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Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - pefloresjr - 12-21-2013

(12-20-2013, 11:04 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=9207.msg79187#msg79187 date=1387605586]
Could you explain what's wrong with his mechanics, and how it affects his performance on the field?

Yeah, and be specific -- like, actual plays where you think his mechanics have hurt him. Typical criticisms of Hogan's mechanics are practically at Underpants Gnomes level of causality:

1. Hogan's mechanics are awful.
2. ?.?.?
3. Profit! (for the other team)

EDIT: the other issue is whether it's worth investing the time in improving his mechanics. Let's say your observation is that better QBs typically have better mechanics. Stipulating that for the sake of argument -- though it seems to me we've had some very successful QBs with, ah, nonstandard throwing motions -- it doesn't show that the best path for improvement for a college QB with poor mechanics is to work on mechanics. At a certain point your muscle memory becomes set, really. Every year it seems like there's a college QB who goes to work with some private QB coach, who allegedly works on his mechanics -- it was Tim Tebow once; it was also Collin Klein and Landry Jones; and I'm sure it was others -- and it seems like these differences are rarely visually apparent, and that they rarely deliver on-field or NFL draft results.
[/quote]

I always felt that Tedford's focus on his weird mechanics screwed up many of his quarterbacks.  It made them too self conscious like golfers who are thinking too much about their swing.  Unless there is a critical flaw, it may be more productive to work on reads and progressions. 

Cheers,
Pete F.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - Extra Point - 12-21-2013

(12-20-2013, 10:45 PM)DC link Wrote:I don't see Pritchard improving Hogan's throwing mechanics however.

What are you basing this statement on?

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - TriangleTree - 12-21-2013

(12-20-2013, 10:59 PM)stupac2 link Wrote:[quote author=DC link=topic=9207.msg79186#msg79186 date=1387605387]I don't think it is outsized.

Could you explain what's wrong with his mechanics, and how it affects his performance on the field?
[/quote]

What's wrong is that it takes away from the exquisite enjoyment of watching a well thrown ball finding it's target, one of the nicest things to watch in all of sports.

I must admit that I have associated some of his erratic throws with that weird arm motion of his, but then he will prove me wrong and throw a perfectly timed and fairly tight spiralled ball with the same approach.

I suppose there is a legitimate question as to whether you can actually achieve the same flight/speed/consistency/etc with that alternative motion, and if that can hurt his NFL prospects (if so, perhaps Stanford owes him some investment on that?), but I'm plenty convinced it is more than enough to do what it takes at the college level. Bottom line, when KH is on and the rest of the team plays at its norm, this is arguably the best team in divI football.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - fullmetal - 12-21-2013

I still think Hogan's slow windup is a major factor in his confidence and decision-making.  If it takes an extra half-second to get the ball to your receiver, you have to be watching the game an additional half-second ahead of however far you have to anticipate already.  There's no chance he'll successfully change the way he throws now though, so that's that.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - stupac2 - 12-21-2013

(12-21-2013, 02:21 AM)fullmetal link Wrote:I still think Hogan's slow windup is a major factor in his confidence and decision-making.  If it takes an extra half-second to get the ball to your receiver, you have to be watching the game an additional half-second ahead of however far you have to anticipate already.  There's no chance he'll successfully change the way he throws now though, so that's that.

The thing is that I've never actually seen an evidence that his windup DOES take longer. It's just like the "staring down receivers" meme that was floating around, I've never seen any actual evidence presented that this actually happens in actual games. Just a bunch of assertions. And since I'm a relative novice at this sort of thing, I was really hoping someone could actually back up these assertions with actual evidence.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - Extra Point - 12-21-2013

(12-21-2013, 02:21 AM)fullmetal link Wrote:There's no chance he'll successfully change the way he throws now though, so that's that.

John Elway had a long wind up in his throw initially and later acquired a much quicker release. I don't see why any quarterback couldn't learn to do this with practice and guidance. I don't see why Prichard, Shaw, and others couldn't help in this regard either. I also think that Hogan has spent a lot time in the off season developing his skills. This is especially evident in his long throws.

I really have to scratch my head with some of the comments in this thread. I believe that the coaching staff is competent and will do what ever is necessary for player development. And, I believe that that most of the players work all year long to improve their skills. If this wasn't the case, Stanford would not be in the Rose Bowl.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - fullmetal - 12-21-2013

stupac2, it's one of those economy of motion things I notice.  As a sometime-high-level fast-twitch sport enthusiast, fractions of a second matter to me, and when I see Hogan throwing a football more like a baseball pitcher than a football quarterback, it makes me wonder.  And yes, Hogan used to lock down his receivers visually often.  Getting better.

Extra Point, someone referenced golf swings.  That's pretty much correct--Hogan's got this library of muscle memory built up since he started playing football about throwing.  Maybe he's altered his throwing motion before in the past, but I wouldn't go trying to change things now.  When you're under pressure and rolling out, the last thing you want to do is second-guess your body while trying to read a defense and anticipate a receiver being open.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - Sea Loon - 12-21-2013

I think every Stanford QB for the near future gets compared against Andrew Luck, fair or not, consciously or not, in terms of mechanics, decision-making, and week-to-week consistency. I know I do it, and I also know it's logically unfair because of how good Luck was in those respects.

Yes, like others, I also wish that Hogan's mechanics looked more aesthetically pleasing. But two Rose Bowls are also aesthetically pleasing, and Hogan, mechanics and all, objectively put up a top-20 QB year by QBR. Won't stop me from hoping for more from him, or for Tavita to make him better, but what he has done in his first two years is pretty select company.



Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - terry - 12-21-2013

To me, what matters is whether Hogan is making the plays he's supposed to make. If he makes the plays, he doesn't get extra style points for having a pretty throwing motion.

Hogan's performance has been good, better than many people seem to recognize.

- Hogan ranks 19th in the nation in pass efficiency rating at 154.1.

- Hogan ranks 12th in the nation in yards per attempt at 9.0.

- Hogan ranks 13th in the nation in adjusted QBR at 80.8.

Statistically, Hogan is a top 20 quarterback.

A year ago, the big question about Hogan was his perceived lack of accuracy in throwing the deep pass. He had a high completion percentage last season, but was averaging just 10.1 yards per completion, which is low.

This year, Hogan has developed into a deep passing threat. I saw a graphic on TV during the Arizona State game that said Hogan has the 3rd highest completion percentage in the nation on passes longer than 25 yards. (I think the top 2 were Johnny Manziel and Tajh Boyd.) Hogan has raised his yards per completion to 14.6 this year, which is a remarkable improvement. As a result, Stanford now has a big-play passing threat.

Hogan appears to be developing in reading defenses and changing the play at the line of scrimmage. Sometimes he even changes the play twice, which seems pretty sophisticated to me.

Of course, Hogan does not complete every pass or make every play. But no quarterback does. He has made some bad decisions leading to interceptions or sacks. I'd like to see those things improve. And I'd like to see him make quicker reads.

To me, those are the most important considerations. His throwing motion really doesn't seem all that important to me.


Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - FarmBoy - 12-21-2013

I'm no QB guru, but I also am of the opinion that Hogan's long wind up and broad motion make it easier for defensive players to react/anticipate and make his throw probably more erratic on average. Clearly, he's doing something right, but I think that if he wants to be a pro-QB, he needs a faster and tighter throwing motion. I see no reason he can't work on that in the off season and I wouldn't be surprised if he received coaching outside of the Stanford provided staff. A lot of QBs get private sessions from guys like George Whitfield to improve on mechanics and specific areas.

Living well is the best revenge, so they say. Hogan can respond to all of the critics who don't place him in the top half of the Pac12 by becoming one of the few QBs to win back to back Rose Bowls.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - fullmetal - 12-21-2013

If Hogan doesn't throw another floating INT, I'll not say another word.  But if he keeps floating passes and throwing interceptions, I'll remain worried.  At the start of this season, I was worried most every time he threw, but it's been getting better.  The deep throw to Cajuste and TD throw to Montgomery in the Pac-12 champ game did a lot to bolster my confidence in Hogan.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - stupac2 - 12-22-2013

(12-21-2013, 01:07 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:If Hogan doesn't throw another floating INT, I'll not say another word.  But if he keeps floating passes and throwing interceptions, I'll remain worried.  At the start of this season, I was worried most every time he threw, but it's been getting better.  The deep throw to Cajuste and TD throw to Montgomery in the Pac-12 champ game did a lot to bolster my confidence in Hogan.

The thing is that I think you're just begging the question. HOW do Hogan's mechanics actually lead to problems? Okay, he throws interceptions sometimes, but, uh, so does every QB on earth. Some of his passes float on him? That can happen to anyone too, maybe his grip was off or something. But even so, how do you explain that he's NUMBER THREE IN THE COUNTRY on deep passes if he has some kind of horrible mechanical flaw? And deep passes are the ones where "staring down receivers" really matters, since it gives a deep safety more time to react (admittedly we may not be facing deep safeties if they bite on play action, but I still think you'd see worse numbers if these things are problems).

Basically what I don't understand about these mechanics/staring down memes is twofold:

1) No one has ever actually demonstrated that, in fact, does these things, other than "I seen it". Well, great, want to post a gif or youtube clip that shows what you're talking about?
2) No one has ever actually shown that these things lead to inferior results. This is especially annoying in light of terry's post above showing that Hogan is actually a really good QB! Are people saying that he'd be a top-3 QB if he improved these things? Or are people just kvetching because Hogan isn't Luck?

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - washingtonismoney - 12-22-2013

+1 for stupac's correct usage of "begging the quetion." Well done, sir.

Just to add here: the typical reasoning I've heard behind why an elongated windup is bad is that -- a) it gives DBs more time to break on the ball and b) it gives DL more time to deflect the ball at the line. OK, sounds reasonable in general. But this rarely seems to happen with Hogan. I believe Hogan's only had one ball deflected at the line that I can recall (against ASU). And while I haven't charted it, Hogan's incomplete passes are rarely are the cause of DB action and more often because he just missed.

Let's use a decent sample here, since I'm not going to chart all of Hogan's incomplete passes. Here's every ESPN highlight of Hogan getting picked off: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9741560
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9779364
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9849363
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9990406
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9990532


OK, of those maybe the UW INT was the result of a windup issue (the DB breaks on the ball), but I'd argue that's more of a: 1) accuracy issue and 2) decision-making issue. Most of the picks, I'd say, are rooted in poor decision-making first, though the WSU pick would've been a TD with a more accurate, on-time throw. At any rate, if Hogan's throwing mechanics are at issue in any of these picks, I don't see it.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - Extra Point - 12-22-2013

I think that a slower release and staring down receivers are a bigger issue on short and medium range passes. Neither matters much when a corner back has to catch up to a receiver in man to man coverage. This happens a lot when a secondary bites on play action passes. If less attention has been paid to these issues, it may simply be that Stanford's offensive philosophy makes them a lower priority.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - DC - 12-22-2013

See the video below. Qb1 (video): Nice quick release, with good wrist action; vs. Qb2 (Hogan, video in your mind): the tendency to heave the ball, partially from the heel of his hand.  Qb1 (video): Nice higher trajectory on the ball which helps give added touch and accuracy, and give the receiver more chance to adjust to the ball; vs. Qb2 (Hogan, video in your mind): the less forgiving, flatter line drives, in which the timing is less forgiving and has to be closer to perfect. Example: Hogan's bullet pass way over the head of a wide-open Toilolo in the end zone near the end of the 2012 Rose Bowl, but particularly applicable to longer throws as well. Granted the different level of competition and stage of development, but there is no way to equalize all the variables right now.

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AoFG.2tPDvsg.zKI23NdipObvZx4?p=Keller+Chryst+highlights&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-900

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - stupac2 - 12-22-2013

(12-22-2013, 10:13 PM)DC link Wrote:Qb2 (Hogan, video in your mind): the less forgiving, flatter line drives, in which the timing is less forgiving and has to be closer to perfect. Example: Hogan's bullet pass way over the head of a wide-open Toilolo in the end zone near the end of the 2012 Rose Bowl, but particularly applicable to longer throws as well. Granted the different level of competition and stage of development, but there is no way to equalize all the variables right now.

If this is the case, why is Hogan the #3 QB in the country at throwing the deep ball? That's the thing that I really don't get with all of this, if Hogan's mechanics make him particularly bad at these things, then why is he so good at them?

Or are you saying that you expect Chryst to come in and be one of the best QBs in the nation right away? Because that seems implausible to me.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - washingtonismoney - 12-22-2013

I think DC's commentary was more applicable last year -- in which Hogan was much better driving the ball than he was putting touch on it -- than this year, which (at least on deep throws) has featured a greater variety of types of throws.

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - DC - 12-23-2013

Hogan is a top 20 QB.  He is good, but not elite.  He and we have an elite OL and defense. 

If you took away the padded stats against cal, the statistical argument loses some strength. Stats can be misleading.  For example, Steve Dils led the nation in passing, but Bill Walsh passed on him in the draft. He was good with the bullet down the middle, but relatively weak in hitting out routes, and never took off as a pro. I think we have had many QBs over the years better than Hogan is now as a passer, but they never had the supporting staff we have now.  I hardly consider him the #3 QB passer or the #3 QB in the country.

Hey, even Andrew Luck was reputed to have a "funky" throwing motion before he came to Stanford. Poor mechanics can hold one back, foster inconsistency, and lower one's ceiling, but one can still be good.  Has Todd Husak commented on Hogan's relatively weak mechanics this year (some posts have suggested he has)?     

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - fullmetal - 12-23-2013

Look stupac2, I get that you want to stand up for your guy or whatever, but if you'd read my posts, you see where I make the link from mechanics to on-field performance.  Just because you don't think it's there doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  Watch an episode of Sports Science some time.  Or take a high-level coaching certification class sometime in a sport where fundamental mechanics matter.

Hogan benefits from good WR speed and defensive overcommitment to stopping the run.  I fully admit, I need some concrete stats to back this up, but I seem to remember the successful deep throws (however you want to define it--20+ yds from LOS?) coming from under center, single back formations that have Tyler Gaffney and OL roadgraders threatening up front.  (Anyone want to chart the successful deep throws?)

Anyway, I see washingtonmoney is testing me--the UCLA and second USC videos are not directly relevant to the issue at hand.  Against UCLA, the receiver did not secure the ball and caused a ricochet INT.  The second USC video was a boneheaded "throwaway" ball while being sacked that did not get thrown out of bounds.  In fact Hogan may have thought he had a shot at a completion...which he did, just to a player wearing a Trojan helmet.

All those traumatic plays are coming from the 4 wide, single back shotgun set.  Maybe we need to stop running those plays...ugh.

I've unfairly caused some tunnel vision regarding where I think mechanics matters--it's not just the INTs, it's all the throws.  As others have pointed out, his preferred semi-sidearm release means he has to heave the ball downfield on deep throws (I think of it as lofting), and I swear it looks exactly like that, especially when the throws sail over his receivers.  Confirmation bias perhaps, but anyone is free to assemble stats to the contrary. 

When it comes to throwing behind his receivers, I honestly think Hogan doesn't realize how long it takes for him to throw, and maybe the extra time taken to loop around his windup means the receiver is that much further ahead of where Hogan is throwing to when the ball gets there.  All those video clips really make me think he looks like a pitcher on the mound.

stupac2: Chryst needs to learn the playbook--he won't get the benefit of this year's top-tier defense, so a good comparison is impossible.

I get that he's our guy (the guy, no controversy), but watch some other QBs in action some time.  As a some-time fast-twitch sport player, I can tell you that when you have to hit a window of opportunity, the time taken between recognizing the window and delivering the ball there is crucial.  How you deliver the ball impacts whether the ball's arrival time and location are what you were thinking they would be...

Re: Tavita the new QB/WR coach - stupac2 - 12-23-2013

(12-23-2013, 01:48 AM)fullmetal link Wrote:Look stupac2, I get that you want to stand up for your guy or whatever, but if you'd read my posts, you see where I make the link from mechanics to on-field performance.  Just because you don't think it's there doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  Watch an episode of Sports Science some time.  Or take a high-level coaching certification class sometime in a sport where fundamental mechanics matter.

You completely misunderstand me. What I'm saying, and what I've been saying repeatedly, is that I don't know enough about this to be able to come to these conclusions myself. But I also don't trust people on message forums to be able to do it either (Dunning-Kruger, etc). I am approaching this issue as a skeptic, and asking you doubters to make your case, which so far you have been completely and utterly unable to do. If you want me to trust you as a QB coach, well, what's your resume? If you're not going to say "Hogan's release takes X seconds, average for NFL quarterbacks is Y, etc etc etc", then I need to be given a reason for why I should trust your judgments on these things. All you guys are doing is saying over and over and over "I think his mechanics are bad". Well, bully for you, but unless you prove your case in some way that's actually convincing, I'm not going to buy it. And you especially need to explain why Hogan is managing to succeed despite his throwing mechanics, something that, as far as I can tell, none of the detractors have addressed whatsoever.

Mentioning Sports Science is great, because that's what I want you to do. You're trying to make a convincing case that his mechanics are loopy, go all Sports Science on it. Make a case. Convince me. Because so far you just haven't. You say you've made the connection before, but I haven't seen anything that's even close to doing it, because no one has even started to prove that Hogan's mechanics are, in fact, weird. How long does his windup take, and how does that compare to other high-level QBs?

Last night I went and watched some clips of Hogan throwing and it really didn't seem to take very long to me (at least compared to someone like Tim Tebow), but I'm just a layman, I don't know if there are things you want to watch for specifically, and I didn't start counting frames to time it. That's what I'm looking for, and that's what you're failing to present.

I found this website that shows 4 key parts of a QB's throw, and looking at a Hogan highlight from this year it looks to me like he's doing all of them. But maybe I'm wrong, it's hard to tell.


As an aside, who doesn't sometimes play fast-twitch sports?