Quarterback Spotlight: Bryce Petty (Baylor) vs SMU and Buffalo

vs SMU

[1st 12:55] Has a stuff lead leg on this one. Causes an odd ball to come out that's nearly intercepted and his receiver can't make a play on. Might have been caused by a miscommunication between the receiver and Petty. Could have wanted him to go inside of the defensive back than outside. Either way, a straight leg makes force go the opposite direction of the momentum of a passing motion. This creates someone of a momentum stoppage throughout the motion and hunches the body over, losing velocity off the ball.

Strong, quick arm in the short game. Athletic quarterback who isn't tall, but his body is built to take some hits if needed. [1st 12:17] Missed a relatively routine screen pass. With a quick strike offense, though, he's not being asked to get his feet into position to make a well-motioned throw. Snap off, ball's out. [1st 9:21] One note I had on Bryce Petty from preseason scouting was that his deep ball is pretty off-and-on. While Baylor runs a lot of vertical routes, four of the five deep sections of the field (basically anything outside of the hashes) had less than a 60% on-target rate from my viewings of his 2013 season. Here, he misses another one. His ability to drop a pass in a bucket isn't as great as many say it is.

Later, he begins to change his throwing motion a bit. Instead of coming across his shoulder with the ball, he drops his wrist, making the ball the lowest point of his arm before bringing it back up to throw. It's not a super elongated motion, so it's not a huge deal. It was just interesting that it hadn't happened in the previous passes. [2nd 3:09] Petty has a very odd pass on this one, to the point where you think it's almost a miscommunication. His shoulders are very out of position on this play, too open before the pass is out.

Because of this, the ball drops short of the receiver and doesn't come out with high velocity. A back injury sustained earlier in the game could have been a reason why his shoulders weren't positioned correctly.

[2nd 2:28] Another misplaced deep ball from Petty with a vertical free receiver. [2nd 1:41] First sign of significant pressure. Petty's body is thrown backwards and off his back foot. There may be concerns about his ability against pressure, but Baylor rarely faces quality pressure. [2nd 1:26] Again, pressure comes, and he throws off of his back foot.

vs BUFFALO

[1st 14:36] Throws a nice deep ball. Clutches before throwing the pass, but throws tall in the pocket, which was missing due to a stuff leg. The slight bend he has in his front leg seems to help with both velocity and accuracy here. [1st 8:56] A nice bucket throw. They're there for Petty, they just come and go. [1st 6:19] Again, the leg comes back. Fully extending it through the motion, the ball loses some momentum. While he had a good gain on the throw, he left YAC on the field by throwing the ball into the dirt for his receiver to catch. [1st 0:48] Doesn't need to bail the pocket, but does. Directs his receiver while on the move and hits a nice intermediate throw down the right sideline. [2nd 14;16] His receivers win again with four verts. Hits a nice bucket pass against poor zone coverage. When he doesn't have a man being chased closely from behind, he's able to throw to a spot, which end up as his deep completions. [2nd 5:34] Nice intermediate throw into tight coverage. [3rd 12:34] Stiff front leg again and the ball dropped short and behind the receiver. The defensive back had a hand on the ball and was in a better position to make a play on the ball than the receiver. [3rd 9:05] Stiff leg, but able to rotate hips through it, not putting a pause on any momentum. Throws tall through the pass, which spins nicely through a sea of Buffalo players to his Baylor target in the intermediate range. A bang-bang play as far as the ball and defender are concerned. One of the best throws Petty's had. Seems to want to stick to his first read. Instead of moving to another, he often pumps at his first read, hoping that the action will move defenders around for his receiver to find open space.

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