Howard Getting Comfortable at QB
April 07, 2015 11:44 AM | General
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| Quarterback Skyler Howard completed 56 of 110 passes for 829 yards and eight touchdowns last year in four games against Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Texas A&M. | |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
We caught some glimpses of what Howard could do in games against Kansas State, Iowa State and Texas A&M, the sophomore completing 56 of 108 passes for 829 yards and eight touchdowns in those three appearances.
We saw a cool and composed quarterback when he was thrown into the fire in the second half of the K-State game, Howard leading the Mountaineers to a couple of late touchdowns while passing for 198 yards. It was probably the best performance by a WVU quarterback against the Wildcats since West Virginia joined the Big 12 in 2012.
We saw a mobile and athletic quarterback against Iowa State when Howard passed and ran West Virginia to a 37-24 season-ending victory in Ames. He threw for 285 yards and three touchdowns and also ran seven times for 69 yards.
Then, we saw a quarterback who could consistently move the football against SEC-caliber players in the Liberty Bowl versus Texas A&M, Howard passing for 345 yards and three touchdowns in the Mountaineers’ 45-37 loss to the Aggies.
Howard admits he was able to accomplish this without a full understanding of the offense. This spring Howard is much farther along with his knowledge of what he’s supposed to do, which means he can now concentrate on becoming an even more effective quarterback.
“I’m actually able to work on being a quarterback and not just learning the offense,” he said. “I’m able to do some different things. I’ve got some chemistry with the guys, so that helps a lot.”
Howard is getting most of the reps with the ones right now with redshirt freshman William Crest also getting some work. True freshmen David Sills and Chris Chugunov are learning behind them.
“Skyler is operating extremely well,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen. “He’s had a lot more reps. When we pulled his redshirt last year he started getting a bunch more reps, but you can tell William has also taken some reps. He was also the backup early for a few games during the year, but both of those guys are much farther ahead than the two young pups.”
Crest is the more physically imposing of the two, standing 6-feet-2 and weighing a rock-solid 218 pounds, but there is a Fran Tarkenton-Doug Flutie-Drew Brees sort of quality to the way Howard plays out on the field with his feet and his ability to move around in the pocket and create additional time for his receivers to get open.
In the brief time we’ve been able to watch Howard in games you can see that he plays with a nerve and verve that can be infectious amongst the rest of the team.
Most of the time that is great, but there were also instances when he may have gotten too amped up during games causing him to miss wide-open receivers. He’s got a live arm and his throws can cover the entire field, but there were times, especially in the bowl game, when he overshot wide-open receivers that could have resulted in big gains.
Some of that was a product of his inexperience and some of that was probably the Fort Worth, Texas resident wanting to prove a point against a home-state school. At this point, he says the game is beginning to slow down for him.
“It was fast coming from juco to this and now it’s slow going from the actual game(s) to practice,” admitted Howard.
For the rest of the month it’s all about Howard getting better and getting in sync with a brand new set of wide receivers that must replace a large percentage of last year’s production following the departures of Kevin White and Mario Alford.
Howard admits that’s going to be a work in progress throughout the rest of the spring and into the summertime.
“I can do a better job of getting us into some man routes and some different kind of concepts that are better with those guys,” he said. “With Kevin and Mario gone they were better at certain routes and these guys are better at certain routes, so I’m able to switch it up.”
The guys Howard is throwing the football to right now may or may not be the guys he’s throwing the ball to this fall when the rest of the players report. That’s up to them, but Howard believes there are enough playmakers out on the field right now to make up for what was lost last year.
It may just be done a different way this year because the skill sets might be a little different.
“(Redshirt freshman) Shelton Gibson you can give him a slant and he can do what Mario did. He’s got the speed to do that. We’ve got Rushel (Shell) who can take it to the house. We’ve got Wendell (Smallwood) and Squirt (Jordan Thompson),” Howard pointed out. “We’ve got plenty of guys that can do it. We’ve just got to find what role they will play.”
It will also be important for all of them to figure out a way to get on the same page before the start of fall camp.
“During the spring you get a lot of different guys in there to see who can play what role during the season; who is going to be the go to guy? It’s really just figuring it all out and then in the summer we will have time to really polish it and get it going,” Howard said.
As for Howard, his No. 1 personal goal is to simply keep moving forward as a quarterback in Dana Holgorsen’s offense.
“No matter who the competition is or what’s going on each practice, or no matter what happened last play, last practice, last season or last bowl game; it doesn’t matter now,” he said. “It’s every day moving forward taking my left foot and putting it in front of my right foot.
“We’re a good football team and we’re a long way from where we need to be, but we’re going to get there,” he concluded.
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