Connor Halliday is the opposite of some of those previous Mike Leach quarterbacks. He'd be a better prospect for the NFL Draft if he'd never met Mike Leach.
Halliday broke onto the scene in a huge way playing in Paul Wulff's system. Wulff later went on to be a high ranking offensive consultant for Jim Harbaugh's 49ers, then Harbaugh placed him on his best friend Willie Taggart's staff at South Florida to be the offensive coordinator of a pro style offense. Willie recently fired him and is installing a college spread.
Back in 2011, Halliday was just a freshman. He got some time at the beginning of the year against Idaho State and UNLV, was 11 of 19 for 177 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT. But then he got tossed to the wolves against Arizona State when Marshall Lobbestael got hurt. So in comes this freshman against what was at the time one of the best defenses in the country and he goes 27 of 36 for 494 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs. And remember this was not Mike Leach's offense back then. This is Paul Wulff who has been in the NFL, runs NFL style offense. And if you watch that game it's not just making throws, it's how Halliday handled pressure and executed. Just so impressive.
The following week he played against Utah and had a very freshman game. He threw two impressive TDs but he also threw 4 picks. As I recall, I know because I looked at his work back then even when he was just a freshman, a couple of the picks weren't necessarily his fault. Either way what he did in that game that was so impressive was he went out and played in a BLIZZARD as a freshman, and right at the beginning of the 2nd half he takes an absolutely vicious hit right to the mid-section as he's delivering the football, and this hit lacerated his liver. Very serious injury and he could have died if they hadn't discovered it in time. So he played the rest of that half and overtime in a blizzard quite literally dying, and what does he do? He leads a 4th quarter comeback from behind 17-27 to bring the game into overtime. But in the overtime segment after the break the kid LOOKED like he was dying. He was struggling. Rushed to the hospital after the game. Injury really impacted his ability to battle Jeff Tuel and learn Leach's offense in 2012.
So this is what he was as a freshman before he ever met Mike Leach, playing in Wulff's offense...59 of 103 for 961 yards, 9 TD and 4 INT, dicing up top defenses, dealing with pressure and making throws anyway, keeping his team in games during blizzard conditions while literally dying.
But then Mike Leach shows up, installs his system for which Halliday was never really an ideal fit, and suddenly Halliday is just another Leach quarterback. That and the way his 2014 season ended, tough breaks for the kid. I like that he was so angry after he hurt his leg. I like that he was venting about how he's worked his whole life for one goal to get into the NFL and he's just shy of that goal and it all goes up in smoke. This is what Connor Halliday wants, being an NFL quarterback. He's certainly not backward looking to his glory days with Mike Leach in that poorly coached system on a poorly coached team that accomplished virtually nothing despite Halliday's statistics and performance.
I think Dennis Hickey will be reminded of Mike Glennon, and I think he's secretly projecting what Halliday would have been had he never met Mike Leach.
