Notre Dame And Dealing With Quarterback Mechanics
Through the decades, a popular inquiry among Fighting Irish faithful has been, “Who is the best quarterback ever to play at Notre Dame?”
Four of them have won a Heisman Trophy, although none since 1964, including three-time national champ Johnny Lujack.
Two of them — Joe Theismann and Joe Montana — later became NFL MVPs and Super Bowl winners after guiding No. 2 and No. 1 finishes at Notre Dame while defeating No. 1-ranked Texas teams in the Cotton Bowl.
Tony Rice directed conquests over more top teams (eight over the final AP Top 10) than anyone while leading a school-record 23-game winning streak, and Brady Quinn holds virtually every career passing mark after helping lead Notre Dame to two major bowls.
Still, there is often a sarcastic reply to the inquiry about who the best ever is or was: “The next one.”
In this case, that would be 2021 recruit Tyler Buchner. The 6-2, 205-pound La Mesa, Calif., native is ranked by Rivals the nation’s No. 114 overall prospect (four spots higher than current freshman Drew Pyne in 2020) despite not playing as a high school senior because of the COVID-19 pandemic that was especially rife in California.
Buchner had been ranked as high as No. 42 and deemed a fringe five-star prospect — until last June issues were raised about his mechanics/throwing motion at the Elite 11 camp in which he finished 18th out of 20 quarterbacks in the accuracy gauntlet.
Sound familiar? Over the past four years, the same topic was raised about two of Buchner’s predecessors who were top-100 recruits: Brandon Wimbush (No. 60) in 2015 and Phil Jurkovec (No. 87) in 2018, but now the starter at Boston College.
A superb athlete, Wimbush on occasion had an issue with “the yips” on shorter throws before working with former Arizona State starting quarterback Taylor Kelly, an instructor with 3DQB, a biomechanics and performance company that has had a client base that has included Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Andrew Luck — and yes, now Buchner as well.
The extra training with Wimbush never quite worked out when Ian Book — whose 30 wins as a starter at an .857 winning percentage are the most ever by a Notre Dame QB — supplanted him in the 2018 starting lineup, and he also lost the starting job at UCF as a 2019 grad transfer.
Meanwhile, Jurkovec arrived with a somewhat unconventional, elongated throwing motion that led to some struggles, most conspicuously in the 2019 Blue-Gold Game in which he was downcast afterwards with a performance that greatly shook his confidence.
“It’s been tweaked a lot, so I’m just going to have to keep working on that,” said Jurkovec at the time of his mechanics. “In high school my form changed multiple times. I have a lot to work on… I’m always going to have to work on my mechanics.”
For both Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Tommy Rees — who started 31 games at quarterback for Notre Dame from 2010-13 under Kelly — paralysis by analysis is the last thing they want for Buchner, just like Wimbush or Jurkovec.
“We don't touch it; we stay away from it,” insisted Kelly in August 2019 of overanalyzing QB mechanics. “I've always philosophically stayed away from motions. You're entering into an area where they've had so many reps at it. To get into changing motions, I've never had much success with it. Let them be who they are.”
Rees said a fine line always has to be drawn between fundamentals and effectiveness. Rees worked as an offensive assistant with the San Diego Chargers in 2016 when eight-time Pro Bowl quarterback Philip Rivers did not have the classic three-quarters release but noted how “no one is changing his release point.”
“For me it’s pretty much from the base through the core, and then making sure target line, eyes, body position are all set,” Rees said.
Rees’ cut-off point with mechanics is the shoulder.
“You don’t want to get into an area unless it’s something really extreme where you’re tinkering too much with how a kid’s throwing a ball his entire life,” Rees said. "He’s thrown a football the right way for 18 years to get himself to Notre Dame — and I’m not talking Tyler specifically, I’m talking in generalities.
“If we feel like there’s something that needs to be altered there, then we probably didn’t do our job in the evaluation period. So it’s our job to help them improve footwork, base, core, target line, and then it allows them to be more accurate.”
For what it’s worth, former Super Bowl champion quarterback Trent Dilfer was effusive in his praise of Buchner at the Elite 11 camp.
As always, only time will tell.
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