watch his weight since he tends
to balloon to over 250 pounds — too heavy for a 6-1½ quarterback even with a wide
frame. At 240 pounds, Garrard is very hard to knock down and still has decent mobility.
But at 260, he has trouble moving and avoiding the rush. His arm is strong but not always
accurate, and he can unload quickly. The big knock on him in the past has been that he
does not handle late-game pressure really well and rarely plays his best with the game on
the line. However, that may be because he tries to do too much himself.
There are a number of smaller college quarterbacks and lesser-known players who have
enough traits to intrigue the pros, and one or two could really emerge as first-day picks
who go before most of the big-name quarterbacks in the draft.
Cal-Davis has been producing NFL quarterbacks since Ken O’Brien, and while most
are not top picks, they generally are worth looking at. J.T. O’Sullivan
may be the most gifted quarterback since O’Brien, but like many Cal-Davis
quarterbacks, he is very hard to get a read on because the offense maximizes ability and
the caliber of competition is a step slower than the NFL. While O’Sullivan looks very
mobile and athletic on this level and throws the ball well, the question is, will he be
able to escape with his speed on the next level and scramble effectively as he does on
this level. His scrambling often sets up his throwing. The other question is, he is a
wind-up thrower at times, and will that give pro defensive backs too much time to break on
the ball and rushers too much time to put pressure on him.
Nevada’s David Neill had a great freshman year and has been
starting for almost four years, but he has never really built off his first year from a
statistical standpoint. But it should be noted he is playing a much tougher schedule.
Neill has first-round talent from an arm strength-mobility standpoint, but he must answer
pressing concerns about his leadership ability, character and if he’s really willing
to pay the price to become a great quarterback.
Seth Burford of Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo has nice size and good
athletic ability. He is very smart and shows good touch on his throws. However, he is more
fast than quick, does not avoid the rush that well and lacks a quick, compact throwing
motion. He has had to adjust to an option type of offense this year, which won’t help
his NFL development.
Valdosta State’s Dusty Bonner was very productive in his one year
as a starter at Kentucky, and the past two years he has had awesome numbers at Valdosta
State. However, he lacks a big arm, is not very mobile and benefits from a dink-and-dunk
offense.
After transferring from SMU to Sam Houston State, Josh McCown seems to
be coming of age. McCown has excellent size and an overhand throwing motion. However, he
does have a little hitch in his delivery, and he started throwing too many passes off his
back foot after being hit so much at SMU. However, now he is doing a better job of
stepping into his throws and is not holding on to the ball as long.
While Clemson’s Woodrow Dantzler, Northwestern’s Zak
Kustok and Georgia Tech’s George Godsey are Heisman
hopefuls, the general feeling is that Dantzler is a running back playing quarterback, and
Kustok and Godfrey may lack the arm strength and ability to be more than just Jason
Garrett-type backup quarterbacks on the next level, despite their great intangibles. The
same holds true for Texas QB Major Applewhite. North Carolina’s Ronald
Curry is mobile and athletic and has a very strong arm, but he has not come close
to living up to his high school billing and had a poor start to his senior year.
Alabama-Birmingham’s Jeff Aaron is another quarterback with a live
arm but dubious production. Like Curry, he tends to be all over the place with the ball.
Indiana’s Antwaan Randle El is too short to be an NFL quarterback
and too slow to be an NFL receiver, but he could turn out to be another Doug Flutie if a
team leaves him at quarterback. He has uncanny instincts, is a great competitor, has
tremendous run skills, and at times, like in the Wisconsin game, he throws the ball really
well. He’s sort of a wild card and you have to have a plan for him, but in the right
situation, he could surprise a lot of people.
Did you know?
- Curry, not Michael Vick, was the top QB prospect in the country four years ago.
- Borchard got the highest signing bonus ever given to a college baseball player at the
time.
- The Yankees gave Henson a $17 million package to drop college football and become a
full-time baseball player.
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