© - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC Trey Lance - NDSU Quarterback Executive Summary: Trey Lance is one of the harder prospects to evaluate on tape because of all the evaluation considerations one must make in order to look at his tape. These are all covered in the evaluation considerations section and include NDSU Base Personnel, Level of Competition, Body of Work, and others. I see Trey Lance as a developmental prospect with ways in which an organization could play him early if they are forced to. Trey in my opinion is not coming from a “pro-style” offense. There is a drastic difference between taking a snap under center and executing a true “pro-style” offense, but the College game has very few of those to begin with. Trey will need to be groomed with a high level of drop variability and eye placement drills at the beginning of his rookie development period. From a biomechanical perspective, there is a lot to love about Trey and his delivery. Knowing there will be no big mechanical changes can help project him as a prospect where the focus is football intelligence and footwork variability. This will also be one less thing your QB coach has to work on. I believe the focus of Trey’s development will need to be in an understanding of what you want to see from him with each drop, a well defined progression system, and a heavy dose of run & play action early in his career if he is forced to play in year 1 or 2. Top Line Information: ● Games Evaluated: ○ 2019 - NDSU V Missouri State ○ 2019 - NDSU V South Dakota ○ 2020 - NDSU V Central Arkansas ● Prospect Information: ○ Height: 6’ 4” ○ Weight: 227 LBS Video Breakdown Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIMj75LmSHA ​ ​ © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC Evaluation Considerations: ● NDSU Base Personnel - NDSU runs a ton of 11, 12, & 21 throughout the course of the games evaluated. This helps in being able to see Trey under center, and see a variety of run / play action looks. This hurts when evaluating the level of coverage he is seeing. He often sees a watered down coverage variation due to the fact teams are actively trying to take away the run. And he quite often throws to tight ends who are being covered by linebackers etc. giving much wider windows than he will see at the next level. ● Coverage Limitations - This could possibly be the biggest concern when trying to put together Trey’s evaluation. I touched on it briefly in the base personnel consideration but needed to further explain the coverage limitations. When you watch NDSU on tape you will primarily see teams in Cover 3, Cover 1, and possibly Quarters. The amount of pre-snap disguise he saw was very limited as well. You see a ton of man to man or “true zone”. What I mean by true zone coverage is players who drop to their zone rather than concept matching and dropping to their most reasonable man. This is the biggest difference between College and the NFL and is a red flag when looking at the level of coverage he was playing against. This is something that Trey can absolutely work on during the developmental phases of the NFL off-season. However, I would suspect that he will get an even higher dose of trap coverage than most rookie quarterbacks. ● Level of Competition - I say this not because of the FCS level tag. That is too surface level and doesn’t hold any real meaning. Anyone who is playing at the FCS level is also surrounded by similar talent ETC. making the evaluation nearly net neutral. I say this because NDSU is so much better than every opponent they step on the field with (or that I evaluated). The concern here is that he was never really asked to carry them in any meaningful way. I also worry about the level of complexity he saw from a defensive perspective which I already touched on in their base personnel consideration. ● Body of Work - This is always hard when a Quarterback has only started 17 games at the college level. Trey will already be extremely raw because of the lack of pro-style throws in his offense compounded with the lack of drop variability he has been asked to execute. Of course the bright side is that he does not have any bad habits that he has “repped” into muscle memory. © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC ● Game plan protection - Throughout the course of his career Trey had no game with more than 31 attempts, with the average attempts per game being 16.82. This isn’t necessarily a red flag. However, if he is taken high in the draft, the team won’t be able to offer him these same sorts of game plan protections and compete for wins in the NFL. © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC Private Workout Eval Thoughts: If an organization chooses to bring in Trey Lance for a workout they should design the workout in the following manner to expand on unknowns his tape evaluation. 1. 60-40 work ratio split of plant to hitch throws. This will give you a feel for how fast he can adapt to not taking a hitch or reset on his throws. 2. High Drop Variability. Make sure he has to do 12-15 different drop types so you can see how quickly he can pick them up / if he has been working on true pro style drops during his pre draft work. 3. Make sure he works run and play action drops of 7 & 8 step hitch footwork instead of the 5 & 5 hitch footwork we saw on his College Tape. 4. Get him on the move and evaluate his “J-Step” and whether it has improved. This was the biggest mechanical error that led to inaccurate balls on the run. 5. Full field progressions to deep in routes. Especially working a gator concept (ie. working the spark in the slot back to the shin 6) as this will help you evaluate how well he ties his shoulders and lead hip to the target. This was a huge accuracy red flag on tape but something that should be further evaluated in-person. Successful Transition Notes, System Fits, & Development Thoughts: ● Work ratio of 70-30 plant to hitch during rookie mini camp and rookie periods during OTA etc. - This will help Trey get more comfortable with the ability to throw off of a plant rather ​ than using a hitch or reset. The hitch or reset comes into play on the stick routes and okie routes on tape and it results in the DB’s being able to make a play on the ball. Trey can clean this up with the proper work ratio during developmental periods at practice. ● Limit drop variability if he is going to play early - If Trey is going to have to play early the ​ organization will need to limit his drop variability if they want to see success early. Think Justin Herbert when looking at Trey’s feet. The more you can limit his drop variability early to the drops we saw on his college tape the more success he will have early. You can maximize the success he will have year 1 by making him comfortable from a footwork perspective by limiting his drops. © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC ● Extension in run / play action - Something we want to see Trey improve during the ​ developmental part of the NFL off-season is his extension in the run and play action game. At NDSU on tape he often times short arms the run game and doesn’t necessarily put the ball in the RB’s belly. He often has the ball up near the RB’s chin and this takes away from the real selling of run at the NFL level. An organization will need to make sure to work his extension and selling of run during run and play action play calls. ● Stance (Currently Even) Creates a punch step situation - This is the biggest successful ​ transition note that we have for Trey. Currently his even stance in the shotgun compromises any sort of quality footwork he may have. This got exponentially worse in 2020 and appears to have been something he was actively working on making it an even bigger concern. He often takes a false step with his left foot (because his stance is even) and then lazily gets into the rest of his drop. This almost cost him 2 pick 6’s in his one 2020 game he put on tape. If this is not addressed with urgency when he arrives to a team this will rear its head in the pre-season and or team periods and lead to massive mistakes in the quick and modified quick game of an NFL offense. © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC © - Tim Jenkins / Jenkins Athletics LLC Pro-Style Throws Seen Frequently on Tape: ● TE Stick - Evaluating the tape it is hard to tell if NDSU is actually running stick or if they are running a modified spot concept. With that being said, when he throws this on time (doesn’t take a reset) he does a tremendous job of ball placement and bodying up his target. He throws with “enough” anticipation which is what we want to see with an option route. He lets his target choose correctly and delivers. An example of him being late to a stick happens on 3rd & 3 against Missouri State with around 14:30 left in the first quarter.