Skull Session: Dwayne Haskins Should Get a Second-Round Grade, Ohio State to Emphasize the Passing Game, and Some Early Heisman Odds

By Kevin Harrish on February 28, 2019 at 4:59 am
Brutus is ready to hit a three in today's Skull Session.
123 Comments

I'm doing the offseason like a proper Columbusite and hitting up a Blue Jackets game this evening.

Get dumped then, Gritty.

ICYMI

Word of the Day: Frowsy.

 SECOND ROUND GRADE? Barring something insane happening, Dwayne Haskins is absolutely going to be a top-10 pick and is almost unanimously seen as an NFL prototype and the top quarterback in the draft.

Notice, I said almost unanimously.

He's not just tossing provocative things on Twitter to trigger thin-skinned individuals, he has legitimate points, and I'll hear him out.

From Ted Nguyen of The Athletic ($):

"Overall, Haskins is a good prospect with prototypical size and good arm talent. He’s shown a high intellectual ceiling but also has made mistakes typical of quarterbacks who don’t have a lot of experience. His raw stats from his lone season as a starter are spectacular. But when you break down how reliant he was on yards after the catch, they aren’t as impressive. His inconsistency with ball placement and dramatic drop in play under pressure are big areas of concern; those skills don’t typically improve at the next level. Haskins has enough attributes to be looked at as an intriguing quarterback to continue to develop, but there are too many question marks in his game to give him a first-round grade. "

Honestly, I agree with most of his #take.

Haskins' stats are padded as hell because of his receivers' abilities to run after the catch (the second half of the Penn State game is a perfect example of this), he did struggle when he had to throw out of a dirty pocket this year, and he really doesn't have a complete scouting report since he played just one season.

Those are all valid points. I personally think that despite all that, it'll turn out more than fine for Haskins, but I can see why those things would concern someone.

In most cases, it probably would have made sense to return to school for another season to continue to develop and answer those questions, but not when he's decidedly the top quarterback in the class even despite those concerns. Plus, his ceiling is just way too high for too many teams to pass on him.

 YOU HAVE TO THROW THE BALL. With Dwayne Haskins about to become a first round pick, the Buckeyes are going to be handing the keys to the offense to a new signal caller this season.

Haskins was literally the best passing quarterback in program history, so it's probably not fair to hold the new guy to that standard immediately, but the offense is going to remain mostly the same and the expectation will be that the quarterback move the ball through the air.

From Tony Gerdeman of The Ozone:

“As we move forward with our new quarterback, we figure out what he does best, we’ll emphasize that,” head coach Ryan Day said. “There are certain thing that will stay consistent. We believe we have to throw the ball to be able to win, whether it’s a two-minute drill in the Penn State game with J.T. or the two-minute drill we did with Dwayne towards the end of the season. That’s part of it.”

Regardless of who wins the job, the offense will remain the same. At least in relative terms.

“The offense that we ran with JT and the offense we ran with Dwayne is still the same offense,” Day said. “What I mean by that is the plays are still the plays, the playbook is the playbook. What plays we emphasize is based on the quarterback, always has been. The other part of it is, who is the best 11? Does it mean there’s an extra tight end, extra running back in the game. How does that fit?”

...

“If you want to go win the whole thing, you have to be able to throw the ball,” Day said. “That showed in the last two semifinals and the finals the last couple years. To win the national championship, you have to be able to throw it.”

Haskins' records are probably safe for the immediate future, but I don't think the Buckeyes are going to have any problems moving the ball through the air the next few seasons with the guys they have on the roster and the one currently committed.

 VERY EARLY HEISMAN ODDS. Speaking of quarterbacks, Justin Fields is among the early favorites to win the Heisman Trophy, if you're into wagering on that type of thing before his current head coach and quarterbacks coach has even seen him throw a pass in practice.

Superbook is giving Field 6/1 odds to win the Heisman, tied with Oklahoma's Jalen Hurts and Nebraska's Adrien Martinez, for some reason. No disrespect to Martinez, but his odds are around 35/1 at pretty much every other sportsbook, so 6/1 seems awful optimistic.

But hey, they're the experts, and they've been bookmaking since before I was born. I'm sure they just know something I don't, like the imminent rule change that will allow Antoine Wesley or Miles Sanders to win the Heisman as NFL players.

 WE'D LIKE TO REPORT A MURDER. I always love to see Michigan get dunked on, and I especially love to see Michigan get dunked on by Ohio State players' parents.

This week, it was Michael Jordan's father posterizing the Wolverines on social media.

The response is perfect, but imagine being the person asking that question with a straight face after the way the past decade has played out for both programs.

 JOHNNY FOOTBALL BANNED FROM CFL. The Johnny Manziel CFL experiment was fun while it lasted, but then Johnny Football had to go and get himself effectively banned from the league.

Basically, Johnny "contravened the agreement which made him eligible to play in the league." As a result, the CFL forced Montreal to release him and barred other teams from signing him in the future.

My first thought was the AAF, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Hey, the Columbus Destroyers need a new quarterback...

 LINK LOCKER. $18 supermarket whisky was just named world's best scotch... The ethically questionable math game taking over U.S. schools... Man dips his testicles into the salsa of a low-tipping customer... The psychiatrist who believed people could tell the future... Inside a teenage diver's quest to collect thousands of golf balls from Pebble Beach... Fight breaks out in Alabama restaurant over crab legs...

123 Comments
View 123 Comments