Coan is Able
Ian Book finished his college career as the most successful quarterback of the Brian Kelly era. His productivity was impressive, but his durability was even moreso.
Since becoming the starter against Wake Forest in 2018, he only missed one start in his career due to injury. Considering how often he ran with the football, that should be up there with his 30 wins on his list of accomplishments.
That durability meant that we didn’t get to see much of the quarterbacks behind him on the depth chart, though. It’s changed quite a bit since that first season when former starter Brandon Wimbush was his primary backup. Book leaves Notre Dame with only two scholarship quarterbacks remaining.
With some uncertainty surrounding Brendon Clark’s health, there’s a chance Notre Dame could be down to three scholarship quarterbacks this season with Drew Pyne being joined by true freshmen Tyler Buchner and Ronnie Powlus. That’s not a situation where a team who plans on contending next season wants to be, so the addition of a graduate transfer makes perfect sense.
Enter former Wisconsin starter Jack Coan, who committed to play for the Irish yesterday.
Adding a player with his experience was critically important for Notre Dame and the staff did very well to be on top of it. What exactly are the Irish getting in Coan? The answer is more nuanced than simply stating he won 10 games in 2019.
Yes, he was the quarterback on a 10-4 football team. He played well too. He finished 19th in pass efficiency and ninth in ESPN’s total QBR. There wasn’t much flash to his game, but he was accurate and efficient. He finished with a 69.6% completion, 10th in adjusted completion percentage, and his 8.0 yards per attempt matches what Book averaged in 2020.
Inserting a player like him into Notre Dame’s quarterback room is a big deal. Coan does a good job of getting the ball out quickly at the top of his drop. He throws to receivers right out of their breaks. His ball placement on short and intermediate throws is very good and he does a good job of looking off defenders.
Urban Meyer did a great job of breaking down these things while doing a feature on Coan for the Big Ten Network that I would recommend checking out.
Those are things he does better than Book in my opinion. Coan is really good at playing within the framework of the offense, which is why it makes so much sense that he threw 18 touchdowns against only five interceptions.
And he is willing to make throws like this one in the Rose Bowl where he has to fit the football in. He’s not someone who is shy when it comes to throwing to a receiver who isn’t wide open even though he doesn’t have anywhere close to elite arm talent.
There’s a lot to like about his game.
His weaknesses are why he is no longer Wisconsin’s starting quarterback, though.
He’s not a running threat (3.8 yards per carry minus lost sack yardage). Though he has solid pocket awareness, he’s not going to escape the rush very well and he’s definitely not someone who can create a big play outside of the framework of the play call.
Those are strengths of his replacement, Graham Mertz. He’s a more dynamic player. Escaping the rush and creating plays outside of the call for Book were inarguably the strongest part of his game. They were as strong as almost any quarterback in college football. That part of the equation will be lost if Coan ends up winning the starting job at Notre Dame.
Kelly said that Everett Golson was a passenger on the bus for the 2012 team that went 12-1. He wasn’t the person driving the bus for that team. The same could be said for Coan at Wisconsin in 2019.
I wouldn’t say he was in the back watching a movie. He was more of a navigator. When the time came to check Google Maps, Coan was there to help guide the way.
It’s pretty obvious that the strengths of that offense (sixth in FEI) were the offensive line and the running game. Running back Jonathan Taylor rushed for over 2,000 yards, they ran 62.1% of the time, and they were ninth in the country in rushing attempts.
Wisconsin was 111th in pass attempts per game and passing yards were only 46.1% of their total offense (117th).
That is part of the story. Another part of the story is that he was extremely well protected in the pocket with pressure on only 24% of his drop backs and he had the benefit of having a top-10 defense on the other side as well (ninth in FEI). He was an important part of that football team, but he didn’t carry them at any point.
Coan isn’t going to be that missing piece that puts Notre Dame’s offense over the top. He is good enough to help them with his skill set and should compete for the open starting job.
He’s definitely been battle tested, unlike the other quarterbacks on the roster. Coan faced six top-40 defenses in 2019 (seven if you included Ohio State twice) and that kind of experience is invaluable. He had mixed results in those games with success against Michigan (8.0 YPA), Minnesota (12.7), Michigan State (8.6), but he couldn’t crack over 7.0 YPA in both Ohio State games and was at 5.3 and 4.7 against Oregon and Northwestern.
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that those three defenses were the best at stopping Wisconsin’s running game.
I like this pickup for Notre Dame. Coan is an asset to the quarterback competition and his floor is a high-end backup. The ceiling for him isn’t that high, though, which could be a determining factor with him winning or losing the starting job.