Is James Perry the one and only true QB coaching guru left in the Ivies? No... but it's still lonely at the top
Whether it's the Ivy League or the NFL, finding and then properly developing QB talent seems to be the most important challenge in the game.
A couple of weeks ago while listening to the dominant sports radio station in the NYC area, the hosts of the show (one of whom is former Giants star Tiki Barber) spoke about how the NY Jets "blew it" with QB Zach Wilson by not doing the right things to develop him at his position. If it weren't impossible to get though on those call-in shows, I would have asked Tiki the following two questions:
Is there an accepted best process for developing QB's in the NFL and the Jets just didn't follow it? Or are there just a handful of good "QB coaching gurus" in the league and the Jets just don't have one of them?
The answer really can't be "yes" to both of those questions.
My strong feeling is that in both the NFL and the Ivies, the issue is there aren't many coaches who have cracked the QB development code and that makes them a real commodity,
One guy in the Ivies who seems to have done that is Brown Head Coach, former Brown QB, and former Princeton OC James Perry. The system he implemented at Princeton is still being used and he's had continuing success with it at Bryant (where he was head coach for two seasons) and now at Brown. It just doesn't seem to matter who is playing the position, they seem to play better when they are under Perry's guidance.
Another guru is/was Kevin Cahill at Yale before he left to take over as the head coach at Lehigh for 2023. Yale's fortunes at QB turned for the better when Cahill took over the QB room and also eventually became the offensive coordinator. Cahill was the guy who molded the raw talent of Kurt Rawlings and got the ball rolling with current Yale QB star Nolan Grooms.
After that, I'd say Dartmouth's OC/QB coach has shown a good track record, and I don't mean to take too much away from Princeton's current QB coach Mark Rosenbaum, but he took over that position after Perry left and had instituted his superior system for the Tigers.
That brings us to Columbia's new QB coach Skyler Mornhinweg '17, who has good experience and talent to work with in QB's Caden Bell and Joe Green, but his most important job may be to mold sophomore A.J. Simpkins into starting material in time for next year.
Overall, it just seems like a precious few Ivy teams have had more than just one All Ivy caliber QB over the last 10 years or so. Considering the fact that one of those teams is NOT named "Harvard" (with all the recruiting advantages Harvard enjoys), I think it's clear coaching is the deciding factor in this and not just recruiting.
2 comments:
Jake, there are five new names on the Columbia Football roster including Antonio White a 6'2" 220 wide receiver with a very interesting background including a year at West Point. Actually all five of the newcomers have pretty good football backgrounds, and were very good football players in high school or other places before coming to Columbia. I like little upstate Hobart College. I hope the mechanical engineering transfer does well at Columbia.
Mornhinweg did a superb job getting Caden Bell ready on short notice when Joe Green went down. Very optimistic in his ability to work with both (or all three)of our QB's ! The fact that he was our starting QB a real bonus- nothing beats being able to say : "When I played..."
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