Dwayne Haskins receivers killed him with drops in the first half vs Penn St. Pinpoint throws into incredible spots that were flat out dropped. However, his weaknesses as a young and undeveloped prospect were also exposed, as they were against TCU.
Where Haskins struggles is when he's forced off his mark and has to move. He hasn't developed this part of his game yet. His mechanics break down and his footwork is shoddy when he has to move in the pocket. His footwork is really not great in general to be honest, which makes the phenomenal accuracy he's able to throw with all the more impressive. Has a bad habit of not stepping into his throws after he gets pressured a few times. Secondly, he has to learn to reset his feet to throw when he's forced to move off his mark because of pressure. You have to understand that you're going to take some shots sometimes when you do this, but it's just part of what it takes to play the position at an elite level.
Furthermore, he had a play or two where he had a receiver running wide open down the seam but wouldn't hang in there after he was made uncomfortable.
They basically screened Penn St. to death in the 2nd half to come back and win. Most of those yards Haskins accumulated we're all a credit to RAC by the receivers and backs.
Haskins is an extremely talented young QB with rare natural accuracy and touch. And when I say accuracy - I mean accuracy. Sees the entire field easily for such an inexperienced quarterback. But still has a lot of development ahead of him as he gains experience. Once he gets his footwork ironed out, along with working on resetting his feet, he'll become a much more consistently dominant performer.
Should all come in time, but I don't expect him to declare for the draft. He's not ready for that. Lots of growth that needs to happen first. I'm going to drop him behind Justin Herbert as an NFL prospect, as Herbert has improved significantly from last season, and continues to fill in the blanks that I felt he had in regards to earning a top 20 grade as a prospect. Although not perfect himself, he's the best QB prospect in this draft.
I just got round to watching this game.
I think you nailed it.
I've seen some other people go after Haskins for his performance in this game and I think your post has some nuance to it that they don't have that I really appreciate.
He didn't have a bad game by any means. When you say that knocking him off his spot exposes some under-developed footwork, not being patient enough to re-set before heaving it out there again, that's all true regardless of where the ball went, why it went there, and why it wasn't caught. It's about the details, not the results, not the circumstances, etc.
I actually found this game to be very useful in getting a feel for Dwayne Haskins the quarterback.
It could not be more obvious how much of a spot/anticipation thrower he is. Some NFL guys are going to love that.
It's all over the place. He throws incomplete to his right in the 2nd quarter, why? Because he was clearly expecting his wide receiver to run the slant on a slant/flat concept, and instead his receiver ran curl/flat.
Probably a play later, with quick timing, he's clicking off the defensive read and throwing the RB flare underneath the defense. It ends up well covered, why? Because the defensive end read the flare and fanned out, bumped and re-routed the running back, and Haskins just clicked over and threw it to an exact spot.
A little after, you could probably put a bull's eye on the sideline right at the sticks, where he tried to throw a deep out (basically the exact spot you see the coaches try and get every quarterback at the Combine to throw to, telling them to forget about the wide receiver, putting the onus on the receiver to get there on time).
On 3rd & 3, the slot corner comes in on a blitz and he throws the receiver on the slant but the receiver tries to sit it down a little at the sticks. Incomplete, looks inaccurate. At least one deep ball on a 3rd & 11 into the end zone looks overthrown except I bet you anything if you'd put a barrel in the back of the end zone right in the "my guy gets it or nobody does" spot...ball drops right into it.
There was a post-corner route he threw that nearly got intercepted. Why? Because the receiver got grabbed and bear-hugged, before he could break to the outside. You realize, Haskins probably threw that football with pinpoint accuracy, but the receiver just didn't get there because of the flagged DPI.
I've seen quarterbacks in the past that use their eyes the way Dwayne Haskins does to manipulate the coverage, and then they click over to their intended target and throw kind of blind. I recall Brandon Silvers of Troy doing that, and it getting him into some trouble with interceptions.
I don't get the feeling Haskins is getting into trouble that way because I think he IS seeing the defense, correctly anticipating the coverage, seeing the defenders. He doesn't throw interceptions. But he's such an anticipation guy, he's not necessarily seeing the receiver get open and THEN throwing it.
There was another interesting moment that I thought was revealing about the acuity with which he sees the field, and the way he makes decisions. It was a 3rd & 8 and the defense read pre-snap like it could have been zone. But then part-way thru his progressions you could tell that he saw two things happen and he reacted immediately to them. One was the defensive backs started to turn their backs to him in man coverage, and the other was a wide open gap ripped open on the left side of the line. No hesitation there, he tried to step up and out through the big hole in the line to try and scramble for the first down. But a Penn State DL did a great job reacting to it and chasing him out there, and there was a player in the secondary that was spying on him that did a good job cleaning it up.
Tell you what though. Down 26-14 with 8 minutes to go, the way he locked in and executed during a day when a lot was going wrong, including making a tough scramble-and-throw that resulted in one of the two comeback touchdowns...pretty impressive.