The Big 12's next class of field generals

One of the interesting quirks of March Madness is watching which teams have winning guard play, and which do not. Teams can win games in the regular season without good floor generals.

A point made by Jonathan Tjarks of the Ringer recently in talking through the upcoming March Madness slate and it’s most interesting NBA prospects was the supreme importance of guard play, point guard play in particular, in determining the tournament outcomes. Everyone gameplans each other much more carefully in the postseason, they know each other’s actions, strengths, and weaknesses. Bad guards are exposed and great guards rise to the top.

As Texas basketball fans are well aware, the quality and talent of a team’s forwards doesn’t much matter if the point guard can’t be trusted to get the offense rolling and pass the ball to the forward in the spots on the floor where he can dominate games. Tjarks noted in his discussion of the tournament how the NBA has a baseline of competency every guard meets, whereas in college basketball you routinely have incompetent guards and/or guards who don’t realize they shouldn’t be the ones trying to take the winning shots with the game on the line.

Football works very differently in some regards and yet boils down to the same issue in others.

Traditionally teams put their best skill player at running back and it lowers the bar for how much a quarterback has to be able to do in order to ensure the ball is in the best player’s hands. Instead it’s the offensive line which becomes the “point guard” single point of failure for an offensive system. Baylor and Oklahoma State went to the Big 12 title last year in spite of their field generals, relying on the O-line, defense, and running the ball.

Next season will be a bit different as the quarterback position is changing quite a bit across the league. We’ve already talked about the incoming transfers at the position, this week we’re going to talk about some of the young emerging guys and how they project to be able to guide winning efforts for their teams.

If the league gets back to its high-flying ways in 2022, it won’t do to try and play defense and run the ball. Teams will have to put the games back in the hands of their “point guards” at quarterback and hope they can manufacture offense in big spots.

Hunter Dekkers, Iowa State

The replacement of Brock “pump fake” Purdy by Hunter Dekkers is something Iowa State has been building toward for a while now. Dekkers is one of the highest rated recruits of the Matt Campbell era, marked a 89.30 (low 4-star) by the On3 consensus ratings. They’ve had him for two years already to develop him for this moment and Campbell inserted him into some big games in 2021 against Iowa and Oklahoma so he’s been blooded some in anticipation of being “the guy” in 2022 now Purdy has finally moved on.

Dekkers’ film against Iowa and Oklahoma showed a guy who was reasonably solid at reading their progressions, occasionally got the ball out quickly to advantage routes, and regularly managed to get to his check downs with solid timing and accuracy. He’s a big, strong, left-hander who can hit every throw they’d want and is pretty calm in the pocket even though he has the mobility and ability to throw on the run to bail and try to make something happen. That’s a positive because Iowa State quietly has the skill athletes to get people open in 2022 if the quarterback is patient and willing to trust in the system.

His knack for hanging in and finding crossers late after the snap is going to translate very easily in Campbell’s system, particularly with the increasing numbers of dangerous crossing pattern receivers the Cyclones have accumulated. Dekkers can still run some of the zone-option schemes Purdy ran and at 6-foot-3, 235 pounds he has a little extra pop to execute some of the quarterback power RPO schemes Purdy used to operate more regularly.

It’s hard to imagine he’ll bring the same kind of improv magic as Purdy and Dekkers will need more support around him from the protections by the line and the receivers than Purdy had at times. However, he may prove equal or superior to Purdy in executing the Campbell system and may rely less on improv in a manner which makes the Cyclones less vulnerable to turnovers.

Jalon Daniels, Kansas

I’m not sure the extent to which Lance Leipold and his staff understood they had an ideal quarterback waiting for them on the roster but they definitely worked it out for themselves. If you’ve observed Leipold’s Buffalo teams, they had a pro-style approach to offense heavy on running the ball, primarily with outside zone, and then throwing the ball on drop back progression schemes and play-action from the wide zone scheme.

Ideally your quarterback in a scheme like this is good one of two regards, A) able to hit windows to punish 1-on-1s outside the hash marks or B) able to throw on the run on rollouts.

Daniels is good at both. He’s pretty powerfully built at 6-foot-0, 215 pounds with the quickness to rollout and escape pass-rushers and then arm strength to throw when he’s on the move or throwing down field. It wasn’t just Texas who struggled with his abilities within their concept, he gave TCU and West Virginia a little trouble down the stretch as well.

The Jayhawk run game should be pretty solid in 2022. They return freshman Devin Neal and added transfers Ky Thomas and Sevion Morrison and have a trio of Buffalo transfers helping to fill out the O-line. They don’t have a wide receiver anyone is particularly afraid of but the combination of the run game and Daniels’ ability to create angles with his arm strength should cause problems for defenses.

They had hoped to redshirt Daniels last year but ended up having to play him to finish the year, but he probably took a lot from those opportunities to play. Now he’ll have a full offseason with the new staff in this system and should be a pretty capable starter at executing the offense.

Chandler Morris, TCU

It’s interesting to me the extent to which it’s not already assumed Chandler Morris will be the guy in Fort Worth. He showed more in games against Baylor and Oklahoma State than most every other quarterback in the league. Sonny Dykes likes building offenses around the threat of the passing game, circling back to the run game after establishing Over routes down the field.

Chandler Morris is an effective deep ball, and intermediate middle ball passer and has experience within systems of this ilk at Highland Park, Oklahoma, and then TCU. They took Baylor’s defense apart with a more full-blown Air Raid attack and Chandler Morris’ running ability, then failed to do likewise against Oklahoma State who was able to apply pressure in key moments to kill potential TCU drives.

The Frogs have pretty good receiving talent on hand and it could be much better still after an offseason of working with this new staff rather than the run-focused Gary Patterson squad. They have a lot of very talented skill talent on the roster, particularly Quentin Johnston and Kendre Miller, and enough O-linemen to run block and set up play-action. Morris should be very effective in this offense and his ability to scramble, provided he doesn’t get himself into injury trouble (175 pounds is not much…), should help open some things up for their attack.

Dykes has a lot to work with in crafting an offense in year one in the Fort and a well-studied pupil in Morris for whom the spread play-action game should come very easily.

There may be some other young signal-callers stepping in next year as well. We don’t yet know if Texas will turn to Quinn Ewers or Hudson Card, West Virginia has a murky quarterback picture, and Texas Tech brings back strong-armed Tyler Shough but also talented young Donovan Smith. We’ll also have to see how Baylor handles their issues with Gerry Bohanon back but Blake Shapen a potential passing game upgrade.

These three at least should end up at the helms of their respective teams. All three are potentially great fits for the sorts of offenses these schools want to run and each have had a chance now to develop within the system (or similar systems) and grow their skills to the point where they could be asked to make winning plays and get the ball to the right guys at the right times with contests on the line.

As many a coach noted at the 2021 Big 12 Media Days, this league features a lot of parity and single-possession games, and the way you win those is with ball security and decision-making by your quarterback in the fourth quarter. Last year a lot of coaches would win by keeping those games out of the hands of their quarterbacks by lessening their decision-making burden, but teams with winning quarterbacks will beat those who don’t have them. The Big 12 teams who makes the biggest leap at quarterback this spring will be the ones in contention for the crown next November and December.

Which of these teams will have the best quarterback in 2022? Discuss for free on the Flyover Football board!