Christian Hackenberg's Glorified Freshman Campaign Did Not Show Future Star QB

As much as we'd like to hope narratives wouldn't influence how the media ranks NFL draft prospects, they often do. The only way the public can appropriately judge individual media scouts' evaluation processes is by how accurately their projections reflect on draft day. A better way to approach the subject is to look back at how classes shake out five years into the league, but fans don't have the time nor the interest to compile and composite rankings in an attempt to figure out where the best information is coming from.

Fans trust networks, and services to do that for them. They aren't fans of the draftniks on television; they're fans of the organizations bringing in new players. Due to the nature of the field, it's more of a positive for talking heads and writers alike to align themselves as close to the NFL as they can, rather than to challenge the opinions of those in the league. This is where the Christian Hackenberg evaluation starts.

The short and skinny on Hackenberg is simple: He's a former golden-boy savior whose coach left for the NFL, and it's assumed the new coaching staff stunted his growth. What gets confusing, though, is there really isn't a career-arch comparison for the former Penn State quarterback.

Some quarterbacks, like Jameis Winston and Andrew Luck, lived up to their "future first overall pick" title. Others, like Jevan Snead and Logan Thomas, failed to meet expectations after being marketed as crown princes.

No one ever blamed Snead or Thomas' staffs for falling short. Thomas, for example, opened up his 2013 senior season against the Alabama Crimson Tide, who were coming off a national title season. Never brought up was the fact Thomas' top three receiving targets had graduated and the team was fielding a true-freshman left tackle in the Georgia Dome.

All that was ever spoken of regarding that performance was his 5-of-26 stat line, which didn't reflect his on-field talent that day. Dropped passes and chaos on the offensive line did their fair share to influence those numbers.

We don't often treat the quarterback position with nuance. It's a sink-or-swim leadership-role mindset. First and foremost, teams like "winners."

Bill Parcells, who was an NFL head coach for 11 years and a powerful executive for seven seasons, even put his name to a quarterback criteria, which included a threshold for how many wins a prospect needed coming out of college. After accounting for wins, different evaluators have various filters to separate the Kellen Moores from Jameis Winstons.

One common theme is quarterback prospects under 6'2" are knocked, even if they are Russell Wilson, who played behind a line of giants for a Rose Bowl Wisconsin team and looked like a first-round pick on the field. No one was shocked when he was drafted in the third round. Even Drew Brees wasn't a first-round pick coming out of Purdue.

This is all to say that the draft cycle generally has rules, and Hackenberg is breaking just about every one of them. It's hard for me to remember the last time I heard excuses made for a quarterback, let alone so many for the same passer—one who never "won" anything of note.

In 2013, the Penn State Nittany Lions beat the Wisconsin Badgers in a 31-24 game. Wisconsin would finish with a 6-2 record in the Big Ten, going down as the only team with a winning record in the conference the Hackenberg Lions would ever beat. It should be noted that Wisconsin's defensive blunders that day included losing count of an outside receiver in the red zone. The other in-conference squads Penn State tallied wins against between 2013 and 2015 combined for a conference record of 14-58.

The majority of scouting reports begin with a list of positives about a player. Hackenberg's, for the most part, will lead off with some sort of a timeline of his talent declining, featuring several "buts." Lance Zierlein is one of the best draft analysts in the media, and in his NFL.com overview of the former Nittany Lion, he used "but" in the two sentences explaining the passer's last two seasons in State College, Pennsylvania:

"

Hackenberg's junior year did not go quite as expected, but he still wound up as the school's all-time leader in passing yards (8,457) and touchdowns (48).

His play was not as efficient in his sophomore year (2,977 yards, 12 TD, 15 INT), but his MVP performance in the Nittany Lions' double overtime Pinstripe Bowl win over Boston College led many to think he was on his way to stardom.

"

In Zierlein's "Sources Tell Us" section of the scouting report, an NFC executive gives three sentences on the player. Two of them have another pair of "buts" sprinkled in. It is nearly impossible to judge Hackenberg as a prospect when you don't isolate the player from the narrative:

"

The tape is just terrible over the last two years, but he has traits and leadership. His freshman tape is good, but how do you discount everything you've seen for two years? That freshman tape is going to lead a team to overdraft him.

"

Every time someone rationalizes Hackenberg's draft status as a top-100 pick, it revolves around his freshman season. That campaign earned the Penn State passer the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year Award, plus a multitude of Freshman All-American honors. In a vacuum, though, how good was it?

First, it should be stated that Hackenberg's head coach isn't the only important member of the Penn State squad who left after the 2013 season. His best receiver, Allen Robinson, also was only around for his freshman year. Last season, Robinson led the NFL in touchdowns and receptions of 20 yards or more, and he had the highest yards-per-catch average of any target with more than 50 receptions.

We've seen elite receivers inflate the media's stock in a passer before. None is more recent and obvious than Clemson's Tajh Boyd, who had DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins and Martavis Bryant to throw to when he was gaining steam as "the next Russell Wilson."

Boyd was 213th overall a year after his hype train took off, and he has yet to throw an NFL pass. Had Robinson not ran a 4.60-second 40-yard dash, which he improved to 4.47 seconds at his pro day, according to NFLDraftScout.com, he may have been a first-round pick in 2013, instead of being selected 61st overall.

Outside of Matthew Stafford-A.J. Green, it's hard to come across a successful first-round NFL receiver whose college quarterback also had a solid professional career. Since 1998, when Randy Moss left the Chad Pennington-led Marshall Thundering Herd, the second-best example of both a first-round wideout and quarterback thriving at the next level is Jameis Winston and Kelvin Benjamin—two players who only have one regular season under their belts. The list of "hits" isn't long.

With that in mind, Hackenberg's freshman year wasn't as flawless as it was flashy. There were times when he threw to his men well before their breaks, anticipating open receivers rather than having to see targets get open before throwing the ball. That's an NFL trait. It's understandable that someone would get excited about seeing that from an 18-year-old.

It was also evident early on that head coach Bill O'Brien wasn't running a typical college system. Hackenberg didn't play in a single-read offense, and he often had to move his eyes to different sections of the field, even in short-yardage situations.

Not everything was as clean as you'd want it to be, though. One of his biggest issues was how much velocity he threw with. There were times when he'd hit the back of his drop and rifle a ball off with enough heat that it made it hard to catch, despite it being on target.

Sometimes the tempo of his throws led to poor ball placement, too, even on screen passes, which would foreshadow his next two seasons in State College. His arm strength did manifest itself positively, though, as he was willing and able to make passes in the intermediate portion of the field that few in college football could have executed.

One of the biggest inconsistencies Hackenberg had was his pocket presence. There were times the opposing pass rush seemed to only be in his peripherals, as he worked unconscious in the pocket like Geno Smith at West Virginia. There were times when an opportunity to step up presented itself, and he shuffled up in the pocket.

Other instances, like a missed deep ball to Robinson against Nebraska, were highlighted by the former blue-chip recruit passing up a step-up option to bail the pocket, putting himself in a worse position against the Cornhusker pressure. In general, his ability to attack downfield needed to be tightened up, too, as he left too many plays on the field.

There were many times Hackenberg just looked like a freshman. Different coaches have different approaches to the sport, but the majority of quarterback gurus agree the last thing a quarterback should look at before the ball is snapped is to see if a boundary blitzer is coming. Mark Richt, the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes and former Georgia Bulldogs head coach, even went in depth on the subject at coaching clinics when he was the offensive coordinator at Florida State.

Hackenberg had some close calls with those blitzers in 2013. This is concerning, as Michael Vick's downfall in Pennsylvania with the Eagles revolved around teams exploiting his weakness against the slot blitz. Quarterbacks have to be attentive at all times, and there were lapses when the Nittany Lion looked lackadaisical, including when his eyes and shoulders weren't moving at the same pace, wasting more time than needed to get a pass off.

Having your shoulders aligned as a quarterback is more important than aligning your feet. Aligning your feet can generate extra power, but without involving your core for torque, you're "arming" a pass. An Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson can roll around, with feet everywhere, as long as their shoulders are ready to get the ball out on a moment's notice. When your shoulders are misaligned, your peak is Jay Cutler.

We're led to assume his talent warrants a top-100 pick, based on what the 21-year-old looked like when he was an up-and-down 18-year-old. One instrument that kept this narrative alive was O'Brien—or rather the idea of the two reuniting.

O'Brien was Hackenberg's head coach during his true-freshman year. Together, they were supposed to build the program back up, masking the shame that overcame State College after the Jerry Sandusky child-abuse scandal. In many ways, looking at a head coach and quarterback to make the public forget about a serial child molester sounds insane outside of the Nittany Lion community, but to those in the collective, the pair were heroes before even stepping on campus. The problem is, that praise was unwarranted, as they had yet to accomplish anything.

They were uplifted by the fanbase for joining the program, as the two desirable commodities chose a less than desirable setting to collaborate, considering the sanctions they both knew they were walking into. Happy Valley looked at the two as near myths, and Hackenberg was a young Hercules. Nevermind that universally applauded 5-star quarterbacks fail fairly frequently, as a list of recent busts include the names of Dayne Crist, Garrett Gilbert and Phillip Sims. Hackenberg showed some shine, good for his age for one year at Penn State, and then his coach took the Houston Texans job.

That was the very moment blame was passed. It wasn't that fans were mad that O'Brien left the university. A former NFL assistant leaving a sanctioned program for an NFL head coaching gig wasn't a surprise to anyone involved. It was that their new head coach, James Franklin, who was brought in from Vanderbilt, wasn't able to push Hackenberg to the next level.

Matt Millen is a former Detroit Lions general manager, and he played football for Penn State. He spoke with Fox Sports' Bruce Feldman about Hackenberg in January, and his quotes and emotion echo the line of thinking from most who wear Nittany Lion blue and white on autumn Saturdays:

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I can't undersell how huge (former PSU head coach) Bill O'Brien was to this whole thing. Christian committed to Bill. He didn't know anything about Penn State. The part that he committed to, was after Bill left, and that was a big decision because he really could've done anything. So I got a lot of respect for the kid because he's got a lot on his shoulders. He's the face of the program. Everybody tied their wagon to him. Last year, he had to shoulder the wagon when things didn't go right, when receivers went the wrong way, when protections were awful. You had a clash of two systems. He's trying to learn one and put it in the other's terms. There was a lot to do. I think what Christian's done is really amazing actually.

The focus that he had and his ability to stay steadfast with what he had to do when things didn't go very well, that speaks to the kid. On top of his arm strength to make all the throws, and his ability to see the field, and being a smart kid, he's really got good focus and he's got some good character and that really puts him high on the list.

The numbers are irrelevant and the wins are really irrelevant. It's how he did it, and how he's doing it. That's way more important.

"

The State College sentiments are odd. Virginia Tech fans never had a "maybe it's us, not him" approach to Thomas' letdown. You can't find an Ole Miss fan who thinks the program should take blame for Snead's regression.

This comes back to O'Brien. The draft community does a good job of trying to link together college coaches with their former quarterbacks, even though the execution of these reunions rarely come to fruition. If it isn't the Chip Kelly Philadelphia Eagles trying to trade up to the second overall pick for Marcus Mariota, as Fox Sports' Peter Schrager said on The Herd with Colin Cowherd (via Philly Sports Network's Liam Jenkins), it's the Doug Marrone Buffalo Bills rumored to take Ryan Nassib in the first round, according to ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

Neither of those fantasies went through, and Nassib was drafted 110th overall in 2013, a fourth-round pick, which is light-years after the Bills were on the clock with the eighth selection in the draft. They elected to trade back in the first round, leading to the selection of EJ Manuel from Florida State, whom Marrone coached against, not with, at Syracuse.

That didn't teach us our lesson, though. The idea of O'Brien "fixing" a broken Hackenberg as a first-round pick has been kicked around since Ryan Fitzpatrick left town and signed with the New York Jets last year. In 2015, the Texans somehow made it to the playoffs with a 9-7 record.

They played five quarterbacks last season: Ryan Mallett, Brian Hoyer, T.J. Yates, Brandon Weeden and even B.J. Daniels. The last four listed joined the franchise in March, October, November and December, respectively, while Mallett was cut in October after spending a season-and-a-half with the organization.

That "maybe it's us, not him" thought process is easier to buy into when there's already a favorable partner for "him" in mind. Between that and the juxtaposition of Hackenberg before and after O'Brien, you can probably talk yourself into a lot of things, should you take that path until there's no more ground to trek.

It's not so much the quarterback's freshman season was elite like Winston's or Luck's, but it's that ever since then, he's been so bad. Now, it's hard to find stretches where he doesn't loft up an interception or air-ball a simple screen to the sideline. Rotoworld's Josh Norris provided footage of a Hackenberg interception:

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Here is the Hackenberg interception everyone is reacting to. https://t.co/iyBcXOaMHX

— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) September 5, 2015"

It's astonishing that a top prospect's best trait is "look how bad he was outside of his freshman campaign," but here we are. When O'Brien discussed Hackenberg at the combine in February, a talk in which he spoke positively about the quarterback, but the compliments were vague, the media ate it up.

One of my favorite draft writers is NFL.com's Chad Reuter. In his late-January mock, the Philadelphia Eagles didn't select Hackenberg until 77th overall, but by early March, the quarterback was mocked 22nd overall to the Houston Texans.

"I don't know if head coach Bill O'Brien will use this pick to get his former protege, or maybe move up into the late first or early second round...but either way, I'll be surprised if they don't reunite."

As proven in free agency, that whole coach-player connection is hugely overstated. How did we learn this? In Deepi Sidhu's HoustonTexans.com article, the opening sentence reads: "Bill O’Brien hadn’t formally met Brock Osweiler until his first press conference as a Texan."

In 2016, we're still assuming passers land with franchises whose coaches they rubbed elbows with, but, in reality, coaches are bringing in franchise quarterbacks with a price tag of $72 million without the two sides even meeting in person. On top of that, O'Brien praised Osweiler, someone he had never met before, in the press conference, which should numb any of the information anyone thinks they milked from O'Brien's words in Indianapolis.

In the "Brock Osweiler: Houston Texan" world, what do we do with Hackenberg? O'Brien isn't in a position to "save" him, and hoping he clicks with another coach is the same as hoping he'd develop under Franklin at Penn State, right?

If Hackenberg's brain was caught between O'Brien and Franklin's systems, and that is why he flopped at Penn State, why are we expecting him to have different results in the NFL, where another playbook with different terminology will be thrown his way?

It's not like we haven't entered offseasons with crossed fingers before, praying he elevates his game to another level. His camp, including former NFL quarterback Jordan Palmer, is claiming they have developed the passer in the couple of months they've been together, according to Dustin Hockensmith of the Patriot News.

Every spring we hear about a new quarterback guru fixing another down-in-the-dumps passer, though. The sentiment will make noise in the offseason, but when bullets start flying, players regress to who they looked like prior to the training. Heck, Steve Clarkson said he figured out how to fix Tim Tebow's mechanics within three days in 2013.

We should have expected Hackenberg to be on the "All-Offseason" team anyway, as both the combine and pro days inflate the value in quarterbacks who "look the part." In Indianapolis, he measured in at 6'4" and 223 pounds, which is roughly the position's prototypical size.

On the July 14 episode of the Move the Sticks podcast, an NFL Media production, Rhett Lewis told Daniel Jeremiah that while at the Manning Passing Academy, an offseason quarterback camp, Hackenberg passed the "eye test" and "just looks like Kerry Collins," a former first-round Penn State quarterback, starting around the 9:15 time stamp.

He looks like our idea of the cliche sports-movie quarterback. We've known this since he was 17 years old. Why are we counting his "ability" to have a solid frame over and over? He looked the part heading into the 2015 season, when he only completed 53.5 percent of his passes. When he went 13-of-31 against Michigan, he was still 6'4".

What should be generating some buzz from Hockensmith's piece on Hackenberg are a couple of Franklin quotes of note:

"

For the technique issues at the root of Hackenberg's performance, Palmer has a lengthy explanation that backs up similar remarks made by Penn State coach James Franklin last spring: Hackenberg simply needed more time to focus on himself.

"When you get hit that much, you start falling into bad habits," Franklin said. "You start drifting, your footwork is not as clean, you're falling off throws. Last year, he was so focused on everybody else, trying to help them, that it stunted his development in some ways. I'm glad he's able to get back to being focused on those things."

"

Offensive lines can break quarterbacks to the point of no return. The biggest example of this is David Carr, who was drafted first overall by the expansion Houston Texans and "saw ghosts" after being sacked an NFL-record 76 times as a rookie. He spent five years in Houston before spending his next six seasons with three franchises, switching teams four times.

Another is Blaine Gabbert, who was vaulted into the starting role for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2011, his rookie season, when David Gerrard was cut in September, just before the season started. Gabbert has more in common with Hackenberg than just phantom pressure, though.

One of the main reasons Gabbert was drafted 10th overall was also non-film orientated. He was another prospect who was built up as having a super-computer brain, something that couldn't necessarily be seen by the naked eye. O'Brien apparently told Hackenberg's agent that "the only quarterback to pick up his system so quickly 'is going to the Hall of Fame,'" referring to Tom Brady, per Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.

In Les Carpenter's Yahoo Sports article, Gabbert's mother, Bev, claims he has a nearly photographic memory, while his former offensive coordinator, David Yost, gives quotes to legitimize the passer's intelligence. Gabbert allegedly scored a 42 out of 50 on the Wonderlic test, according to ESPN's Chris Mortensen (h/t Gregg Rosenthal of Pro Football Talk, via Carpenter). At one point, he is praised for playing Call of Duty with his teammates instead of Halo.

How did that help him on the football field? At the end of the day, Gabbert has played in the NFL like he did in college, with just the level of competition changing.

The truth is, you can find a Christian Hackenberg. The NFL draft is about acquiring unique talents to shelf on your roster as long-term investments. The Penn State passer isn't nearly as rare as he's being discussed as.

Last class, if you would have told me to find a 6'4"-ish, 220-ish junior passer who was an acclaimed prep with a flashy freshman season, but may have been limited by his coaching staff, there was one to point to. Brett Hundley was a fifth-round pick, far from being mocked as a day-one selection.

Hundley was the fourth-ranked dual-threat passer coming out of high school, per 247Sports' composite rankings. In 2012, as a freshman, Hundley completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 29 touchdowns, throwing only 11 interceptions and posting a passer rating of 147.7. His completion percentage, touchdowns and passer-rating mark all surpassed Hackenberg's first year, which had one fewer interception, but when accounting for how many passes each quarterback threw, Hundley also was more efficient in that category.

Name	Class	Pct	TD	INT	Rate
Hundley	FR.	66.5	29	11	147.7
Hundley	SO.	66.8	24	9	152.9
Hundley	JR.	69.1	22	5	152.7
Hackenberg	FR.	58.9	20	10	134.0
Hackenberg	SO.	55.8	12	15	109.4
Hackenberg	JR.	53.5	16	6	123.9

At UCLA, Hundley was brought in under former NFL head coach Jim L. Mora, who had been the face of two coaching staffs—Atlanta and Seattle. Noel Mazzone, the Bruins offensive coordinator who never fully handed over the keys to Hundley, also limited him, a privilege Hackenberg received as a freshman, leading to two- and three-man snag concepts overtaking the air attack.

In his college career, Hundley was sacked 124 times, which was more than any other quarterback from the 2015 draft class. Early on in his career, he was being compared to college football's top quarterbacks. For example, CBS Sports' Dane Brugler listed Hundley among Winston, Marcus Mariota and Blake Bortles, three future top-three selections, in January 2014.

If we're using the "he retains knowledge, he plays Call of Duty" standard of paper intelligence reflecting toward on-field football success, Hundley graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA and had a degree in hand when he declared for the NFL draft a season early.

The merit variable Hackenberg and Hundley are not comparably equal in is "leadership." Hundley was the leader of a national student-athlete union—the National College Players Association. Hackenberg's relationships, even with those in his own locker room, feel shady.

That NFC executive told Zierlein the Penn State quarterback had "traits and leadership." If we're counting frame, athletic ability, arm strength and perceived intelligence as traits, Hackenberg checks all the boxes, but where does this leadership designation come from?

By all accounts, Hackenberg comes across as a super recruit who knew college was going to be a three-year vehicle to get to the NFL. Consider this, he had back-to-back disappointing seasons and still declared as soon as he possibly could. He didn't know much about Penn State, per Millen. He just wanted O'Brien, who had been around Tom Brady as the quarterback coach or offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots from 2009 to 2011, to groom him.

On top of that, according to Robert Klemko of The MMQB, Hackenberg is putting the blame for his career decline on his second coaching staff, instead of shouldering the responsibility. This is all while others string along stories of the quarterback selflessly carrying the team on his back:

"

2. Never blame the coach. Per two personnel sources on two separate teams who have shown interest in drafting Penn State's Christian Hackenberg, the quarterback has said all the wrong things in interviews when asked to explain his declining sophomore and junior numbers (a combined 28 touchdowns and 21 interceptions). Hackenberg has shifted blame to coach James Franklin, who took over in 2014 when coach Bill O'Brien departed for the Texans. Said one evaluator: “Despite the fact that it's probably true, you don't want to hear a kid say that.”

"

In January, when Hackenberg declared for the draft, he didn't even thank his own head coach. Franklin's name wasn't mentioned in the quarterback's parting speech with the university, while other names, including a video director, were rattled off. Mark Wogenrich of the Morning Call provided the transcript:

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Here's a fuller transcript of #PennState quarterback Christian Hackenberg declaring for the NFL draft. pic.twitter.com/jj205PgZ6t

— Mark Wogenrich (@MarkWogenrich) January 2, 2016"

Hackenberg was talented as a freshman, but he hasn't been that for years. His leadership should at least be questioned, if not written down as a red flag. Hackenberg has traits, but in the same way Robert Griffin, the 2012 Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Colin Kaepernick, who was five yards away from winning a Super Bowl, still possess traits. The quarterback group declined quickly after its 2013 seasons.

Griffin recently signed a two-year deal with a $3.5 million signing bonus to play for the Cleveland Browns, which hasn't slowed down any discussion regarding the team taking either North Dakota State's Carson Wentz or California's Jared Goff with the second overall pick in this coming draft.

Per Mike Silver of NFL Network, the Denver Broncos are valuing Kaepernick as fourth-round pick, and the San Francisco 49ers' head coach, Chip Kelly, is on record saying he's impressed and intrigued by Blaine Gabbert, in response to CSNBayArea.com's Matt Maiocco's question (h/t Ryan Wilson of CBSSports.com)—Mr. Call of Duty himself. The fact Griffin was able to hit the open market and Kaepernick is being entertained as a trade option, in a quarterback-driven league, should tell you the NFL believes in second chances.

We don't often treat the quarterback position with nuance. As stated earlier, it's a sink-or-swim leadership-role mindset for many. When Griffin sinks, it's his fault, not his coaching staff's. When Kaepernick sinks, it's his fault, not his coaching staff's.

Our Penn State quarterback had a lot of promise, but if we're treating him like we treat other reclamation projects, he's far from being a top-100 pick. He was once gifted for his age, but his knack for the position has passed with time. It's time to accept what he is: a former golden-boy savior.

"Things used to be; Now they're not."—Kanye West's "Blame Game."

Recruiting info and rankings courtesy of 247Sports unless otherwise noted.