H4: Hall of Harbaugh Quarterback, Part 2

rawr.

This is the second installment of a comprehensive look at quarterbacks whom Jim Harbaugh recruited and coached. Part 1 looked at his WKU recruits, his work with the Oakland Raiders, and his first head coaching job at San Diego. A few trends that came out:

1. He recruits at least two QBs per class
2. They tend to look like shooting guards: tall, athletic, gangly, on the border of dual-threat/pro-style. He scouts them at multiple sports.
3. Their teams usually perform above or far above the usual for that program.
4. He likes them smart.

We are now entering the Stanford phase, so it’s a good thing we could notice item #4 above before the sample was ruined.

We also got an idea of how Harbaugh coaches them. He likes his heady guys to memorize a million things they can think about pre-snap. When he has one of those guys, they go to the line with three plays called, and the quarterback decides which by defensive alignment. Conversely, post-snap reads are super-simplified and drilled mercilessly so that his QB barely has to think about his progressions during a play.

This week we get into his last two stops before Michigan.

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Stanford
Head coach and quarterbacks coach, 2007-'10

2007: Harbaugh took over at Stanford in December 2006 with Kellen Kiilsguaard, a high three-star dual-threat, and L.D. Crow, an early-recruited academic from the South, already committed. Crow was on a lot of 2007 early watch lists (I know because I was reading those religiously for Mallett news) and Stanford's first commit of that class, but he was passed by a lot of guys by Signing Day (not Nick Foles, Kellen Moore, or Ryan Lindley). Kiilsguaard would eventually switch to safety. Harbaugh couldn't lure another QB but did get a transfer from Michigan. MGoBlog's Brian Cook:

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Jason Forcier can read the writing on the wall -- it says "Jesus Christ, that kid can throw eighty yards" -- and is transferring to Stanford effective at the end of the semester. Lloyd is not happy about it.

Forcier, like all Forciers, was an accurate Marinovich project with enough legs to be classified as a dual-threat but not enough to overshadow his passing.

On the roster were a pair of fliers in Alex Loukas, a 6'4/193 Purdue-al-threat (see: every other Purdue quarterback of the period), and Marcus Rance, a barely three-star guy from Washington whose next best offer was Idaho. Harbaugh also inherited a 5th year senior and on-and-off starter in T.C. Ostrander, an Elite 11 prospect who signed as a 4-star and two spots below Brady Quinn in a deep year for pro-style QBs. Ostrander split time with 2006 3rd round draft pick (and former 5-star) Trent Edwards for three seasons.

Last among  inherited bullets was Tavita Pritchard, a 2005 3-star pro-style guy ranked just behind Colt McCoy. Pritchard had thrown one pass—that incomplete—and was sacked on three other career snaps before Harbaugh arrived.

Ostrander suffered a seizure the week Stanford would go into #1 USC as 41-point underdogs. Against a brutal defense, Pritchard wasn't doing too hot—he'd go 11/30 for 149 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT in that game. But then 20 of those yards were a laser to Richard Sherman, and another 10 were the fade to Mark Bradford to win it. Pete Carroll wanted to know what Harbaugh's deal was.

Harbaugh's deal was he was recruiting quarterbacks. Andrew Luck committed at the end of June 2007, before Stanford had played a game under Harbaugh. The interest in Stanford was already there for the academic Texan, and meeting Jim sealed it.

Jim continued to recruit a second QB for the class. Targets included Dayne Crist (Notre Dame), Jerome Tiller (ISU), Sean Renfree (Duke), Ted Stachitas (Wake Forest), Wayne Warren (Rutgers), B.R. Holbrook (New Mexico), and another Texas prospect, Robert Griffin III. RGIII turned down Harbaugh's offer because of Stanford's admissions policy:

“I was graduating early, and Stanford wasn’t allowing early graduates to enroll and that was the biggest issue,” Griffin said.

So Stanford wound up with just one quarterback for the class. Luck was the epitome of the Harbaugh quarterback recruit: valedictorian smart, extremely productive in high school, cool demeanor, and some wiggle. Under Harabaugh he would develop into the best pro prospect since Peyton Manning, whom Luck displaced.

TD rate and INT rate on the right are percentages for all attempts (passing and rushing), and are right up there with QB rating in tracking efficiency. The sophomore Luck won the job over the incumbent senior Pritchard in 2009, but it was his junior season, 2010, when he really became Andrew Luck.

[Jump for 2009-2010 targets and the San Francisco story]

Harbaugh’s 2009 offers: all became starters, 3/5 were in Heisman conversations

For the 2009 class Harbaugh again went after many, and took two QBs. The “What’s your deal?” game became a subtext of 5-star top recruit in the nation Matt Barkley’s recruitment, though Stanford was never really in it. A comment from Harbaugh on Barkley as an NFL prospect in 2013 repeats the heady theme:

Jim Harbaugh on Matt Barkley: "He's got the superior mind to be really effective at the NFL level. He knows how to play the game."

— Michael Lev (@MichaelJLev) March 20, 2013

He was a grade A student and church group member with go-getter parents Harbaugh probably adored as much as that arm. Stanford was the only Pac 12 team Barkley would never beat with USC. He was a Heisman finalist in 2011 and entered 2012 as the favorite but separated his shoulder in the season-ending UCLA game and missed the Sun Bowl.

Nunes was a Stanford fan ever since that had been his baseball cap in 2nd grade, and a Harbaugh QB since he got the goofy-looking gene. [U.S. Presswire via SF Examiner]

Harbaugh did get his next 2009 target, Josh Nunes, the 9th pro-style QB and 139th overall player according to the 247 composite. Nunes was a prolific passer in high school (6,306 yards and 52 TDs in 34 starts) who on Harbaugh’s recommendation added running (3.1 YPA with sacks included) to his reads as a senior. Nunes was heir apparent to Andrew Luck but lost his job to Kevin Hogan while out with a foot injury in 2012, and lost his career to a freak pectoral injury in 2013.

Taysom Hill was a three-star, Rivals’ 30th pro-style QB, who committed over offers from BYU, Boise State, Utah, and a handful of other Pac 12 schools before becoming another victim of Stanford’s anti-January enrollment rule. He went on a two-year Mormon Mission that ended in December 2011, so rather than sit around for half a year until Stanford would let him start classes he went to BYU.

Which means you will see Hill this season; the now-senior has over 4,000 career passing yards and was a Heisman candidate last year before a major leg injury ended his season. They compare him to Tim Tebow because he runs like a fullback, but he reminds me of Harbaugh:

Other QB targets in 2009 were Allan Bridgford, ranked not far behind Nunes, and 3-star Brock Osweiler, then known as the 6’8” dude from Montana, who was deciding between football and playing hoops for Gonzaga. Bridgford made three starts for Cal in 2012 then was a grad transfer to Southern Miss as Sonny Dykes elected to spend more snaps developing his younger players. Bridgford started but lost his job mid-way through the year and went undrafted.

Osweiler on the other hand starred for Arizona State, earning a start as a true freshman and another as a sophomore while competing with transfer (hello again!) Steven Threet. In 2011 Threet retired before the concussions could do any more damage to that valuable brain, and Osweiler passed for 4000 yards (26 TDs/13 Ints) and left for the NFL, where he was drafted by Denver in the 2nd round. If Manning retires next week, Osweiler is heir apparent, and Broncos fans appear to be zen about the prospect.

2010

By the time the 2010 class was being recruited, Stanford looked to be turning around, and Andrew Luck was a sophomore performing pretty okay. The offer cannon went out in earnest to find his successor.

We’ll start with the guys he got. Brett Nottingham was the headliner, a 4-star and the #7 pro-style in the 247 composite. Nottingham lost out to Nunes and transferred to Columbia (yes THAT Columbia), but left the team when he didn’t win the starting job there either. Dallas Lloyd was a 3-star, the 9th dual-threat, with offers from Miami (YTM), BYU, and Nebraska. He delayed his enrollment for a two-year Mormon mission. Stanford built Lloyd a little offensive package in 2013 and moved him to safety last year.

David Olson was a high-academic but relatively unrecruited kid from South Carolina (Rivals gave him a 3-star but not rankings, and other sites skipped him). Other than Ivy Leagues Olson had a Louisville scholarship until committing on the offer to Harbaugh just before Signing Day. Olson was a kind of Coner-level backup the last few years and took a grad transfer year at Clemson.

Darren Daniel (2.5-star, #49 dual-threat) was another tall (6’4) and scrawny (186 lbs) afterthought recruited out of Alabama when Hill decided he wouldn’t be coming back from his mission. His only other BCS offers were Clemson and Vanderbilt. Stanford tried to move him to wide receiver so he transferred to a JuCo then reappeared at Alabama State.

These Plan B’s were necessary after whiffing on a number of other guys you’ve heard of. Connor Shaw you remember as the animated character of the South Carolina cartoon show that beat Michigan in its last relevant bowl game. Tommy Rees had an arm capable of football circumnavigation at 42.3 degrees Latitude:

…and enough athleticism to knee a police officer in the bits and escape. Some you haven’t heard of: 4-star athlete Anthony Barr went to UCLA and became an NFL linebacker, lanky athlete type Clint Trickett stayed home for Florida State then transferred to West Virginia, where he started until retiring from football before their 2012 bowl game due to concussions; he plans on being a coach. Tanner Price was a lanky 3-star from Texas who went to Wake Forest, won the starting job as a freshman, and graduated with nearly 9,000 passing yards; he’s since been patrolling the edges of pro football waiting for an NFL opportunity to come along. Austin Hinder was an early top recruit (Lemming hung on to his 5-star ranking and called him the fifth overall QB) but slipped to a 4-star to everyone else. He went to Cal and never cracked the depth chart.

2011: Harbaugh was involved heavily of course in the 2011 class, since he took the 49ers job in early January. Jim got in early with both Johnny Manziel and Marcus Mariota, but didn’t get reciprocal interest. He also was after North Carolina’s now-starter Marquise Williams, who was 2nd team all-ACC last year. Current Stanford starter Kevin Hogan was a Harbaugh recruit all the way. At 6’4”/200 and a scion of a 1950s Navy/1970s Notre Dame football family, Hogan was the 8th composite pro-style in his class, and had all the requisite wiggle and intelligence we’ve tracked in the guys above. He took over when Nunes had his foot injury, and projects as an NFL quarterback though not a first rounder.

By November 2010 Harbaugh was expected to either end up at Michigan or the NFL by next season so some of the other prospects drifted away; Stanford ended up taking 3-star pro-style Evan Crower.

San Francisco 49ers 
Head coach, 2011-‘14

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images via ESPN

I don’t need to go into as much detail because the story is legend: Harbaugh inherited a disappointing #1 overall pick and Urban Meyer creature in Alex Smith, whom everyone supposed had one foot out the door during the lockout. After meeting with Harbaugh, Smith instead led the team’s offseason workouts, and came back as a more than adequate pro starter in a simplified scheme post-snap scheme:

But Harbaugh has also changed the entire theory behind how Smith and his offense approach the blitz, and this is where Smith’s greatest improvement has come. That’s because Harbaugh eliminated “sight adjustments” from the 49ers playbook.

…

The quarterback still needs an anti-blitz option or two, and these are known as “hot” routes. The difference between Harbaugh’s “hot routes” and the sight adjustment is that he builds them into the receivers’ regular routes. In short,every play has at least one hot route.

This is a Nussmeier thing too but wasn’t in Borges’s offense. On film you can recognize it in receivers constantly looking back after seven steps. That is of course coordinated with the quarterback’s footwork, and the reason you’re starting to recognize it now is it’s right out of Bill Walsh.

Then Kaepernick took over because he could pass like Alex and run better. Brian summarized Harbaugh’s approach to quarterback legs in the NFL:

For two, Harbaugh has shown a tactical flexibility that eluded Hoke. Harbaugh inherited 2005 #1 overall pick Alex Smith and threw him overboard in his second year for Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick has rushed for about 500 yards a year since his installation as the starter as the 49ers have moved towards a spread-ish system that uses Kaepernick's mobility in a modern, NFL-appropriate way.

The results were way fewer turnovers without losing efficiency:

* YPP includes sacks and rushes

Harbaugh fixed Alex Smith, drafted Kaepernick out of a pistol spread-to-run offense in Nevada, and ultimately increased completion percentage 5 points, halved interceptions, and added a yard per every play a quarterback was involved in.