Pete ThamelESPN
Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom got here out of the warehouse room in Tuscaloosa in November 2021 to get a peek at Bryce Young, Alabama’s undersized wunderkind quarterback, in pregame warmups.
Younger’s stirring sophomore season put him atop the Heisman Trophy race and defied soccer conventions, and Odom couldn’t assistance short of to catch a field-level glimpse of the game’s breakout superstar. Alabama indexed Younger at 6-foot, 194 kilos, however everybody knew the ones numbers intended he used to be necessarily stepping on a telephone stock and his weight used to be artificially padded by way of a couple of slabs of Tuscaloosa’s well-known Dreamland ribs.
Within the relax of the early afternoon, Odom briefly understood the scope of his problem. As so incessantly came about in a embellished highschool and faculty occupation, Younger’s arm ability overshadowed his tiny dimension.
“He’s got this quick release and the ball explodes off his hand,” mentioned Odom, who’s now UNLV’s head mentor. “He’s making every throw across the field in warmups. I knew at that point it was probably going to be a long night.”
Younger majored in handing over warring parties lengthy nights in his two seasons as a starter at Alabama, the place he went 23-4. That afternoon in opposition to Odom’s protection, he delivered 5 landing passes and disagree interceptions on his technique to profitable the Heisman.
In 2022, he threw for 32 touchdowns and simply 5 interceptions past enjoying with a tremendously inferior receiving corps. In simply two seasons as a starter, he’s the second-leading passer in Alabama historical past (8,356 yards).
Because the NFL draft kicks off Thursday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC/ESPN app), that caliber of constant manufacturing has made Younger the prohibitive favorite to be the Deny. 1 general select. At 5-foot-10, he’d be simply the 3rd quarterback within the regular draft pace shorter than 6 ft to be picked within the first around, becoming a member of Kyler Murray and Johnny Manziel.
Looking NFL mix knowledge again to 1999, Younger would even be the lightest quarterback taken within the first around. Younger weighed in at 204 on the mix, and the checklist of quarterbacks weighing much less features a flurry of forgettable names like Aaron Brooks (203), Trace McSorley (202) and Seneca Wallace (196).
That’s the compelling conundrum in the long run dealing with the Carolina Panthers at Deny. 1 — can they worth a valuable piece of draft actual property on a participant whose dimension makes him an exception? Younger looms as an anomaly even a few of the smaller quarterbacks, as he’s a natural region passer. Simply 12% of his passes in university got here out of doors of the region, in line with ESPN Stats & Knowledge.
“If you pick him, you are saying that he’s the outlier in the history of the league,” mentioned a veteran NFL government. “Kyler Murray was that size, but a little sturdier built and ran low 4.4s. [Young is] an awesome player and awesome kid, but you are saying that the guy is the one outlier in the history of the league.”
The NFL draft trade over the years has been constructed on paradigms — top, weight, velocity. The ones archetypes have existed for many years, serving as tips and guardrails for franchises taking a look to keep away from errors.
The case for Younger has been made thru a path of flummoxed defensive coordinators and admiring head coaches who watched him thrive around the sideline. And it leaves one of the vital interesting draft questions of the life life: Can Bryce Younger be the exception?
When Vanderbilt mentor Clark Lea game-planned for Younger in September, he didn’t as soon as imagine his dimension within the equation of the way to effort to forbid him.
“It’s the skill set that offsets the size,” Lea mentioned. “When you’re out there on the field with him, you don’t look at him and say, ‘He’s small.’ He plays bigger than that. It’s a compliment to his competitive mindset and stature on the field.
“Dimension issues if you’ll pluck throw lanes away. His abilities give him the power to increase performs and step up and to find home windows to produce throws.”
Young’s 79 touchdowns in two seasons at Alabama rank as the most in the SEC over a two-year period. He missed just one game — against Texas A&M in 2022 with a shoulder injury — and flashed the physical and mental skills that have the NFL intrigued and left a trail of hapless defenders in his wake.
In speaking with a half-dozen coaches last week who faced Young, the two traits that came up the most were his innate feel in the pocket and his ability to diagnose defenses and dissect them accordingly.
The play that perhaps defined his elite instincts came in a comeback win at Texas in September, when Young pulled off a Houdini act that resonated as one of the most impressive of the season. Texas defensive back Ryan Watts streaked into the Alabama backfield unblocked and Young ducked so low at the last possible second to avoid Watts that his facemask nearly scraped the ground.
He then scrambled 20 yards to the 17-yard-line to set up the a game-winning 33-yard field goal three plays later.
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Bryce Young’s clutch run leads to Alabama’s winning field goal
Bryce Young escapes the blitz for a big first down, leading to Alabama’s game-winning field goal.
“It’s like tag, he’s the quickest factor in the market and nobody can contact him,” said former Auburn coach Bryan Harsin. “He can produce guys leave out and travel out of the way in which. That play games in opposition to Texas used to be one thing you spot in a film, like ‘The Matrix,’ upcoming he’s operating for it.
“His pocket awareness is maybe one of the best I’ve seen in college. He’ll stand back there. He’ll know nothing is open, he buys some time and someone is going to get open for him.”
Harsin coached Kellen Moore at Boise Situation — 6-foot and 197 on the NFL mix in 2012 — for 4 seasons because the quarterback mentor and offensive coordinator for the Broncos. Moore completed his occupation at Boise 50-3 as a starter and rest the winningest quarterback in university soccer historical past.
Via that ancient run, Harsin mentioned he and previous Boise mentor Chris Petersen learned the proliferation of the shotgun in university soccer — and extra not too long ago within the NFL with 63% of regular-season snaps within the gun in 2022 — has develop into an equalizer for shorter quarterbacks. That’s why Harsin mentioned he’d have laughed off any perception by way of a defensive mentor at Auburn that they might exploit Younger’s dimension.
Harsin coached in opposition to Younger simplest as soon as throughout his two-year Auburn tenure, however he’s lengthy been a card-carrying member of his wondershock community. Harsin took his son, Davis, to the 2019 highschool hit between Younger’s Mater Dei group and D.J. Uiagalelei‘s St. John Bosco membership.
Harsin sought after to provide his son, now a three-star quarterback retain, a glimpse of big-time prep soccer. He couldn’t have imagined that two years upcoming, Younger would govern one in every of his trademark comebacks in opposition to Auburn with a 97-yard game-tying force, enabling Alabama to win in 4 overtimes.
The upcoming month, when observing the movie and casting off the emotion, Harsin may simplest appreciate what Younger pulled off.
“When you pull back, from a pure quarterback standpoint, it was impressive,” Harsin mentioned. “I’m watching it the next day saying, ‘That dude is a Heisman Trophy winner.'”
Younger’s ultimate collegiate Houdini operate didn’t include a past due force. He to him, it seemed impossible within the Allstate Sugar Bowl in opposition to Kansas Situation, defying the opt-out pattern for govern potentialities now not within the CFP, and fileted Kansas Situation for 5 touchdowns and 321 yards.
Wildcats mentor Chris Klieman nonetheless doesn’t understand how superstar Wildcats nook Julius Brents, a possible first-round select himself this date, didn’t intercept a ball that Younger deftly dropped 32 yards to Ja’Corey Brooks at the again pylon of the tip zone.
“Just as far as the football acumen and the accuracy, I didn’t think there was a better quarterback this year,” Klieman mentioned. “That was the best kid we played, by far. How he read defenses, putting the ball in windows and spots.
“He used to be utterly in keep an eye on of the entirety.”
Young now enters a phase of his career he can’t control. The variables of success for a quarterback transitioning to the NFL start in the front office, filter down to the coaching staff and are rooted in the system. There’s also franchise patience pitted against fan pressure and the inevitability of enduring a few years with an inferior roster.
What’s certain is that a franchise will need to mold its roster and system to accommodate Young. Scouts and NFL personnel insist that begins with scheme and extends to putting together logical roster pieces.
Drafting Young comes with an acknowledgement that he won’t grow, but his height is less of an issue than his slender frame. There have been comparisons to Russell Wilson, who also weighed 204 pounds at the combine. But Young is simply not as thickly built as Wilson — he will likely play at around 205 pounds in the NFL, while Wilson is listed at 215 in Denver.
“I’ve been this dimension, respectfully, my entire hour,” Young said. “I do know who I’m. I do know what I will do. For me, [the concerns are] truthful. Everybody can speculate and ask when the questions are important. I’m getting to proceed to keep an eye on what I will keep an eye on.”
One NFL executive told ESPN that whoever drafts Young will need to “develop a Superior Wall” in front of him. That includes thick interior linemen but not necessarily tall ones. And they’d be flanked by bigger tackles.
“You want to stock the region company and sunny,” the executive said. “You don’t need 6-foot-5 guys around the board. That’d be parched for him.”
Bill O’Brien, the former Alabama offensive coordinator who was hired to the same position by the New England Patriots this offseason, was a relentless advocate of Young’s to scouts. The Crimson Tide are one of the most open programs in the country for scouts, and multiple scouts told ESPN O’Brien recommended Young with vigor.
“The dimensions doesn’t topic while you procedure the sport briefly,” one scout said. “The perception of him getting balls batted indisposed, that may simplest occur if he’s conserving the ball and now not making fast choices.”
The case for Young thriving in the NFL comes from Drew Brees, who is two inches taller at 6-foot and weighed nine more pounds at the combine (213).
A scout said Young will likely have to operate almost exclusively from the shotgun, which is in line with how NFL offenses have evolved.
“He’s in point of fact Drew Brees,” the scout said. “The dimensions doesn’t topic. He’s a region passer with motion abilities. You’re now not enjoying below heart, you need to exchange your offense, because it’s getting to be more difficult for him to get again in 3-step, 5-step and 7-step drops and nonetheless see over defenses.”
One of the most intriguing parts of this draft is there’s no consensus on the top quarterback. Some scouts are enamored with Anthony Richardson‘s characteristics, others with C.J. Stroud‘s manufacturing and a few love the bodily equipment of Will Levis.
One veteran scout summed up his Young skepticism by pointing out he may have relied too much on his improvisational ability: “His taste may be very a lot a place dropback that accentuates his instincts. It’s parched to peer him translating to a machine that depends upon fast contest. I don’t suppose he’s elite at expecting with timing early within the play games. He’s more proficient operating round and upcoming creating a play games together with his arm ability.”
It’s expected the Panthers are going to make a big bet on Young’s size not mattering. There’s a trail of college coaches who became believers after seeing Young’s magic up close. Will he break NFL paradigms and convert more skeptics?
“Through the years I’ve defended a batch of first-round quarterbacks,” Lea said. “Bryce indubitably stands proud as a participant who’s elite amongst the ones first-rounders. He’ll be scrutinized left and proper, however what I witnessed at the subject used to be a capability to dominate the sport and play games to his strengths, and that possibly limits the weaknesses.”
