I would not say that I'm *done* with QB Jordan Love of Utah State, because reality is the evaluation is ongoing.
But I've seen enough to be excited about him, as well as conflicted.
The background is tragic, but stable, from what I can tell. His mother and father were both in law enforcement, and he has multiple siblings. But one day the father dropped Jordan's sister to join their mother watching Jordan at a basketball tournament, said he had to run home to get something he forgot, and then shot himself. He'd been battling depression and struggling to get his medications right. His father was the most involved in Jordan's choice to play football, particularly the quarterback position, so you can surmise Jordan has a pretty strong emotional attachment to the game.
Yet for all that, if you've been watching the games, you know that he is particularly famous for his stoicism and "cool head" under pressure. That's one of the consistent selling points people have about him. Coaches talk about how in the locker room he's got a lot of swagger that his teammates respond to, but you can't tell during the game.
Another of the selling points I think is the way he manages the offense. When your team scores 47 points per game, you're obviously doing something right. Coaches repeatedly say in multiple pre-game production meetings that they give Love a range of plays to choose from, or they only give him a play call as a suggestion, and he can actually call whatever he wants.
The way he manages a game, I think, is a selling point. They do a lot of HUNH but in particular a lot of variations of their tempo. They will opportunistically increase the tempo when they catch the defense subbing even though the offense didn't, and have succeeded in drawing penalties because of it. He's lost two games this year, both on the road against ranked teams, and he gamed for a finish in one of them. The Boise game got away from them on the infamous blue field, even though his personal statistics and performance were pretty good. He came from behind and beat Colorado State on the road the week before Boise.
He had a HELL of a game to start the year against Michigan State in their stadium, regardless of what the statistics say. He led the offense to score what could very well have been the game-winning touchdown with 5 minutes to go, but the MSU offense ran all the way up the field and scored an answering touchdown. Even so, with under 2 minutes to go, Love had driven into Spartan territory when the ball was unfortunately tipped at the line of scrimmage by a blitzing linebacker, and then picked off.
He's 6'4" and listed 225 lbs though that's not really true. He originally got there like 180 lbs so you know he's been trying to get it up and I doubt very much he's gotten to 225 lbs. Wouldn't be shocked if the 6'4" and 225 lbs listing turns more into 6'3"and 215 lbs.
His movement skills and feet are perfect for that size. He's really athletic, dual threat guy coming out of high school. Some of his coaches had wanted him at wide receiver but his dad helped convince him to insist on staying at quarterback. He plays the game like an athlete, as a general quality. He will have running back screens that you'd normally skip over, but he makes them look especially athletic, like you want to actually write it up because you saw a quality there that looks attractive, that explosive stepping ability of his. He blocks. Like, legit blocks, on end-arounds. I've even seen him pancake a defensive end. It's part of how he moves and shows strength like an athlete.
He can make some people miss and run for yardage, but he doesn't do it as often as you'd think, and what I like is he's descriptively CONSERVATIVE about the hits he allows on his body. It's noticeable immediately. You can see it. He will give himself up, he will go out of bounds, UNTIL it's important, toward the end of the game. Then all the sudden he's John Elway helicoptering toward the end zone to beat the Packers in Super Bowl XXXII. It may seem like a small thing, but this is reflective of pro temperament and decision-making. It's something I keep noticing in guys that ends up being a surprisingly good indicator of their pro temperament. RG3's tendency to act like Hercules was a harbinger of what was to come, whereas Russell Wilson's also being very, very conservative and discrete about what contact he took, ended up being a factor in his ascendance to elite levels.
Love has very active feet back there, not at all like these dead-foots you see elsewhere. He clearly doesn't do as well with middle pressure. Nobody does.
The throwing skills are a big selling point, obviously. Big hands, great control over the football. Beautiful over top delivery, plenty quick, good leverage. He has the look of a very talented thrower. His accuracy probably stands out to me more than his velocity, which I'll get to in a moment. Lots of bang-bang slants, back shoulders, fades, seams, stuff you've really got to nail from an accuracy standpoint in order to eat. Deep throwing is definitely a plus for him, from a pure accuracy standpoint. He drops the ball in the bucket on those vertical throws with alarming consistency.
Continuing with the throwing, he's fairly consistent about his ability to move around and throw on the run. Sometimes he seeks it, but not so much that you'd accuse him of throwing off his back foot or off-balance unnecessarily. I've not sensed limitations on where he'll throw or where he'll look when he's off his spot, as some quarterbacks sort of limit their range based on what they're doing. He's not afraid to try and hit guys deep while rolling left or right, not afraid of the throwback.
I have been really impressed with how he handles the blitz, in particular. That's very promising because obviously in the NFL young quarterbacks are going to be blitzed a lot. Dwayne Haskins for example will be blitzed relentlessly to see if he can handle it. Love consistently ID's the blitz and knows what slants he can hit behind certain blitzes, gets the ball there with perfect accuracy. Again the accuracy may be the most glaringly attractive trait on him so I just want to reiterate that because it consistently helps him beat the blitz. Same is true for certain back shoulders or seam throws when he knows there won't be a safety involved, against the blitz. He has been sacked eight times this year. That's a reflection of how good he is at handling the blitz, among other things.
The last thing is the last thing and it's the most conflicted thing for me. Despite getting hold of a throw pretty early on in the velocity measurement that suggests he's got a pro arm, a lot of his other measurements came out sub-standard. There were definitely more that came out in that 50-52 mph range, including some at about 100 feet. I've also seen him keep the velocity up around 44-45 mph at closer to 140 feet, which is very good. From a pure velocity standpoint even when you're doing the trend line averages, I'd say you're coming out slightly on top of Dwayne Haskins, who has a borderline arm.
But the simple fact of the matter is, not unlike QBs in some of these other Air Raid systems, including Patrick Mahomes himself back when he was at TTU, even on throws where these guys should be squeezing the football, they're not. I mean they are, but they're not. They're not throwing with touch, but they're not cranking it up to 11 either. You can see it in the body language. They're not really driving it the way they'll be asked to do more consistently in the pros.
Patrick Mahomes has been asked to drive the football more. He warms up an inordinate amount before the games, and then that's what he does, and he's still able to be accurate and dangerous while doing it. Could you have known how gifted a thrower he was before he came out? Yes, but only if you paid attention to the way the player threw and the confidence he had in certain situations. His arm strength was only going to generally show up on velocity graphs as being "in range". Not unlike Aaron Rodgers at Cal, to be honest.
With Jordan Love, that's a bit of the feeling you get. I'm just reluctant to be declarative about it because I often kill a guy like Will Grier or Daniel Jones for velocities that I see Jordan Love, Patrick Mahomes, or Aaron Rodgers throw as well, at times, when they're only going about 90%. I saw Love ease out a 156 foot throw at a speed that would be about average for Daniel Jones at that distance, except when you looked at Love's body language, he looked like he was throwing an end zone fade. So there's definitely something subjective in the evaluation. It's not all just numbers.
One indicator that we're not often seeing what he actually has in the tank that way is the kind of throws where you see him pop into that 50-52 mph range, out routes and comebacks. Throws to the outside. Sometimes slants, too.
That leads to the overall feel I get with him, which again, is conflicted. If you look at his body, his muscle tone, his movements, the spin on the football, the mechanics, everything screams to you that you're looking at something that could be beautiful, but is currently UNDER-COOKED. His arm itself, his throwing power, his spin, is all still clearly in the growing phase. He JUST turned 20 years old last month. You don't want to spoil something that could be amazing.
Think about the EXPLOSION you've seen in his play from 2017 to 2018. All levels, just an incredible jump in his performance, even forgetting statistics. Now imagine what could happen with another year of growth.
But at the same time, he just lost his head coach (an offensive guy that certainly brings things to the table that way), he just lost his offensive coordinator (another brilliant up and coming offensive mind), and he's about to lose 22 seniors to graduation.
That just...SUCKS. It reminds me of what happened to Josh Allen between 2016 and 2017, which I think cost Allen draft position, league standing, NFL fan standing, and even cost him mightily with his own fan base, who are already sensitive to mistakes he makes because the 2017 season convinced them all that he sucks.
I don't want that to happen to Jordan Love. I don't want him to start developing bad habits because his new coaches start asking different things of him and there's friction, or his offense starts getting overwhelmed because the talent has eroded. If Darwin Thompson comes out early then Jordan Love will have lost his top FOUR pass catchers, not to mention his top running threat, his offensive coordinator/QB coach, and his head coach.
