QB Chandler Harnish, Northern Illinois...

...may be the most underrated quarterback in this Draft.

I'm falling in love. Aaron Rodgers type latent ability.

STATS

2008: 118 of 211 for 1528 yards, 8 TD, 9 INT, 118 Run, 539 Yards, 4 TD, 7 Sack
2009: 143 of 223 for 1670 yards, 11 TD, 6 INT, 89 Run, 229 Yards, 2 TD, 9 Sack
2010: 189 of 292 for 2530 yards, 21 TD, 5 INT, 137 Run, 726 Yards, 7 TD, 12 Sack
2011: 255 of 418 for 3490 yards, 30 TD, 7 INT, 203 Run, 1376 Yards, 11 TD, 13 Sack
TOTAL: 705 of 1144 for 9218 yards, 70 TD, 27 INT, 547 Run, 2870 Yards, 24 TD, 41 Sack

STORY

Coming out of Indiana, he was not a high recruit. He went 14-1 his senior year with a loss in the Indiana State Championship Game. He was an all-state player and one newspaper had him as Indiana Athlete of the Year. He was also an all-conference basketball player. Despite this, despite having passed for 4760 yards, 48 TDs, and run for 2343 yards and 35 more TDs, despite having 129 tackles, 7 fumble recoveries and 5 interceptions and 13 PBUs as a safety, despite being 6'3" and 210 lbs with a 4.66 in the 40 yard dash, he was a 2-star recruit. What can I say, I wasn't there, I wasn't doing the grading. He only received one FBS scholarship offer, from Northern Illinois.

His career started pretty choppy. He was clearly a dual-threat QB but in 2008 when he started as a redshirt freshman, it was in Joe Novak's pro style system. That was going to take some time for Harnish to get used to, because he came from a spread attack in High School. During his redshirt season, you can tell he considered transferring. But Novak ended up retiring and Jerry Kill brought the same spread attack that Harnish was used to in High School.

He started his career with a 326 yard game his redshirt freshman year, but then had trouble for the next 18 games. He only won 8 of 19 games in which he played significantly in 2008 and 2009. He didn't initially adapt well to Kill's offense, and finished 2009 on a low note against South Florida in the International Bowl, losing 27-3 with some bad passing stats. He also had a torn meniscus and some cartilage problems in his knee and was scheduled for surgery. But then he didn't have it. He started feeling better and the doctor suggested setting aside the surgery and seeing how it felt as he kept going, and he never talked to the doctor again because he felt fine.

Even so, Jerry Kill actually benched him to start out the 2010 season and had DeMarcus Grady march out onto the field for the first game against Iowa State. Chandler would go on to say about that moment, "I thought my career was over. I really did." Lucky for him, Grady's game against Iowa State was a 3-interception disaster they lost 27-10, and so Jerry Kill quickly turned back to Harnish. But the deal was only good for one game. He would get the North Dakota game to impress everyone, else they move on to Jordan Lynch and go from there. Well, from a passing standpoint Harnish didn't have his greatest game going 14 of 25 for 156 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT...but he ran 21 times for 171 yards and a TD, winning the game 23-17. Suffice it to say, his one-game contract was renewed.

Harnish won 22 of 27 games after being benched for that Iowa State game. He completed 63% of his passes, with an 8.5 YPA, 51 touchdown passes (7.2%) and 12 interceptions (1.7%), running for 2102 yards at 6.2 yards per attempt with 35 more rushing touchdowns. He got to the MAC Championship in 2010 and lost to Miami of Ohio, on a touchdown pass with 33 seconds left in the game that got tipped up in the air and somehow caught by Armand Robinson. Quarterback Austin Boucher said after the game, "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good." Harnish went to the MAC Championship again in 2011 and this time didn't leave anything to luck, overcoming a 20-0 halftime deficit to win the game 23-20 on a last second game-winning field goal that came on the back of 48 yard drive he led.

The story reminds me very much of T.J. Yates' story. He's one of those guys that was down and out, and got enough chances to show that he could mature and come through it a better athlete and a good leader.

He graduated in spring of 2010, and began his MBA in 2011. He was one of 16 National Scholar-Athletes given a scholarship by the National Football Foundation for post-graduate studies, an award given for community service, academics and athletics. He graduated with a 3.65 GPA.

In the leadership category, his coaches and teammates rave about him. His teammate and roommate Pat Schiller says of him, "There are no flaws," and jokes "If anyone leaves dirty dishes out, it's me, and he's cleaning them." His coach Dave Doeren says, "When your leader is that good of a person, it helps. It helps a lot. There's three things we care about: your academics, your athletics and your social life. In all three of them, he's a superstar."

Schiller goes on to say, "It's important for the quarterback to be a humble person and a great leader. A team feeds off its quarterback. It's pretty incredible how he carries himself and how he handles his business. I like to give him a hard time for it, but he definitely exemplifies what it means to be a student-athlete and a great football player."

And Coach Doeren continues, "He's such a good role model. And I'm not just talking about for football players. Children come into this building all the time, and he's the first guy to greet them. He's got zero ego. He cares immensely about his image."

Harnish himself adds, "That's everything to me. A legacy is more than just your play on the field. It's what you do off the field, through community service, through being a role model. Believe me, I'm not perfect, but I try to be my best and be someone that later down the road people will say, 'Hey, I want to be like that guy. I want to leave a legacy like that guy did' "

Here's one story about him that I liked. Heading into 2011, the Huskies had a new offensive coordinator from Indiana, Matt Canada (Ben Chappel's offensive coordinator). He wanted to install a new, QB-driven, no-huddle offense. During the summer, the team had voluntary workouts. Some guys on the team were skipping out. In the last week of summer, Harnish called all the players into the locker room and addressed expectations. He called out, by name, each and every player that missed workouts. Some were close friends.

"We were all upset because that was the most players had missed all summer. So I came down on the team pretty hard. I said, 'Hey, that's not how we're going to be this year.' That's hard when you have to point some friends out. You have to prove to people that you're willing to do those types of things in front of the whole team."

Without a guy like Harnish, the coaches said about their no-huddle that they would've installed it anyway but they would have had far fewer plays on the menu.

His close friend and Center Scott Wedige, whom Harnish had committed to Northern Illinois with as freshmen, false started against Minnesota, prematurely ending a drive.

"Him and I jawed on the sidelines, and he just took me ..." Wedige said, his voice trailing off. "He took control of the situation. Then he calmed himself down. That's when you know, it's his offense. It's flowing through him now."

Wedige found out about the no-huddle from Harnish. "You don't want to know my initial reaction. It was more of an 'oh crap, here we go'. But it's easy to buy into this offense. Since then, he's realized Harnish - who he calls the best leader he's ever met - is the perfect quarterback to direct a no-huddle offense. "I don't know how he does it," Wedige said. "He's got like six eyes, or something like that. I don't know, but I think it just comes from knowing the game and being around the game for such a long time and how much film study he does."

Last season Harnish wanted to know what was happening on the field. This fall, he wants to know why.

"You have to be a lot more focused. You have to be thinking two plays ahead, so you almost have to be thinking like an offensive coordinator. It's a double-edged sword. We're getting a lot more freedom in the offense, but at the same time there's a lot more responsibility placed on us. We have to be accountable for our actions. But at the end of the day, for an older quarterback, it's a dream come true."

There was some reticence among the running backs group. They'd toiled behind Chad Spann, who was so good they could never justify giving it to anyone but him, and now that it was their turn they had a coordinator who didn't give many carries to tailbacks at Indiana. Canada tried to reassure them with promises that they would run the ball, but first string tailback Hopkins didn't need to hear it. Harnish's assurance was enough for him. That trust goes back to a rule his coaches give all players. "You've got to trust in your quarterback," Hopkins said. "Even the coaches say, 'Whatever Chandler tells you to do, he's right. He's never wrong.' So whatever he tells me to do, I'm going to do it. If he tells me the wrong thing to do, the coach is going to chew him out for it. I always listen to him."



2010 & 2011 SEASONS, COMPETITION LEVEL & GAME CHARACTER

Listen. He's in the MAC. When you're Northern Illinois and you're in the MAC and you play someone like Wisconsin...you lose. Not much you can do about it. I wish I could get hold of that full game but I'm already pretty sure I know how it looks. I've seen a few clips of Harnish from that game. In his season-long highlight reel, about three plays from the Wisconsin game made the cut. But what's interesting is in an extra long highlight reel of Wisconsin's from that game, one that showed defensive plays, no Harnish plays made the final cut. He couldn't keep the team competitive in the game by himself but he didn't do anything to lose the game either. He was 14 of 24 for 164 yards, 0 TDs and 0 INTs. He ran 4 times for -2 yards.

Otherwise, you exclude that game and he was 11-2 this year, winning the MAC Championship against Ohio and beating Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl.

What I find interesting is here are some of the score differentials of his victories:

31-30
63-60
41-38
18-12
23-20

And then you look at the two games he lost aside from Wisconsin, and it gets more interesting.

Kansas Loss: 42-45
Harnish Stats: 27 of 33, 315 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 11 runs, 84 yards, 3 TDs, 0 Fumbles
What Happened: This was a classic barn burner. The leading team lost their lead 6 times during the course of the game. Hard to fault a guy with 6 incomplete passes on 9.5 yards per attempt and 5 total TDs. You may actually be thinking to yourself, those are Robert Griffin numbers! They are. Robert Griffin was 22 of 29 for 312 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT, 10 runs for 103 yards and 0 Fumbles against the same defense. So actually, Harnish had 5 TDs and 0 turnovers while RG3 had 4 TDs and 1 turnover against the same defense. Lots of lead changes. We fast forward to the second half, Kansas engages this ridiculous 7 minute drive in the 3rd & 4th quarter bringing the clock down to 8:44 remaining and a Kansas 38-35 lead. Harnish takes 3.5 minutes off the clock and scores his own TD to take the lead 42-38 with 5 minutes remaining in the ball game. By the time he saw the ball again, he had 8 seconds remaining and was down 42-45. You want to talk about a game finish where a guy did nothing wrong and still came up short, this was it.

Central Michigan Loss: 41-48
Harnish Stats: 27 of 50, 370 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT, 18 runs, 92 yards, 1 TD, 0 Fumbles
What Happened: This was a little sloppier. What interests me is despite Central Michigan jumping out to a 38-16 lead with 13:45 remaining in the 4th quarter, Harnish and the Huskies came back on the Chippewas like a freight train. The final score was 48-41. Central Michigan had a 22 point lead with less than a quarter remaining, and still needed to score 10 more points to preserve the win. The game ended with a Chandler Harnish hail mary from the Central Michigan 41 yard line with 10 seconds left in the game. For the record, Harnish's 2nd interception of the day was on that hail mary...hardly something you count against him.

After this loss, Harnish and the Huskies finished the year with 9 straight victories. That included a dazzling touchdown drive with 4:16 left against Toledo, down by 4 points needing a TD to win the game. He took 3.5 minutes off the clock and capped it off with a touchdown, not making the same mistake as in the Kansas game, leaving the other side with too much time. He came back from a 31-14 3rd quarter lead in the Ball State game, which included two FG drives in the final 3 minutes of the game. The final FG drive he started with 1:51 remaining at his own 1 yard line. He drove 82 yard in 1:40 for the winning field goal. Eastern Michigan was clearly more of a defensive game, he passed 9 of 19 for 98 yards, 1 TD and 0 INTs, but also ran 17 times for 148 yards and a TD. Eastern Michigan and Buffalo were games where Harnish jumped out to a lead and then withstood the charge from the other team.

Then there was the MAC Championship. I caught the first half of this game at a bar for happy hour with friends, ended up leaving and not watching the second half. Boy did I miss out. Down 20-0 at halftime, I'd given up on Harnish in this game. He scored 23 unanswered points to bring them back and win. 10 of those points came in the final 3 minutes of the game. He started on his own 36 yard line with 1:26 to go, drove his team 48 yards to kick a chip shot winning field goal with 5 seconds left in the game. He ended up 16 of 26 for 250 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT with 13 runs for 31 yards.

And of course he followed up in the GoDaddy.com Bowl by coming back from a 13-0 lead taken by Arkansas State in the 1st quarter, scoring 31 unanswered points and finishing the game with a 38-20 victory.

Thing is, he showed that tendency in 2010 as well. He only lost two games in 2010. One he lost 22-28 to Illinois in what was almost a huge upset. Harnish battled back in the 4th quarter to bring the score to 19-21 with 6 minutes remaining, only to see Illinois run out 4 minutes off the clock and cap the drive off with a touchdown to go up 28-19 (two scores). The other loss was the one I talked about in the MAC Championship where a bobbled pass got taken for a go-ahead touchdown with 33 seconds remaining. Even with just 33 seconds, Harnish drove his team 38 yards for a game finish, trying to throw the ball into the end zone. There was another close game against Western Michigan where Harnish was down 20-21 and threw a touchdown and successful two-point conversion to go up 28-21 with only 4 minutes left in the game.


VIDEOS

Have a ball with these.

Freshman & Sophomore Highlights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiuxGQkmmWA

Junior Season Highlights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFFB5m6Jvbc

Senior Season Highlights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3r2QIv_pyo

2011 Harnish vs Army
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfB1EYtT-6A

2011 Harnish vs Ball State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHPnWhpV48Q

2011 Harnish vs Toledo (for 1st place in MAC West)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx1lrc0ovbo

2011 Harnish in GoDaddy.com Bowl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMEjU-P-Ryc

Chandler Harnish Talks about NFL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsg7q3kbD0k


TALENT

Build - Well, the recruiting sheets may have said 6'3" but I doubt it. I think he's 6'2" at the most. He admits that Purdue didn't want him because he was too short, and Michigan State didn't want him because he wasn't fast enough. But you look at him and he's got a nice, solid, athletic build. He stands upright. He seems to have an Aaron Rodgers type of build. Surprisingly, he doesn't really take much of a pounding even though he ran the ball a ton. And what I mean by that is what I keep talking about with Robert Griffin, the tendency to take BIG shots during these games. I don't see that much. He's good at moving his body to turn hits into more of a glancing blow or to absorb the impact better. But the height will be a concern to some.

Throwing Ability - You'd be surprised this is actually a difficult thing to spot sometimes when you're watching college games normally, be it YouTube or better quality caps, etc. Camera angles and odd college spacing can really play tricks on you with respect to ball speed. He's not Cam Newton. But if you pay attention to the nuances of his throws, he throws a really clean ball with good spin and arc. Sometimes you catch glimpses of a guy that really does have a gun. Maybe a field level cam actually lets you hear the audible pop when the ball hits the mitt on a slant route, or you watch him roll out and rip a ball 30+ yards all with arm. Where I think a lot of people are thrown off on his throwing ability is his deep ball because you often see him slightly underthrowing a wide open target. It makes me think he errs on the side of the underthrow, because an overthrow can't be caught and an underthrow can. He spends too much energy at times getting his shoulders aimed and guiding the ball on his deeper throws, focusing on throwing a quality ball, even if it's underthrown a little. There are times you catch him just ripping it, and it looks more natural and he'll get it to the guy in stride. At about 1:47 in the GoDaddy.com Bowl, you see one of those occasions, as he gives a little pump fake, and then just rips the ball 52 yards through the air with absolutely perfect placement to the wide side of the field for a big gain. That's about the furthest he'll throw the ball, from what I've seen. He could be thinking that if he throws farther than that, the throw quality will break down too much. You'd be surprised how even the strongest armed QBs don't throw it farther than that, though. That includes Ryan Mallett. But go all the way back to the beginning. Look what he's starting with as a sophomore, 0:15 seconds into the Freshman & Sophomore Highlight tape. That's a quick boxer's punch release and a nice seam throw over the middle to his tight end against Wisconsin. Look at 1:27 of the same tape, that's a 30 yard frozen rope over the middle. That was the first game of his college career, against Minnesota as a redshirt freshman.

Throwing Mechanics - I see no loop. I see pro level weight transference and ability to keep his feet in tune with his throwing. I see a flick delivery that is pretty over the top. In other words, he's got the kind of throwing mechanics that allow for consistency, accuracy, and a variety of throw trajectories. No limitations, no impairments. I don't know if it's quite T.J. Yates fast, but it's pretty fast.

Movement Skills - One thing that'll draw ANYONE to this guy is his movement skills. He sets up in the pocket with a combination of live feet and an upright stance that shows toe strength. He shows that toe strength in his running where he displays RB-like elusiveness. I think that's the thing that stands out the most, is his vision as a runner. He can do everything from pick out a crease from the backfield on a designed run, to maximize his yardage in the open field. His center wasn't lying when he says that he looks like he's got six eyes sometimes. He's got genuine 4.6 speed and will be able to use that to hurt defenses at the next level. He moves and sets up inside the pocket like a real NFL quarterback, and then when he gets on the run he can be at least as dangerous as Aaron Rodgers and not just because of straight line speed but because of that vision, quick decision making and elusiveness. The big drawback that I've seen is ball security when on the move as a runner. I don't know what the fumble stats are but I've seen him carry the ball a bit away from his body at times and have it come out. But I mean, check out 5:05 of his Junior Season Highlight tape. Look at the vision to cut it outside, get into the open field, see the fastest defender chasing him from the right side, switch the ball to his left so that he can free up his right arm to swipe the defender by him, spin around and gain some extra yards. This is high level ball carrier stuff and he's taken to heart his responsibilities as both a ball carrier and a passer, the same way Cam Newton did at Auburn. That's a good sign, because in the NFL, they'll ask him to focus that energy into absorbing the encyclopedia of quarterback technique, and the fact that he can "get it" at essentially two positions, to the extent he has, speaks very well for his ability to "get it" at the one position the NFL will ask him to learn.

Accuracy - This is another thing that drew me to him. You can tell that Jim Harbaugh is going to be high on Chandler Harnish. His two most important factors are movement skills and accuracy. But I also looked at it from a Jay Gruden type standpoint, knowing what drew Gruden to Andy Dalton over some other guys. What I liked when I really started to pick apart some of Harnish's games was his ball location. He throws many of those bubble screens and short passes with Barkley-like ball location, putting the ball out front so that the player can run through the catch even though it's a screen. The big drawback in terms of accuracy is his tendency to underthrow those deep balls to an open receiver. He doesn't rip it with the confidence and accuracy of a Robert Griffin. If he did, I'd probably go ahead and call him a better prospect than Griffin. Part of this is going to be timing and part of this is just habit and coaching. I remember Aaron Rodgers having some work to be done on his deep ball when he came out as well. Harnish's ability on these passes seemed to get better throughout his career, reaching a height right at the end. On the bigger intermediate passes that aren't verticals, I'm absolutely comfortable with his miss rate. In fact I'm pretty sure it's better than Matt Barkley's. He's got the accuracy to hit the out patterns and to fit the ball into tight spaces. He hits crossers in stride. He's got really good accuracy rolling to either side of the field, keeping his balance ideally and squaring his shoulders when he's rolling left. He stays over his feet, which makes him a constant dual-threat no matter what he's doing.

Pressure - Well first off you have to look at the simple fact that he's taken only 41 sacks on 1144 pass attempts. Not to mention, he's got another 547 run plays, and definitely not all of those were called run plays. This guy only gets sacked probably somewhere around once every 32 or so pass snaps, which is pretty incredible. The full games I watch, I just don't see him succumbing to pressure much. He does a good job sensing the rush while keeping his eyes upfield, which is something you don't always see out of a Joe Flacco for instance, to take the example of a guy that played in the playoffs today. Good example of this at 4:36 of his Junior Season Highlights. He's got a Minnesota edge rusher coming off his right side, but he senses the guy coming, does a good job keeping his eyes up field, steps up to make the guy miss, then makes the throw. I think he's got a real good sense for the rush and loves to use his feet to make things happen, which is what you're looking for nowadays in the NFL as we're trending toward things being a little different for QBs than they used to. What is his tendency to cut and run? I looked at the three games, Army, Toledo and Ball State. I saw him cut and run two times. He got sacked twice as well. That's it, though. Three games, 81 pass attempts, 2 scrambles and 2 sacks. So don't let the gaudy rush attempt numbers fool you. When this guy sits back to pass, he passes. He may actually be asked to scramble for positive yardage MORE in the NFL.

Awareness - This is the real tough one to gauge. I'd have some questions for him if I were watching his film with him, about what he was seeing on various plays, what his decision-making process is like. The Northern Illinois passing game actually has some pro elements to it, or at least concepts that are used in the pros. The guy does not throw many interceptions. But one thing I keep seeing all through his tape, every year, be they highlights or full games, is chancy throws. He's constantly throwing into tight man coverage with a DB's back turned. Is he reading that? Or is he just throwing it? It sort of reminds me of Ryan Fitzpatrick and the way he aggressively throws the ball and takes chances. I think what you started to see as he got more mature was his embrace of some of the little things and details of the position, pump faking, manipulating defenders and throwing guys open. Again I'm real anxious to know what he's seeing on some plays because there's a sense of either he's really good or at times, really lucky. I'm not ruling either out. But his awareness of his own offense and what defenses are trying to do to defend him, is in my opinion pretty impressive. There's a suggestion in his throwing that he has the ability to read coverages and leverage, and make decisions about how and where to throw the ball based on those reads. He was undoubtedly the master of that offense, as the article quotes suggest. He shows keen vision and awareness as a ball carrier that in my opinion translates when he's scrambling and looking for secondary targets.

Overall - We're once again stuck in this Russell Wilson no-man's land of, if only this guy were 4 inches taller, he'd make millions more. But I'm surprised. I'm not used to seeing guys that are supposed to be this level of a QB prospect, flash this kind of combination of physical ability, polish and pro compatible mechanics. You could see an Adam Froman in him, but Froman was not even close to as polished, not near the mechanics, and didn't have half the elusiveness or running instincts (just the speed). Even Robert Griffin doesn't do that, because I think mechanically he's all over the place. I think Harnish sees the field from the pocket a little better than Griffin, but unlike Griffin you're not going to mold your offense to where you want Harnish running the ball a lot because he doesn't have Griffin's world class running ability. I think the Fitzpatrick comparison holds up very well, but unlike with Fitzpatrick you don't see as many mechanical kinks in Harnish's game that will continually hold him back. He handles pressure too well to draw a John Beck comparison. I'm trying to think, is this guy like another Drew Stanton, somewhere along those lines? And again, I say no, not near the elusiveness or natural yard gaining instincts, not to mention field awareness, just the speed. What Harnish is, is exactly the kind of guy that a Green Bay would draft in the mid or late rounds to replace Matt Flynn, and then they coach him in that system which is tailored for mobile quarterbacks, and in four years he's off somewhere to collect a $50 million contract just like Flynn. And that makes me wonder why the Dolphins can't have a system like that, why the Dolphins can't take him and teach him more pro concepts, and turn him into something worth seeing.

Either way I'll get to watch him close up in Shrine practices this week, and I'm going to enjoy it.

 

Far and away the best QB at Shrine practices. Not close.

 

Chad Reuter compared him with Dan LeFevour, but admitted he's not saying he definitely won't make it in the NFL, just won't be surprised if he's the guy that develops a cult following and then he goes to the NFL and is nothing special.

But Michael Schottey, Cecil Lammey and I all love him.

 

I got the sense he was saying similar career path