[msqueri]

He has been recognized as a superlative QB mentor since he was in college. One of the most important influences on Luck, Hogan, Costello, Mills, and McKee. Even the QBs who didn’t pan out performed middle of the road for what would be expected from their profile at the toughest position (see above references to Burns, and then the combo of one year with Pritchard and two with Taylor had Daniels playing better than his profile would have predicted). His resume is very good, and personally I think he gets bonus points for mentoring QBs who had to try to perform brain surgery on the field due to Shaw’s insecurities and general offensive cosplaying.

Having said these nice things, since Pritchard is one of the top easy button possibilities for our head coach job I feel like I have to say I would be livid if we went that route.

[msqueri]

He has been recognized as a superlative QB mentor since he was in college. One of the most important influences on Luck, Hogan, Costello, Mills, and McKee. Even the QBs who didn’t pan out performed middle of the road for what would be expected from their profile at the toughest position (see above references to Burns, and then the combo of one year with Pritchard and two with Taylor had Daniels playing better than his profile would have predicted). His resume is very good, and personally I think he gets bonus points for mentoring QBs who had to try to perform brain surgery on the field due to Shaw’s insecurities and general offensive cosplaying.

Having said these nice things, since Pritchard is one of the top easy button possibilities for our head coach job I feel like I have to say I would be livid if we went that route.

[Goose]

I think Tavita Pritchard and Troy Taylor have quite good QB development resumes. What I think happened is that Shaw was not a good offensive coach and made life more difficult for QBs than it needed to be at the college level and Taylor didn’t have much to work with.

I am not so sure about Troy Taylor's QB development resume. Indeed he had a great one at Eastern Washington in Gage Gubrud. Taylor also called the plays. The qualifier is that Eastern Washington was already a very successful program with a definite "personality". How much of Gubrud's development was TT and how much was the environment he was in and the absolutely stellar receivers he had is IMO hard to know. The subsequent faceplant by TT at Utah make me wonder. When TT was hired I raised that as a question, but I was willing to see what TT could accomplish at Stanford. IMO the fact TT was eventually characterized as an "equal opportunity asshole" might shed some light on his Utah situation.
 
TT certainly was not a very successful QB coach in his two year stint at that position at Kal. Unfortunately, the same environment questions apply to this stint but in the opposite direction. During TT's stint at Folsom high school TT had Jake Browning, who he coached from the 5th grade until he graduated from high school. Great QB. TT undoubtedly had something to do with it. However, there was a lot of natural ability present. How does one weight it?
 
The above is all Wikipedia. What I do know is that TT never was able to get Daniels or any other Stanford QB to complete a high percentage of passes in the flat. They sailed or tunneled. IMO that all by itself calls into question how "good" a QB coach TT was. That is a very low bar to teach a guy that has the physical abilities of Daniels. He doesn't need to "read" the coverage or throw the ball a long way. Just get it there. In general, neither he nor his backups could.
 
What am I missing?

[Goose]

I think Tavita Pritchard and Troy Taylor have quite good QB development resumes. What I think happened is that Shaw was not a good offensive coach and made life more difficult for QBs than it needed to be at the college level and Taylor didn’t have much to work with.

I am not so sure about Troy Taylor's QB development resume. Indeed he had a great one at Eastern Washington in Gage Gubrud. Taylor also called the plays. The qualifier is that Eastern Washington was already a very successful program with a definite "personality". How much of Gubrud's development was TT and how much was the environment he was in and the absolutely stellar receivers he had is IMO hard to know. The subsequent faceplant by TT at Utah make me wonder. When TT was hired I raised that as a question, but I was willing to see what TT could accomplish at Stanford. IMO the fact TT was eventually characterized as an "equal opportunity asshole" might shed some light on his Utah situation.
 
TT certainly was not a very successful QB coach in his two year stint at that position at Kal. Unfortunately, the same environment questions apply to this stint but in the opposite direction. During TT's stint at Folsom high school TT had Jake Browning, who he coached from the 5th grade until he graduated from high school. Great QB. TT undoubtedly had something to do with it. However, there was a lot of natural ability present. How does one weight it?
 
The above is all Wikipedia. What I do know is that TT never was able to get Daniels or any other Stanford QB to complete a high percentage of passes in the flat. They sailed or tunneled. IMO that all by itself calls into question how "good" a QB coach TT was. That is a very low bar to teach a guy that has the physical abilities of Daniels. He doesn't need to "read" the coverage or throw the ball a long way. Just get it there. In general, neither he nor his backups could.
 
What am I missing?

[msqueri]

---

I think Tavita Pritchard and Troy Taylor have quite good QB development resumes. What I think happened is that Shaw was not a good offensive coach and made life more difficult for QBs than it needed to be at the college level and Taylor didn’t have much to work with.

I am not so sure about Troy Taylor's QB development resume. Indeed he had a great one at Eastern Washington in Gage Gubrud. Taylor also called the plays. The qualifier is that Eastern Washington was already a very successful program with a definite "personality". How much of Gubrud's development was TT and how much was the environment he was in and the absolutely stellar receivers he had is IMO hard to know. The subsequent faceplant by TT at Utah make me wonder. When TT was hired I raised that as a question, but I was willing to see what TT could accomplish at Stanford. IMO the fact TT was eventually characterized as an "equal opportunity asshole" might shed some light on his Utah situation.
 
TT certainly was not a very successful QB coach in his two year stint at that position at Kal. Unfortunately, the same environment questions apply to this stint but in the opposite direction. During TT's stint at Folsom high school TT had Jake Browning, who he coached from the 5th grade until he graduated from high school. Great QB. TT undoubtedly had something to do with it. However, there was a lot of natural ability present. How does one weight it?
 
The above is all Wikipedia. What I do know is that TT never was able to get Daniels or any other Stanford QB to complete a high percentage of passes in the flat. They sailed or tunneled. IMO that all by itself calls into question how "good" a QB coach TT was. That is a very low bar to teach a guy that has the physical abilities of Daniels. He doesn't need to "read" the coverage or throw the ball a long way. Just get it there. In general, neither he nor his backups could.
 
What am I missing?

As you mentioned, Taylor mentored Jake Browning, who had historic high school and college success and also made an NFL career out of it. Being the greatest influence for the greatest quarterback in American high school history, who was also a college legend/Pac-12 Player of the Year and is now deep into an NFL backup career is a massive feather in Taylor's cap. Browning certainly doesn't have physical skills that made that a preordained path. 

As a college coach, Taylor coached the Big Sky Co-Offensive Player of the Year (and of course first team all-conference) in Gage Gubrud, a guy who the next year after two years under Taylor became first team all-Pac-12 in Tyler Huntley, the Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year and Walter Payton Award finalist (and of course first team all-conference) in Kevin Thomson, Big Sky third team in Jake Dunniway, a QB who finished first team Big Sky as an all-purpose player in Asher O'Hara, and Dunniway repeating as third team despite splitting snaps with O'Hara. At Stanford, Daniels was the 85th best QB in the nation in both 2023 and 2024, not the improvement you would like to see but also far more accomplished than anybody would ever expect of the 994th ranked recruit in the country.

[msqueri]

---

I think Tavita Pritchard and Troy Taylor have quite good QB development resumes. What I think happened is that Shaw was not a good offensive coach and made life more difficult for QBs than it needed to be at the college level and Taylor didn’t have much to work with.

I am not so sure about Troy Taylor's QB development resume. Indeed he had a great one at Eastern Washington in Gage Gubrud. Taylor also called the plays. The qualifier is that Eastern Washington was already a very successful program with a definite "personality". How much of Gubrud's development was TT and how much was the environment he was in and the absolutely stellar receivers he had is IMO hard to know. The subsequent faceplant by TT at Utah make me wonder. When TT was hired I raised that as a question, but I was willing to see what TT could accomplish at Stanford. IMO the fact TT was eventually characterized as an "equal opportunity asshole" might shed some light on his Utah situation.
 
TT certainly was not a very successful QB coach in his two year stint at that position at Kal. Unfortunately, the same environment questions apply to this stint but in the opposite direction. During TT's stint at Folsom high school TT had Jake Browning, who he coached from the 5th grade until he graduated from high school. Great QB. TT undoubtedly had something to do with it. However, there was a lot of natural ability present. How does one weight it?
 
The above is all Wikipedia. What I do know is that TT never was able to get Daniels or any other Stanford QB to complete a high percentage of passes in the flat. They sailed or tunneled. IMO that all by itself calls into question how "good" a QB coach TT was. That is a very low bar to teach a guy that has the physical abilities of Daniels. He doesn't need to "read" the coverage or throw the ball a long way. Just get it there. In general, neither he nor his backups could.
 
What am I missing?

As you mentioned, Taylor mentored Jake Browning, who had historic high school and college success and also made an NFL career out of it. Being the greatest influence for the greatest quarterback in American high school history, who was also a college legend/Pac-12 Player of the Year and is now deep into an NFL backup career is a massive feather in Taylor's cap. Browning certainly doesn't have physical skills that made that a preordained path. 

As a college coach, Taylor coached the Big Sky Co-Offensive Player of the Year (and of course first team all-conference) in Gage Gubrud, a guy who the next year after two years under Taylor became first team all-Pac-12 in Tyler Huntley, the Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year and Walter Payton Award finalist (and of course first team all-conference) in Kevin Thomson, Big Sky third team in Jake Dunniway, a QB who finished first team Big Sky as an all-purpose player in Asher O'Hara, and Dunniway repeating as third team despite splitting snaps with O'Hara. At Stanford, Daniels was the 85th best QB in the nation in both 2023 and 2024, not the improvement you would like to see but also far more accomplished than anybody would ever expect of the 994th ranked recruit in the country.