Does This Ever Work? Part 1
Does This Ever Work? Part 1
Nebraska appears to be handing the reins of its rebuild to a five-star true freshman quarterback. Let's take a look at the hit rate!
This is Part 1 in a three-part series examining the success of five-star quarterbacks who started in their freshmen seasons. The other two parts can be found here: Part 2 and Part 3.
I think a useful exercise in judging any decision or process is to look at historical precedent: One of the biggest indicators we have for future success is how similar past situations for you or people like you have gone. Does the delicious, spicy kebab place down the street ruin your stomach every time you order takeout? Can’t be mad you’re reaching for the Tums, brother.1
Historical precedent is especially important in sports: In football, specifically, one of the few sticky indicators we have in coach hiring is proven success at multiple stops, and one of the best metrics for predicting future success is returning production. If we know what results similar situations or people produced in the past, we generally have a pretty good idea of what they’ll produce in the future.
So I wanted to apply this consideration to the Dylan Raiola situation.
The fanbase hype has been strong since the five-star quarterback and No. 7 overall player in the 2023 class made a dramatic flip to the Huskers just before early signing day — Nebraska’s second-highest overall commit since 24/7Sports began recruiting rankings in the early 2000s. It’s not really unreasonable excitement, either. Multiple national experts have compared his arm talent and creation to Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes, and people who evaluate high school quarterbacks for a living talk about him as an already-advanced dropback passer and processor with the ability to create out of structure who also already has experience making complex reads and picking up multiple offenses quickly. I’m not here to dampen anyone’s excitement; I’ve seen that highlight film, too.
The Husker coaching staff also appears all-in on Raiola. In the winter transfer window — what has essentially become college football’s free-agency period — NU eschewed bringing in any sort of veteran quarterback presence who could show Raiola the ropes or allow Raiola to sit and learn. And after the transfers of Jeff Sims and Chubba Purdy, the only other scholarship quarterbacks left on the roster to compete with Raiola are uninspiring returning starter Heinrich Haarberg and in-state true freshman Daniel Kaelin. Matt Rhule has been very adamant this is a true competition, but, while Kaelin is a good prospect in his own right, Haarberg will likely continue developing, and it’s possible to add some vet depth in the spring portal period, most reports in the offseason and spring make it clear what direction this is headed: The Nebraska staff’s expectation is that Raiola will be Nebraska’s starting quarterback Aug. 31 against UTEP. They’ve seen that highlight film, too.
But the optimism of the offseason and recruiting often pretty quickly gives way to the harsh light of actual college football games, especially in a conference as physical, detailed, and talented as the Big Ten. There are tons of examples of highly rated quarterback prospects being duds; it’s a notoriously hard position to evaluate from competition level to competition level. And as Iowa and Wisconsin — two Nebraska opponents who have found much more success than the Huskers in recent years with much “worse” recruits — have shown, development matters just as much as initial talent.
So, I went back and dove into the history of highly ranked true freshman quarterbacks who played six or more games in their first season on campus to see how often situations like the one Nebraska is about to embark on have worked and what takeaways we can gather about the players’ success or failure. I looked into their initial recruiting profile; performance as true freshmen; offensive environment, scheme, and supporting cast in their first year; and careers after their freshman season. I tried to generally focus on players who were five stars in either 24/7Sports’ or Rivals’ rankings, but I’ve also included a handful of highly rated four stars who otherwise qualified; recruiting rankings can be finicky, and I didn’t want to miss an applicable example just because they narrowly missed the “five star” threshold. I also tried to focus on players who had a clear runway to the starting job before the season, but a handful of players in the coming list were forced into action by injury or other circumstance. I’ve noted both of those examples as they come up. I cut the sample size off at 2009, as those are the quarterbacks who would have populated rosters of what I consider to be the “modern” era of college football; the start of the College Football Playoff in 2014.
This got pretty long, so I’ve divided the research up into three posts, which will come out separately in the lead up to the Spring Game on April 27. Part One will cover 2009-2014, Part Two 2015-2018, and Part Three 2019-2023. Part One will be free for all to read, but parts Two and Three will be for subscribers only.
There were also many other five-star quarterbacks who didn’t start six or more games as freshmen, whom I have sorted and listed below:
Five-star quarterbacks who didn’t start as true freshmen and went on to become good college players: Quinn Ewers at Ohio State/Texas and Drake Maye at North Carolina in the 2021 class; Bryce Young at Alabama, CJ Stroud at Ohio State, DJ Uiagalelei at Clemson/Oregon State/Florida State in the 2020 class; Spencer Rattler at Oklahoma/South Carolina in the 2019 class; Justin Fields at Georgia/Ohio State in the 2018 class; Davis Mills at Stanford and Tua Tagovailoa at Alabama in the 2017 class; Shea Patterson at Mississippi/Michigan in the 2016 class; Jarrett Stidham at Baylor/Auburn and Kyler Murray at Texas A&M/Oklahoma in the 2015 class; Kyle Allen at Texas A&M in the 2014 class; Jameis Winston at Florida State in the 2012 class; Jeff Drisek at Florida/Louisiana Tech in the 2011 class; and Tajh Boyd at Clemson in the 2009 class.
Five stars who didn’t start as true freshmen and went on to become bad college players: Sam Huard at Washington in the 2021 class; Harrison Bailey at Tennessee in the 2020 class; Hunter Johnson at Clemson/Northwestern in the 2017 class; Blake Barnett at Alabama/Arizona State/Kansas State in the 2015 class; Max Browne at Southern California/Pittsburgh in the 2013 class; Gunner Kiel at Cincinnati in the 2012 class; and Garrett Gilbert at Texas/SMU in the 2009 class.
Five stars who didn’t start as true freshmen with too small of a sample size to tell how their college careers will go: Arch Manning at Texas, Nico Iamaleava at Tennessee, Jackson Arnold at Oklahoma and Malachi Nelson at USC/Boise State in the 2023 class; Drew Allar at Penn State, Cade Klubnik at Clemson, Conner Weigman at Texas A&M, Ty Simpson at Alabama and Walker Howard at LSU/Mississippi in the 2022 class; and Brock Vandagriff at Georgia/Kentucky and Ty Thompson at Oregon/Tulane in the 2021 class.
Let’s get started!
2009
Matt Barkley, Southern California
Recruiting Profile
We’re starting way back in the time machine with this era’s original uber quarterback prospect. Barkley was the top player overall per 24/7Sports and the fifth overall player per Rivals in a loaded recruiting class at the peak of the gonzo internet recruiting website era. Off Barkley’s high school tape, ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper famously, in 2009, predicted Barkley would be the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NFL draft.2
Barkley played nearby USC at powerhouse Mater Dei High School, and he was committed to the Trojans for a full year before signing. He also enrolled early to participate in spring practice, back when that was still relatively rare.
From a play style and physical development standpoint entering college, Barkley is a very similar comp for Raiola, listed at 6’2 or 6’3 and over 215 pounds, with both players praised by recruiting experts for their arm talent and advanced processing as prep players in legitimate college-level schemes. Raiola is described as a slightly better athlete and runner than Barkley was.
Freshman Performance
The lead-up to Barkley’s debut with USC is probably the most applicable scenario on this list to what Raiola will face in Lincoln over the next six months. Southern California lost the previous year’s starter, Mark Sanchez, earlier than expected to the NFL Draft, leaving a clear hole in a good roster for a freshman quarterback to step into. Barkley was more-or-less locked into the No. 1 job right away, taking the first-team snaps in the opening spring practice (over Aaron Corp and Mitch Mustain, five-star prospects in their own classes). There was a close competition in camp, but after Corp suffered an injury just before the first game, then-USC coach Pete Carroll gave Barkley the nod. Barkley became the first true freshman to start an opener for USC about a week later against San Jose State.
Barkley’s first year went very well, even despite the moon-sized expectations. The raw counting stats3 were good: He completed just a hair under 60% of his passes (in an era before spread offenses made that commonplace) and threw for nearly 3,000 yards while starting all 13 games. He was exceptionally consistent game-to-game for a 19-year-old playing against Power 5 competition, topping 190 passing yards 10 times. He also had a few exemplary performances, completing 15 of 19 passes in his first start against SDSU and throwing for over 350 yards in both a ranked mid-season matchup against Notre Dame and later in USC’s bowl game.
There were some struggles, though. Barkley turned the ball over often, throwing 14 picks and committing at least one turnover in all but one game. He also didn’t handle pressure well, taking 17 sacks, including five multi-sack games. And while he was consistent, the games where he was bad, he was very bad. In his second start, against No. 8 Ohio State, he completed just 15 passes in 38 dropbacks and took two sacks, nearly costing USC a game where its defense held a good Buckeyes offense to 15 points. And, with the Trojans 7-0 and in national title contention, he *would* cost USC two games late in the year: After a good performance in a loss to top-10 Oregon,4 he threw three interceptions in a blowout loss to Stanford,5 then threw for only 144 yards on 40 dropbacks in the regular-season finale against Arizona, taking three sacks and finishing with a QBR of 33.1.
In the advanced stats realm, the 2009 USC offense finished 22nd nationally in offensive DVOA — a pretty excellent performance for a teenager-led attack. There is some noise that this was largely not Barkley’s doing — the Trojans finished 14th nationally in rushing efficiency that year, and had just a 31.3% Success Rate in true passing down situations — but, still, a top 25 offense with a true freshman under center seems about the high end of what you can ask for.6
Offensive Infrastructure/Supporting Cast
The USC offensive infrastructure had been raided directly before Barkley’s arrival, with co-coordinator wunderkinds Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian leaving for head coaching positions at Tennessee and Washington, respectively, in the prior offseason. USC promoted in-house, elevating John Morton to coordinator. Morton’s background was in pro-style West Coast systems under Bill Callahan and Jim Harbaugh, which represented a continuation from what USC had been running. So the Trojans were asking Barkley to operate some pretty complex stuff — this wasn’t a gimmick, one-read thing like you see from college offenses now. Morton would go on to be a sought-after assistant in the NFL under several well-regarded offensive coaches, was the OC for the Jets in 2018, and is now the passing game coordinator for the Broncos. So I think it’s safe to assume Morton was a pretty competent offensive mind.
Personnel-wise, Bakley’s freshman year in 2009 was definitely in the late-period/downturn of the Carroll dynasty at USC, but he was still working with a lot of talent. The offensive line in front of him was very strong, with three multi-year returning starters — including Charles Brown, who would be a top-60 pick in that upcoming NFL draft — and first-year starter Tyron Smith — who would go on to be a four-time NFL All-Pro who just signed a huge deal with the Jets a few weeks ago at 33 years old — protecting his blind side. The skill talent surrounding Barkley was a bit less impressive, but running backs Joe McKnight and Allen Bradford and primary receiving targets Damian Williams (who finished with over 1,000 yards) and Anthony McCoy (a tight end who finished with over 400 yards), were all top-100 recruits who would go on to be drafted, too.
Future Performance
Despite the hype being sky-high, Barkley more-or-less rose to meet it as a college player. In his sophomore season, with Carroll departing for the NFL and Lane Kiffin taking over as the program was hit by NCAA sanctions over the Reggie Bush “scandal”7, USC put more of the offense on Barkley’s shoulders, and he responded by marginally increasing his completion percentage, yardage and quarterback rating and lowering his turnovers and sack totals.
He then went full-supernova as a junior and senior as the pairing with Kiffin took off. He threw for 3,500 yards and 39 touchdowns and completed 69% of his passes in 2011, with just seven interceptions and eight sacks in a whopping 454 dropbacks. His pocket presence was a notable improvement with his 2011 1.76% sack rate among the best by any player in the last 20 years.8 That offense finished sixth overall in SP+ efficiency. He was thought to be a lock to enter the 2012 draft but decided to return for his senior year, and throughout the preseason was considered the top contender for the Heisman Trophy and No. 1 pick in the next NFL draft. His stats fell off a bit as a senior (it would have been hard for them not to) but he still delivered 3,200 yards and 36 touchdowns on good efficiency.
His draft stock fell a bit after his senior year, but he was still picked early in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft by Philadelphia and looked at as a potential quarterback of the future. He would never developed into a consistent starter, but has made a nice career for himself as a backup and is still in the league, playing behind Trevor Lawrence on Jacksonville’s roster in 2023.
Takeaways
Barkley is the first example on this list, but he also represents one of the best high school/recruiting comps for Raiola and, also, one of the best-case scenarios for what the new Nebraska signal caller could turn into. While the 2009 USC talent level was undoubtedly much better than what Raiola is walking into, both players were ranked as the top overall prospects in their class for large stretches by at least one service, both have remarkably similar talent descriptions/strengths coming out of high school, and both went to schools that have quietly cleared the way for them to start Day 1. That could be where the similarities end, but NU would be hard-pressed to do better than a quarterback who improved every year and threw for 9,000 career yards and 80 touchdowns.
2011
Braxton Miller, Ohio State
Recruiting Profile
Miller was a five star and top 20 overall player per 24/7’s rankings but was denied the fifth star by Rivals, though he was still inside that service’s top 40 overall players and the No. 2 quarterback prospect. Miller, from in-state, was more-or-less a Buckeye commit from the jump, pledging over a year before Signing Day and enrolling in January to go through spring practice.
Miller as a high school prospect is about as far away stylistically as you can get from Raiola, with a small frame and limited arm but praised by evaluators for his athleticism and 4.45 40-yard-dash.
Freshman Performance
While many in the preseason figured Miller would eventually be the Buckeyes’ starter at some point in his freshman year, the path to the starting job was decidedly not cleared for him. OSU initially handed the job to veteran upperclassman Joe Bauserman. This was also the offseason in which the Jim Tressel NCAA violations hit the program,9 so the whole program was in a bit of flux as Luke Fickell served as interim coach. Bauserman was really good in the opener, OK in the second game, and 2 for 14 in a 24-6 loss to Miami that led to him being benched for Miller.
Miller was an electric playmaker and runner from the jump — including in a game Husker fans probably remember, when he had nearly 200 yards of individual offense in a first half against NU before spraining his ankle in the third quarter.10 He would go on to run for 652 non-sack yards in his 10 starts as a true freshman.
But Miller was a liability as a passer, especially early in the year. The interim OSU staff allowed him to attempt only 13 passes in his first start (he completed five) and he only topped 10 attempts twice in his next five starts. That included a game against Illinois where he only threw four total passes (completing one, for a touchdown). In that initial span of starts, he had just a 48% completion rate.
Down the stretch, the efficiency never really improved, but the Ohio State staff did let him loose a bit more. His two strongest passing games came in the final two contests, a 14-of-25, 235-yard performance against Michigan and an 18-of-23, two-touchdown performance against Florida in the Gator Bowl. And he did have strengths as a freshman passer: He was remarkably careful with the ball — throwing only four interceptions — and explosive, with over seven yards per attempt.
Offensive Environment/Supporting Cast
It’s kind of crazy in 2024 to think about an Ohio State team lacking offensive talent, but the 2011 OSU squad was pretty mediocre around Miller, especially at the skill positions. Running back Carlos Hyde was a good player who would go on to a decent NFL career, but Miller’s top two targets were Devin Smith (a true freshman) and Corey Brown (a true sophomore). Smith would go on to be a second-round NFL draft pick and a big part of the 2015 national title team, but he wasn’t that player as a true freshman and that he was able to walk into a starting role straight out of high school was pretty telling. Brown was a decent college player who would have some later good seasons but would ultimately go undrafted. The Buckeyes’ line, too, lost three starters and a ton of depth from a good 2010 unit, though it did return an All-Big Ten tackle in Mike Adams. Just four total players from Ohio State would be taken in the next NFL draft. Not a vintage squad.
The OSU offense was coordinated that year by Jim Bollman, an offensive line veteran who worked for 10 years as an assistant under Tressel. Even after Tressel’s removal, Bollman primarily stuck with the Power-O I-formation football of Tressell and mixed in some spread and read-option concepts to take advantage of Miller’s athleticism. It didn’t work: That Buckeyes offense finished 58th nationally with just a 28.5 SP+ Offensive Rating, which is the program’s lowest mark since 1991. Bollman was a very respected o-line guy who went on to co-coordinate some good offenses at Michigan State under Mike Dantonio, but it’s fair to say he wasn’t on the cutting edge of offensive football or providing easy answers to a young quarterback. Bollman is one of the poorer OC situations for a freshman QB on this list.
Future Performance
Miller would go on to have an incredible college career, though largely through his playmaking as a rushing threat. Under newly hired coach Urban Meyer, he threw for over 2,000 yards and ran for nearly 1,300 in a sophomore season in which he scored 30 combined touchdowns and was a second-team All-American and the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. His junior year was much the same, going over 2K through the air and 1K on the ground to again be named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, despite missing two games with injuries. He sat out all of the 2014 season after suffering a camp injury, then was moved to receiver in 2015 after Meyer weirdly got heart eyes for Cardale Jones. He would be picked in the top 100 of the 2016 NFL draft as a receiver/slot weapon/gadget player but didn’t hang around the league very long.
Takeaways
Miller fits the five-star mold but is otherwise a bit of a hard comp for Raiola. The play styles and schemes are obviously quite different: As a freshman, Miller essentially operated as a single-wing quarterback, throwing primarily bubble screens or deep shots against stacked boxes. He was an explosive passer as a freshman and undeniably a good player, but generally that 2011 OSU staff viewed Miller’s drop-back game as a liability. Whereas the 2024 NU offense looks like it’s going to be built around Raiola’s arm. Miller’s overall usage rate in the offense as a freshman is probably going to be pretty comparable to Raiola, but that’s about it.
Teddy Bridgewater, Louisville
Recruiting Profile
Bridgewater is the first four star I’ve included in this list, but his recruiting ranking was just outside the top 100, and the situation felt comparable to what’s happening at Nebraska this year. The Miami native was heavily recruited by all the major schools and was initially a hometown Hurricanes commit for months before re-opening his recruitment after the late-season firing of Randy Shannon. He chose Louisville shortly before Signing Day, a recruiting coup for second-year coach Charlie Strong as he tried to rebuild the Cardinals’ program. Bridgewater enrolled early and went through spring practice.
Bridgewater’s arm talent in his recruiting profile is less praised than Raiola’s, with Bridgewater having high marks for accuracy as a passer and his athleticism, to the point he was categorized as a dual-threat QB per both services.
Freshman Performance
While Bridgewater certainly entered the year as the program’s quarterback of the future, the job initially belonged to redshirt junior Will Stein. But Stein’s three starts produced middling production against Murray State, Florida International and Kentucky, and Bridgewater got the nod as the starter by Game 4.
He initially showed much promise as a passer, throwing for 221 yards and completing nearly 70% of his passes in his first start — but also showcased some of the consistent issues he would have as a freshman, as he turned the ball over twice and took five sacks. He would throw 12 total interceptions over his 10 games as a starter and take 30 sacks, including four performances where he took four or more sacks.
There were a lot of positives, though. He completed over 60% of his passes in all but two of his starts and had a couple standout games later in the season, one a 21-for-27 performance for 246 yards in a 38-35 upset of ranked West Virginia and then a regular-season finale win over South Florida with 241 yards and three touchdowns on 67.9% completions. He also had production as a rusher in his first year, though the high sack totals dragged his cumulative rushing numbers down.
Offensive Infrastructure/Supporting Cast
Bridgewater’s freshman year went off with one of the lower-end supporting casts on this list. Both Barkley and Miller had strong running games to fall back on as true freshmen; the ‘11 Cardinals team finished 101st nationally in rushing efficiency, with no back topping 500 yards on the season. His talent out wide was fairly mediocre, too. His top receiving option was Michalee Harris, a redshirt freshman who would later transfer to Akron. His No. 2 target was a true freshman, four-star high school teammate Eli Rogers. Rogers would go on to have a nice career and get work in the NFL as a return specialist — and another true freshman on the roster was future NFL multi-contract receiver DeVante Parker — but both would go on to have much better seasons than 2011. They were still learning in Bridgewater’s first season as a starter. The line was also weak, returning only two starters and featuring no players who would be drafted.
The Cardinals’ offense that year was initially coordinated by Mike Sanford, but after the unit only scored 13 points in a loss to Marshall in the fourth game of the year, Strong fired Sanford and elevated a familiar name to Husker fans: Shawn Watson. Watson was in his first year on the Louisville staff as the quarterbacks coach after his removal from the Nebraska OC position by Bo Pelini months before. That Louisville squad would finish 75th in SP+ offensive rating, and Watson’s future stops were mostly unsuccessful, but Watson’s three future Louisville teams would finish 28th, 17th and 36th nationally. So he seems to have at least been a competent offensive voice.
Stylistically, NU fans should be familiar with Watson’s scheme, a timing-based West Coast passing game with simplified verbiage and zone runs that also incorporates a little bit of spread and read-option football. While 2023 Nebraska’s running game was more complex and gap-scheme based than what Watson ran, there’s likely going to be a lot of overlap with the 2011 Louisville passing game and general design for 2024 Nebraska if they pursue the Shanahan-esque offense Matt Rhule has touted in the offseason. This is one of the most translatable examples on the list to Raiola from a scheme/playcalling perspective.
Future Performance
Bridgewater would go on to quietly have one of the most underrated college quarterbacking careers of this era. As a true sophomore, he took the offense on his shoulders while increasing both his efficiency and production; on over 100 more pass attempts as a sophomore, he raised his completion percentage from 64% to 68%, threw for 1,500 more yards, doubled his touchdowns and threw four fewer interceptions. He also raised his yards per attempt from 7.2 to 8.9, eighth nationally, so this wasn’t just dink-and-dunk ball.
He somehow improved even more as a junior, putting up one of the truly ridiculous quarterbacking stat lines of 2010s college football when considering the scheme and surrounding talent: 3,970 yards and 31 touchdowns on 71.0% completion percentage and 9.3 yards per attempt, with only four turnover-worthy plays. And this was in an under-center NFL-style offense with complex reads, a harder scheme to operate than what the Manziels or Mariotas of this era were doing. In his sophomore and junior years, Louisville went a combined 23-3 and blew out Florida and Miami in a pair of New Year’s Day bowl games.
He declared for that NFL draft after his third season and was taken the final pick of the first round to the Vikings. After two solid seasons as the Vikings’ starter, he suffered a gruesome knee injury in a preseason practice and missed essentially all of the 2016 and 2017 campaigns. He returned to embark on a solid career as a high-end backup/low-end starter in stints for the Saints, Panthers, Broncos, Dolphins and Lions. He retired from playing after this most recent season and has begun coaching high school football in Miami.
Takeaways
Bridgewater may not have identical recruiting status or arm talent as Raiola, but he’s got a lot of similarities situationally. This is a pretty tangible example of a freshman being asked to run a complex offensive scheme right away and finding success immediately for a team without elite talent. The other quarterbacks operating pro-style schemes as freshmen (like Barkley at USC and a few later guys on the list at Georgia) all operated with blue-chip recruiting around them. The skill talent at 2011 Louisville is probably a better comp for what 2024 Nebraska will be working with. Louisville’s top three receivers that year were all first- or second-year players, and while I’d expect Nebraska to have a better running game and protection than the 2011 Cardinals, their quality is probably closer than that to elite production. This is also a good comp for a ballyhooed quarterback stepping into the spotlight for a coach young in their tenure. NU getting production and development from Raiola comparable to 2011 Bridgewater seems like a realistic goal.
2013
Christian Hackenberg, Penn State
Recruiting Profile
Like Barkley, Hackenberg is also a very close match in hype and recruiting profile to Raiola, coming in as a rare 100-out-of-100 grade per 24/7 as the top quarterback and the No. 7 overall recruit in the class. Rivals was a little lower than that, at 24th overall, but both services had him as a five star. Hackenberg was also one of the most hyped quarterback prospects of this era, but his recruiting was a little shakier than Barkley’s. Hackenberg committed early to the Nittany Lions, in the spring before Signing Day. But after the revelations of the Jerry Sandusky abuse scandal and the firing of Joe Paterno, Hackenberg did take other visits and appeared to seriously consider other schools late in the process as Penn State faced severe NCAA sanctions. He would eventually stick with his commitment after being lured by the hiring of Patriots/Tom Brady offensive guru Bill O’Brien. Possibly because of the program turmoil, Hackenberg didn’t enroll early to participate in spring practice, joining the program in the summer before his freshman season.
Hackenberg’s listed strengths as a prep prospect are virtually identical to Raiola’s: High-end arm strength/talent, NFL physical size, and advanced experience/understanding with high-level passing reps as a high school player and on the quarterback recruiting circuit.
Freshman Performance
There have been many fair jokes made about what happened with Hackenberg later in his college career and in the NFL, but he was actually … undeniably excellent as a freshman?
Much like what’s expected to happen with Raiola, the Penn State staff paid lip service to a competition before naming Hackenberg the starter at the close of fall camp, making him only the second-ever true freshman to start an opener for the program. He was awesome out of the gate: In his three initial starts, he completed 66 of 92 passes (71.7%) with an average of 283 yards a game. In his first Big Ten contest, against Indiana, he threw for 340 yards and three touchdowns, then keyed an upset of ranked Michigan the next week with a 305-yard, three-touchdown performance.
He hit a bit of a lull in midseason conference play, including ugly games against No. 4 Ohio State and Minnesota,11 but played his best game in the season finale (PSU was banned from a bowl over the Sandusky scandal), torching No. 15 Wisconsin for 339 yards and four touchdowns on 70% completions and no interceptions or sacks.
For the year, he would finish with 2,955 passing yards and 20 touchdowns with only 10 picks, all the best figures for anyone on this list so far, and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. And he closed his final game dropping insane dimes under pressure against a top-10 defense:
The future looked undoubtedly bright.
Offensive Environment/Supporting Cast
Hackenberg might have had the best surrounding talent around him of anyone on this list as a true freshman. His No. 1 receiver was Allen Robinson, a two-time All-Big Ten selection and First-Team All-American who would be a second-round pick in the next NFL draft and have a prolific pro career. Robinson would nearly have 100 catches and go over 1,400 receiving yards. For secondary weapons, Hackenberg had a pair of solid tight ends in Jesse James and Adam Breneman, and No. 2 wideout Geno Lewis was a productive college player. PSU also returned a 1,000-yard rusher in Zach Zwinak, and the PSU rushing offense produced solid production throughout the year. The offensive line was also a strength, as it featured two experienced players who would go on to start NFL games in tackle Donovan Smith and guard John Urschel, plus two other players with starting experience.
The play-caller was also a plus for the Nittany Lions. Some of the shine has come off O’Brien in recent stops since his tenure with the Houston Texans was derailed by poor roster management, but he’s consistently produced strong offenses almost everywhere he’s been. This PSU group finished 52nd nationally in SP+ Offensive Rating despite the freshman QB and program turmoil, and his later offenses with the Texans and Alabama Crimson Tide would all be varying degrees of strong units per the important metrics and develop young quarterbacks. His most recent job last year as the OC on the sinking-ship New England Patriots was less successful, but the Pats’ roster and quarterback wasn’t doing him any favors.
It’s also worth noting O’Brien more or less brought the Patriots system with him intact to PSU. "We ran the Patriots playbook basically verbatim my freshman year," Hackenberg said before the 2016 NFL draft. "I watched more tape of Tom Brady than probably anyone outside of the New England organization.” That Brady/Pats system, often called the Erhardt-Perkins offense, has some overlap with what Nebraska wants to run and also put a lot on its quarterback pre-snap. Which is something Raiola is likely to face in the coming months.
Future Performance
It all went downhill from there for Hackenberg. O’Brien left after one season to take the head coaching job with the Texans. He was replaced by James Franklin, a good program builder but not necessarily a coach known for his offensive prowess.
The supporting cast largely failed him. His weapons stayed strong — PSU lost Robinson but gained future All-Big Ten and top-100 NFL draft picks DaeSean Hamilton and Chris Godwin at receiver, and the program started handing the ball off to a true freshman named Saquon Barkley in 2015 — but his blocking went off a cliff. Penn State lost four offensive line starters from the 2013 team and faced a severe numbers crunch in the unit; it wasn’t even able to field a healthy two-deep on the line in its spring game without converting two defensive linemen to play on offense. Smith returned from this group and ended up being a multi-contract NFL player, but the 2014 and 2015 PSU offensive lines surrendered a combined 134 and 152 pressures, respectively. Hackenberg went from taking 21 sacks as a true freshman to 44 and 38 as a sophomore and junior. He wasn’t necissarily helping a bad line, either, with a 24.6% pressure-to-sack rate that was bottom 10 in the country. The running game also disappeared, dropping to 125th nationally in efficiency in 2014 after being average to good in his freshman season.
The scheme and coordination also regressed on him, too. After having a very good offensive design under O’Brien, Hackenberg was then under John Donovan, who Franklin brought with him from Vanderbilt. The scheme transitioned to something closer to a generic spread offense, and Donovan’s two seasons as PSU offensive coordinator produced units that ranked 110th and 71st in SP+ offensive ranking. He was fired after the 2015 season, and the PSU offense immediately rocket-shipped into the top 10 in offensive rating in 2016 under Joe Moorhead. A later stint for Donovan as the offensive coordinator at Washington in 2020 also produced horrible results, with many of the same players who just helped the prolific UW attack make the national title game having roles. Safe to assume this guy just didn’t have it!
With the o-line and coaching changes, Hackenberg’s numbers plummeted. While his arm talent still routinely flashed, his completion percentage and yardage dropped in each of the next two years and he was seen arguing with coaches on the sideline. He completed just 53% of his passes for 2,500 yards on less than 7 yards an attempt as a true junior, despite his top receiving targets being Godwin, Hamilton, Barkley, and future NFL tight end Mike Gesicki. Regardless, he declared early for the 2016 NFL draft and reportedly blamed his regression on Franklin to NFL scouts.
The famously well-run New York Jets still decided to use an early second-round pick on Hackenberg, a widely mocked move that turned out to be just as unwise as it sounded at the time: Hackenberg was horrible in limited preseason action and never played a regular-season snap in the NFL. He bounced around to several teams but was out of the league just over two years after being drafted.
Takeaways
If everyone else on this list so far has at least represented an optimistic college performance outcome, this one is the nightmare. Hackenberg and Raiola are virtually identical in terms of recruiting hype and talent; if Hackenberg’s raw ability didn’t insulate him from disaster-level regression, Raiola’s won’t either.
And there are also plenty of other situational similarities with 2024 Nebraska and Matt Rhule to the 2013-2015 PSU program and James Franklin: Both are well-regarded coaches, but both are program builders/talent developers whose success has come from strong defenses and game management who don’t count quarterbacking as a strength. Franklin survived his Donovan disaster and eventually embraced modern football with Moorhead, but he essentially wasted Hackenberg in the process. Rhule has seemed (putting this as even-handedly as I can) reticent to embrace modern offensive football in his tenure at Nebraska, and he’s appeared steadfast to coordinator Marcus Satterfield, a guy with only Donovan-esque results so far in his career. Nebraska is also set to lose a lot of offensive line snaps and depth heading into what would be Raiola’s sophomore year.
The Hackenberg situation is also a reminder that even if the true freshman year goes well, it’s not much of a long-term indicator of anything.
2014
Deshaun Watson, Clemson
Recruiting Profile
Watson was a split grade, with Rivals considering him a five star and top-30 player but 24/7 dropping him to a four-star and the 81st player overall. Watson was pretty much locked into playing for the Tigers from the start of his recruitment, visiting as early as 2011 and committing two years before Signing Day, though he did take a visit to in-state Georgia late in the process. He also enrolled early to participate in spring practice.
Watson’s physical tools as a runner and accuracy are given priority in his prep breakdown, and his frame and arm talent are some of his lowest grades. So not really very comparable to the Huskers’ likely new starter.
Freshman Performance
Watson’s freshman season was marred by injury, so it’s tougher to evaluate him than the other players on this list. While Watson was not considered a “generational” recruit, he was still clearly the program’s QB of the future after Tahj Boyd departed the following offseason. The Tigers elected to give a less talented veteran, Cole Stoudt, the first crack at the job, but also gave Watson several drives with the 1s in the season’s first two games, so they were looking to hand the reins to him. He took over the job a couple series into the season’s third game against Florida State, in which he nearly led the Tigers to an upset of then-No. 1 FSU in overtime with a 19-of-28 passing performance for 266 yards off the bench. The next week, in his first official start, he threw for 435 yards and six touchdowns in the game that put him in the national consciousness. He was strong again in his second start, throwing for 267 yards and a score against NC State.
Then the injuries began to pile up. He broke a bone in his right hand in the opening moments of the next game against Louisville, and missed that game and the Tigers’ next three contests. He returned to start against Georgia Tech, then left early in that game after hurting his knee. He would make and finish a start the next week against South Carolina, a win in which he went 14 of 19 for 269 yards, but he tore his ACL at some point in the game and was shut down for Clemson’s bowl.
While the injuries kept him from putting up prolific numbers, Watson’s freshman year was undeniably the best per-play season on this list. It might have been one of the best quarterbacking seasons in the country that year had he stayed healthy. He was devastating right away as a downfield passer — completing an adjusted 74.8% of his passes,12 tied for 19th nationally among all players with at least 100 pass attempts, on an average depth of target that ranked 22nd nationally — while also committing the *lowest rate of turnover worthy* plays in the country at 1.2% of throws. He also was a threat on the ground, with 254 non-sack rushing yards and five touchdowns. So he was throwing downfield passes, completing a high percentage of those downfiled, never putting the ball in harms way, and killing people with scrambles. As an 18-year-old in a Power 5 conference. Pretty good!
Offensive Environment/Supporting Cast
The Dabo Swinney Clemson juggernaut was just getting going, but Clemson still had a lot of dudes. Watson’s No. 1 receiver was Mike Williams, one of the best ball-winning wideouts of this era who’s gone on to a big second-contract NFL career. No 2 receiver Artavis Scott was a true freshman in 2014, but he also nearly went over 1,000 yards, so he was pretty clearly a productive player. Slot man Adam Humphries and starting back Wayne Gallman also went on to nice NFL journeyman careers. The offensive line also returned all three starters in the middle, with Kalon Davis and David Beasley ranking fifth and 19th nationally in PFF’s pass protection grades among starting guards and Ryan Norton 49th nationally among starting centers. The two starting tackles were a little shakier, but this was a strong line overall that allowed no interior pressure.
Watson also had a strong offensive schemer in Chad Morris. Morris’ spread attack, which he developed on Texas high school football fields, was at the cutting edge of college football at the time and produced some elite units with the Tigers from 2011 to 2014. His offensive success at Clemson would propel him into head coaching jobs at SMU and Arkansas. He was less successful as a head coach, but it’s difficult to argue he wasn’t a good college play/scheme designer.
Schematically, Clemson under Morris operated a tweaked version of the power-spread option offense Gus Malzahn that heavily utilized the quarterback run game and RPOs, something it doesn’t seem like Raiola will be doing much of. Not necessarily translatable, but Watson was given easier answers in 2014 than Raiola likely will be in 2024.
Future Performance
Watson is another player I don’t really need to tell you went on to be very good at football. The small-sample-size excellence of his freshman year carried over into a high-usage-rate excellence as a sophomore and junior, when he threw for a combined 8,697 yards, rushed for over 1,734 yards, and scored 97 touchdowns, winning the Davey O’Brien award and Manning Award twice each, making the All-America team twice, and finishing as a Heisman finalist twice. He also won the Tigers the 2016 national title, the first player to do so as a starting QB on this list.
He declared for the NFL as a junior, going 12th overall, and was a three-time Pro Bowler with the Texans before a sexual abuse scandal kept him out of football for a season and sent him to the Cleveland Browns. His pro career into a bit of a tailspin since then.
Takeaways
There aren’t a ton of similarities/translation with Raiola’s game and situation: Watson is decidedly more of a dual-threat playmaker than Raiola, played in college on a much more talented team than Raiola likely will, and ran a simple, option-based scheme compared to what will be asked of Raiola.
Brad Kaaya, Miami
Recruiting Profile
Kaaya is another high-ranked consensus four-star I’ve included in this evaluation for similarity in situation. Kaaya clocked in just inside the top 100 players overall per 24/7 at 94th but fell to 189th in Rivals. Kaaya spurned nearby California schools to commit to the Hurricanes about a year-and-a-half before Signing Day and didn’t really budge. He enrolled in the summer and didn’t participate in spring practice, joining the program in the summer.
Kaaya is much lower on the recruiting rankings overall than Raiola, but his physical talent description is similar, with his arm talent praised as his top trait and having a pro-ready size and build.
Freshman Performance
Kaaya was NOT supposed to win the job as a freshman; he spent spring practice chilling in California amid an open quarterback competition to replace Stephen Morris. But after presumptive starter Ryan Williams injured his knee late in the spring and figured to be out for the first several games of the season, Kaaya’s only competition for the Week 1 starting job when he arrived in May was Kansas grad transfer Jake Heaps. Kaaya pulled away from Heaps late in fall camp and took the first snap in the opener against Louisville.
Kaaya’s first two starts were slogs, with little production and multiple turnovers in each. But he hit his stride from there, topping 300 yards in consecutive games against Arkansas State and Nebraska13 and running off three solid games to open ACC play. Over that middle five-game stretch he completed 65% of his passes for 1,455 yards and 13 touchdowns with five interceptions. Pretty good!
He suffered an injury in the next game against Virginia Tech and missed his next start against North Carolina. But he’d return with two strong performances to close the regular season, throwing for 326 yards in a near upset of No. 3 Florida State and 296 yards in a loss to Pitt, and he played well in Miami’s bowl game.
Kaaya’s efficiency was a bit down compared to other players on this list — his adjusted completion percentage of 66.3% ranked 71st nationally — but he was an explosive passer and limited turnovers after those first two games. Kaaya struggled with avoiding pressure, with 20% of his pressures turning into sacks, but overall turned in a pretty impressive performance for a guy who only arrived on the Miami campus four months before his first snap, with nearly 3,000 passing yards and 25 touchdowns. He would win ACC Rookie of the Year over Watson, largely due to Watson’s time-missed from injuries.
Offensive Environment/Supporting Cast
Kaaya had one of the better situations on this list as a freshman in personnel. That Miami team had an especially strong run game; starting tailback Duke Johnson would go for nearly 1,700 yards rushing yards on 6.8 yards per carry, and the top reserve back was Gus Edwards. That Hurricanes rushing attack would finish 22nd nationally in efficiency, and Johnson and Edwards would go on to be productive NFL role players. Kaaya also had a good top target in speedster Phillip Dorsett, who had 871 receiving yards on just 36 catches that year (24.2 per catch!) and would go on to be a first-round pick in that next NFL draft. The starting tight end, Clive Walford, went for nearly 700 yards and would go on to be drafted, too, and slot receiver Braxton Berrios is still getting NFL checks.
But the real strength of the team was the line. Starting left tackle Ereck Flowers would go on to be a top-10 NFL draft pick, starting left guard Jon Feliciano has been a multi-contract NFL starter for several teams, and starting right guard Danny Isidora was also drafted and started several NFL games. This is probably the best line of anyone mentioned so far.
The offensive infrastructure was a little more shaky. Kaaya’s OC as a freshman was James Coley, who came up under Jimbo Fisher and ran a quasi-pro-style system he called the “tempro offense.” While this was primarily a run-first attack, it was a real offense with complex reads asked of a freshman QB. This Hurricanes offense finished 32nd in SP offensive rating, but Coley’s other stops as a coordinator were far less successful, including a stint at Georgia in 2019 where he finished 66th and was fired despite having a roster loaded with future NFL stars. Coley has been on several impressive staffs since but primarily for his value as an elite recruiter, not what he’s bringing to the table as an offensive schemer.
Future Performance
Kaaya was overshadowed by some truly insane quarterback play/numbers in the mid- to late-2010s but went on to a very good career. He threw for over 3,000 yards each of the next two years, completing over 60% of his passes both years on over 8 yards an attempt and never throwing more than seven picks in a year. He left Miami after his third season for the NFL as the program’s leader in nearly every passing statistic.
He entered his junior year prospects in that class, with some mocks placing him as the possible first overall pick. He would eventually fall to the sixth round as teams in the pre-draft process questioned his arm strength and mobility and if he did much translatable work to NFL play. He bounced around some practice squads but never stuck around in the league.
Takeaways
Kaaya did not have the recruiting ranking or apparent physical talent of Raiola, and his supporting cast was strong. But he’s included here because he’s an example of a freshman who found success in a pro-style offense, even with what we’d call a questionable offensive coordinator. I also think a top-30 rushing attack with decent deep threats and a good tight end is a supporting cast level 2024 NU should strive for.
That’s it for Part 1. Part 2, covering 2015 to 2018, will be out next week, with Part 3 shortly after. I’ve got more offseason content beyond this coming, so be sure to subscribe below to have it all delivered to your inbox. I’ve also left comments open for any questions, etc.
NOT a real-life example applicable to me.
God, I miss early Aughts college football
This was before PFF and other analytics sites started logging data; I’ll start incorporating those will come as we go along.
The first really good Ducks team under Chip Kelly.
The first really good Cardinal team under Jim Harbaugh.
Nebraska has actually almost done this recently, when the Adrian Martinez-led 2018 team finished just outside the top 25 nationally in SP+ offensive efficiency rating.
“Improper gifts and benefits from agents” seems quaint in 2024
Barkley’s 2011 campaign is truly one of the best and most underrated quarterback seasons of the 2000s.
“Failing to self-report memorabilia sales” also seems quaint in 2024.
Bauserman would go 1 for 10 in relief in the eventual Nebraska win. *Prayer hands emoji*
A lull which also included a 23-20 overtime home loss to Nebraska.
This is when PFF starts keeping data, so I’ll be working in some better stats from here on out.
It seems like we’ve played a lot of these guys???