QB Jaren Hall

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
This is at The Athletic, but supposedly is a very good story on Hall. Not sure if anyone here subscribes?

https://theathletic.com/4522816/2023/05/...u-vikings/

Here ya go, had to break it into two parts because of the post size limit here:
part 1:

Why rookie QB Jaren Hall is a perfect fit for the Minnesota Vikings

They were tired of the meetings. Meetings to discuss compliance rules. Meetings to introduce team obligations. The BYU football players had attended these sessions for hours one day at the beginning of fall camp in 2021, and yet they were not finished.
BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick had prepared his talking points for an offense-specific forum: Arrive on time, be prepared and make no excuses. He planned to move quickly through the details to keep the players’ attention. Before he entered the room, though, one of the players approached him.
“Coach!”
Roderick discerned the voice. It was Jaren Hall, then a redshirt sophomore quarterback who had been at the school for three years but never started.
“Can I just have a minute to talk to the team either before or after you?” Hall asked.
“Sure,” Roderick said. “You go first.”
Hall stepped into the room and stood before his teammates.
“All right, listen up,” Hall said. “This is how we’re going to operate.”
The quarterback mentioned the importance of timeliness. He spoke directly to the older players, explaining how much the team needed to embrace its youthful talent. Hall even cited the importance of the “Holy War,” the rivalry between BYU and Utah, declaring: “We’re going to punch them in the mouth, and we’re going to keep punching all night.” (At the time, BYU had lost nine straight games to Utah.)
“I’m looking at the players while he’s talking,” Roderick recalled recently, “and all eyes were on him. It was the best player speech I’ve ever heard in my career.”
It was not Hall’s words so much as the gravitational pull of his presence that Roderick remembers.
The coach thinks the value is in the why behind it — why Hall, who had never been BYU’s starter, had the cachet to captivate the entire room. Peel back the layers, Roderick believes, and you will further understand the qualities that intrigued the Minnesota Vikings enough to add the 25-year-old Hall to their quarterback room.
Let’s start on an airplane.
It was 3 a.m. one September morning in 2020, and Roderick unbuckled his seatbelt and headed down the aisle toward the restroom. Hours before, BYU had beaten Navy 55-3. The team was flying back west.
Roderick expected most of the players to be asleep, but the white glow of an iPad screen caught his attention. Roderick noticed that the team’s starting quarterback and future first-round pick, Zach Wilson, was awake and watching game film of his football hero: Aaron Rodgers. This was the Wilson that Roderick had become accustomed to coaching: a QB who sought any tiny tidbit of information that could help, at times to a fault.
Hall, Wilson’s backup that season, may not have downloaded Rodgers’ film and watched it at 3 a.m. He did, however, share Wilson’s willingness to improve his football understanding.
But that’s far from the only thing Wilson and Hall had in common.
The two quarterbacks’ teams played against each other in high school. Wilson attended Corner Canyon, while Hall went to Maple Mountain. Hall is actually a year older than Wilson, but Wilson joined BYU’s football team a year earlier because Hall served a two-year mission in California.
Because Wilson was familiar with the team’s offense and Hall needed time to knock off rust after serving his mission, the younger Wilson beat out Hall for the team’s starting quarterback job in 2019.
“It was a really competitive battle,” Roderick said. “As close as it could be. We decided on Zach the week of the first game.”
Hall could have resented Roderick for the decision. In this era of college football, many would have transferred. Instead, Hall supported Wilson through the ups and downs of a 7-6 season.
The next year, Hall pushed Wilson again for the starting job. Once again, Wilson got the nod during the week before the first game.
“The main reason we chose Zach was that at the time Jaren was still playing baseball,” Roderick said. “Zach was all (foot)ball all the time. And yet, in spite of that, Jaren kept the competition super close.”
Again, Hall could have complained or transferred. But even Dustin Smith, cofounder of QB Elite, who has coached Hall privately since he was in eighth grade, said that Hall never expressed disdain for Wilson. In fact, Smith said Hall never mentioned the idea of playing elsewhere.
Roderick was not the only one who took note of the way Hall handled the decision — Hall’s teammates were aware of the way he reacted, too.
“People gained confidence in him because they knew what to expect,” Roderick said.
Of course, it helped that they also knew how Hall could operate on the field.Jaren Hall would go on to lead BYU to a 10-3 record in 2021, his first season as the Cougars’ starting quarterback. 

[Guest]

part 2:
Quarterback coaches look for the smallest of clues, and John Beck is no different.
Beck, a quarterback at BYU from 2003 to 2006 who went on to have a six-year NFL career, is a private QB coach for 3DQB in Southern California and has worked with Drew Brees, Dak Prescott and others. A couple of years ago, he was introduced to a new client: Jaren Hall.
Beck met with Hall’s father, Kalin, who explained that Jaren was hoping to become BYU’s starter and, eventually, an NFL quarterback. Beck, who had just worked with Zach Wilson, began to evaluate Hall and immediately identified two important characteristics.
The first: Hall’s lower body was twitchy. The second: Hall’s throwing motion was very natural, which Beck attributed to Hall’s baseball background.
“He was this compact, very fluid thrower,” Beck said. “It didn’t look mechanical.”
Surely, Hall’s multisport background contributed to this quality. But it should also be noted that Hall had been refining his quarterbacking skills for years with Dustin Smith.
At gyms in Orem, Utah, Smith would set up drills to help Hall shorten his stride. The less Hall lunged, the more he could rotate, and the more accurately he’d be able to place his passes.
Simultaneously, Smith worked with Hall on his extension. Initially, Hall would short-arm passes, affecting the overall velocity. The further behind his throw he could position his hand, the more pop he could create.
Smith also discussed the art of playmaking with Hall. The center fielder and former high school basketball player was so gifted athletically that he could extend plays and scamper up the field. The challenge for Smith was shifting Hall’s perspective: Rather than his athleticism being a play-creating skill, it should be a play-extending skill.
Throughout their years of workouts together, Smith reiterated multiple phrases.
“You never go broke taking a profit.” In other words, eliminate the chunk losses and turnovers, and you’ll give yourself a chance to succeed in the long run.
“Shotgun makes lazy feet on quarterbacks.” Learn how to operate from under center, and you’ll separate yourself in an era of QBs who only specialize in spread concepts and run-pass options.
“The overall vision was so that when he did get his chance, there was no reason for anybody to say, ‘Yeah, but … ’” Smith said.
And there were plenty of people prepared to say, “Yeah, but … ” During the first year of Hall’s mission to California, Smith raved to folks about Hall’s potential. But many of those folks also asked whether Hall, who stands 6 feet and 207 pounds, might be better served as a receiver.
The thought irked Smith. Several years earlier, Taysom Hill was BYU’s quarterback. He was only 6-foot-2, yet folks never suggested a position change despite his running ability. Why would they do so with Hall?
Smith couldn’t help but consider BYU’s history and the fact that no Black quarterback had ever started for the school.
“With Jaren, it seemed like everybody was so quick to turn him into a skill player,” Smith said. “He had to fight a little harder to get people to legitimize him as a quarterback.”
Beck, meanwhile, who knows more about quarterback play than most, had no doubts about Hall’s ability.
When Roderick named Hall as BYU’s starter in 2021, he proceeded to throw for 2,583 yards, 20 touchdowns and only five interceptions in leading the Cougars to a 10-3 season. Included in that mark was a 26-17, punch-you-in-the-mouth victory over Utah.
“That’s what I expected,” Beck said. “He’s got all these tools. He works hard. He’s smart. He processes well. He got to watch Zach Wilson. That’s what I expected.”
In recent weeks, after the Vikings drafted Jaren Hall in the fifth round, multiple people asked John Beck the same question: What do you think?
“He couldn’t have asked for a better fit,” Beck responded.
Couldn’t he have gone higher, though? Why did he fall to the fifth round after a senior season in which he threw for 3,171 yards, 31 touchdowns and six interceptions?
“Guys,” Beck said, “round doesn’t matter.”  What matters, he has learned, are the franchise, the people and the overall match.
As it relates to Hall and Minnesota, Beck has known coach Kevin O’Connell since they were college quarterbacks together in the mid-2000s. From afar, Beck has respected O’Connell’s coaching trajectory. He also admires O’Connell’s system — specifically how it doesn’t require its quarterbacks to play “hero ball” on third down.
Beck is also close with Les Pico, the Vikings’ executive director of player development, who Beck says represents a cultural standard the Vikings are hoping to reach. A standard of helping players reach their fullest potential.
That standard embodies who Hall is and has long been — the type of person who is always listening and absorbing, waiting until the right time to make his mark.

[Guest]

I am way more excited about this guy than I should be.

[Guest]

@kmillard said:
I am way more excited about this guy than I should be.

You're welcome.  :p

[Guest]

Good read. It's interesting to me how little difference there can be between a 2nd overall pick and a 5th rounder. 

They competed against each other in high school with no distinct winner. They competed for the starting job at BYU, with Hall's baseball commitment putting him at a disadvantage against Wilson. Both have great college careers.

Wilson goes 2nd overall. Two years later, Hall goes 5th round. Which one ends up the better pro? Anyone's guess. 

[Guest]

@MaroonBells said:
Good read. It's interesting to me how little difference there can be between a 2nd overall pick and a 5th rounder. 

They competed against each other in high school with no distinct winner. They competed for the starting job at BYU, with Hall's baseball commitment putting him at a disadvantage against Wilson. Both have great college careers.

Wilson goes 2nd overall. Two years later, Hall goes 5th round. Which one ends up the better pro? Anyone's guess. 

It's questionable whether Wilson will even be in the league in a year or two.

It was interesting that Hall's mentor was preaching about working under center.  Never saw any snaps there from him, though I only watched a small sample of his work, but it didn't seem like a part of the team's offense.

Also interesting to learn of the connection to KOC.

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:

@kmillard said:
I am way more excited about this guy than I should be.

You're welcome.  :p

I WAS able to watch him a fair amount last year. He has some serious game. Was surprised that he wasn't drafted higher and is so unlike most QBs the Vikings pick.

[Guest]

This never works. Ever. Getting desperate.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/qb-co...s-support/

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
This never works. Ever. Getting desperate.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/qb-co...s-support/

I assumed when the news of "multiple teams" interested in Lance came out last month that it was b.s., the team trying to pump up a market to dump him.  But this news, I have no idea what the purpose is.  Maybe to placate the 49er fan base when he gets on the field this fall and stinks?   Brock Purdy had surgery on March 10th and it is normally a 9-12 month recovery so maybe he would be back in December, but it's just as likely he doesn't play this year.  So it's the dynamic duo of Lance and Darnold.   :#