What Happened to Wimbush?
Ever since he flipped from Penn State to join Notre Dame’s 2015 recruiting class, Brandon Wimbush has been hyped as the next great Fighting Irish quarterback. WIth Malik Zaire and DeShone Kizer in front of him when he arrived on campus, it was accepted that he would have to wait his turn before he had an opportunity to be “the guy” for Brian Kelly’s program. But there was always the notion that when his time came, he would do special things in blue and gold.
After two years of mostly waiting, this was now going to be Wimbush’s team. There wasn’t going to be quarterback competition after Kizer left early for the NFL. It wasn’t that Wimbush was simply handed the job. He had basically earned it in two years of practices by flashing his exciting physical skills and displaying his maturity off the field. There was no ceiling for how good he could be. This wasn’t just Irish Sports Daily or other outlets that cover Notre Dame football that felt this way about him. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit was all-in as well when he tweeted this back in July.
The one area where he surpassed the hype was as a runner. His fourteen touchdowns on the ground set a single season record for Notre Dame. He finished 11th in the nation in yards per game for a quarterback and was the biggest reason why the Irish jumped from 55th in red zone touchdown percentage last season all the way to 9th this fall.
His contributions in that area can’t be brushed over because they were a big reason why the Irish were able to start out 8-1 and be considered a top-five team in the nation at one point. However, his lack of development as a passer has been discouraging to say the least. It might not even be accurate to label it as development. It honestly was more of a regression.
He is capable of making every throw a play-caller can draw up and his ability to sling it was considered his greatest strength. He has been deficient in several areas, though, and that’s the main reason why he has been a below average player from the pocket this fall (88th in passer rating and 80th in yards per attempt).
While I knew it was going to be a process for Wimbush to adapt to being the starting quarterback, I expected to see an ascending football player for most of this season. Some dips in performance are normal for a first year starter, but I don’t think anyone expected to see this much inconsistency from someone with his combination of raw talent, experience working with private quarterback coaches in New Jersey and California, and from someone entering into his third year in the Notre Dame program.
After the game at Michigan State where he completed 70% of his throws, he failed to complete over 50% of his passes in six of his next seven starts. The one exception, NC State, he only completed 52.6%.
It was not just his play that led to the Irish losing at Stanford on Saturday, but when a quarterback completes less than 40% of his passes, it felt a little bit like Notre Dame was playing with one arm tied behind their back. A lot of the issues that we’ve seen from Wimbush most of the season were there in this game.
We can start with making an incorrect read on this run-pass option play early in the game. RPOs are always a numbers game and the Irish had the numbers advantage to the outside. He needed to pull this and throw the screen Kevin Stepherson.
A lot of Notre Dame fans expected more RPOs this season from Chip Long knowing what Memphis did. Probably the biggest reason why Notre Dame wasn’t as a big of an RPO offense as expected had to do with decision making by Wimbush. It’s on the quarterback to make the read and pull it. I think it's fair to assume that he may have chosen not to pull the ball when he should have on certain occasions because he wasn’t confident throwing the football.
His accuracy all-around was not strong, but his ability to get the ball to the right spot in the short passing game was particularly perplexing. You could see him trying to blatantly aim the football on some throws or try and loft the football up so he wouldn’t have to rely on being as precise.
Mechanically Wimbush has been jumbled since early in the season. Very few are perfect on every throw, but his footwork in particular has led him to miss easy throws regularly. That goes from everything in the short passing game to a simple corner route like this.
Durham Smythe was wide open for a touchdown. Wimbush stepped up in the pocket for no apparent reason. When he did that, he never set his feet and almost tried to shot put this throw.
A couple of plays later he could have had another easy touchdown to St. Brown on this double move, but he must have been so far in his own head about getting the ball there that he made no attempt to look off the safety. He came all the way over from the other side because he had enough time to do so.
That was thrown with the urgency of a fade thrown to a receiver during pat and go in warm-ups. Why was that case? Likely because he was more worried about getting the ball there than anything else.
Those are just a few examples from this game, but there are several other GIFs I could pull up from this season showing his struggles mechanically or with pre and post snap decision making that show a player that looks like he is a true freshman playing for the first time and not a third year sophomore.
Eleven starts into his career, there never seemed to be anything close to steady progress. As I mentioned before, it almost seemed like there was regression with his overall game compared to how he threw the ball in high school and in practices prior to this season.
It’s not as simple as asking what the issue is with Wimbush because right now there are more than a few with him as a passer. And for whatever reason, he has not shown the ability to overcome them with help from first year quarterback coach in Tom Rees, a first year coordinator in Chip Long, or his head coach, Brian Kelly.
It seems like it's more mental than physical for him. Even though this year that has featured so much of his struggles despite having a clean pocket and open receivers, he has still shown flashes like this.
Pressure forced him step up in the pocket. He did and then had to swing back his shoulders to get re-set in the pocket. Then he delivered a throw on the money to St. Brown the moment before taking a hit.
That’s the kind of throw that shows he is more than capable of being a successful passer in a game and not throwing over a broom with George Whitfield or in practice against air. He has it in him to be much more than just a great runner. But can he become that after us seeing a large sample size showing he isn’t anywhere close to that on a consistent basis? I don’t know the answer.
Whether it is being able to process reads quicker or as simple as re-instilling confidence, there is something that needs to be unlocked inside of him that has prevented him from being the player he was expected to be. There is still hope that he can be that player in my opinion. Others have looked lost and then took the leap to become a star. It’s on the coaching staff to do everything they can to help Wimbush be the next example of that because his ceiling remains sky high, even if it seems like he further away from reaching it now than he did three months ago.