Film Study: Missouri QB Maty Mauk is the most talented QB in the SEC
The University of Missouri has been one of the very best stories in college football with its virtually seamless transition from what some fans in the south consider to be B-level football, the Big 12 Conference, to what most consider the Holy Grail in all of collegiate football, the Southeastern Conference.
It’s not in the least bit surprising to those of us who are into the sport as whole as there are plenty of teams in all the Power 5 conferences who could navigate an SEC schedule with the best of them.
For the surprise back-to-back SEC East champions, success has come, in part, due to key a couple of key factors: the ability to dominate in the trenches and an offensive philosophy centered around explosive plays.
And while the team has been littered with NFL-caliber players on defense — Sheldon Richardson, Michael Sam, Kony Ealy, Shane Ray and Markus Golden immediately come to mind — next year’s squad doesn’t have the benefit of a dominant rotational piece who’ll be counted on to replicate his predecessor’s success.
And on offense, the top three receivers from last season have all been lost due to graduation — most notably Bud Sasser and Jimmie Hunt, both of whom contributed 1,003 (12 touchdowns) and 698 yards (seven TDs), respectively.
So the naysayers are out in mass in their feeling that Mizzou will be now remembered as a two-trick pony as it may not have the ability to switch its pitch, so to speak.
But au contraire, haters.
You’re forgetting one minor, well, actually, let’s say major, detail: Quarterback Maty Mauk has the talent to strap a team on his back like we’ve seen from stars of days past. And if you don’t believe it, more than likely you’re going to have to learn the hard way…by him laying waste to one of your defenses.
Ability To Manufacture Plays/Potent Rushing Attack
Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel has had some of the best play-making QBs in recent college football lore: Brad Smith and Chase Daniel.
Smith, with his 4.4 40-yard dash speed, benefitted from the type of space Pinkel’s spread-to-run scheme manufactured. To further that point, he had the distinction of being the first player in major college football to pass for 2,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
And he did that twice!
In fact, he was the first player to pass for at least 8,000 yards and rush for 4,000 yards for an entire career. Smith was often a one-man band who threatened defenses with his extreme mobility, but then he would go to the vertical passing game as most defenses were conservative in its coverage to combat what he offered on the ground.
Daniel, on the other hand, was capable of dissecting defenses in the horizontal game under former offensive coordinator Dave Christensen — who has returned to the SEC after stints at the University of Wyoming and the University of Utah as the head coach and then the OC, respectively — and his style of breakneck, basketball on grass-like offensive football.
It’s hard to fathom that Christensen was the OC for both Smith and Daniel as it seemed to be two completely different ways of going about business. (Although Daniel was a more-than-capable athlete, as well.)
But he was.
Moreover, one of the most underrated offensive minds, Coach Pinkel himself, had a huge stake in the scheme and it continues to this day. Pinkel’s scheme continues to evolve while still being deeply rooted in spread principles.
Third-year OC Josh Henson has quietly implemented a ton of balance which has made Mizzou as tough an outfit to defend as it’s ever been. (That’s for you guys who think Mizzou is winning with smoke and mirrors.)
The run game should be explosive with the criminally underrated Russell Hansbrough back for his senior season, but it could be even more efficient if Henson took better advantage of Mauk’s ability to run, as well.
The 6’0″, 200-pound Mauk is a really good athlete who understands when to run when he bolts the pocket, but he also has an understanding of run concepts and how to work with blocking in the designed-run game.
Just look at how Mauk navigated this outside lead from a read-option fake. This is a packaged play as it complements the zone-read/inside-zone portion of the playbook. Mauk has some serious wheels and works well with blocking, too.
But more often than not, Henson leans on the read-option portion of his playbook opposed to scheming it up for just Mauk.
The player Mauk is most compared to, former Aggie Johnny Manziel, was an absolute terror in both the design and bolt-the-pocket run game. His acting as a standalone weapon forced a lot of favorable coverages for his receivers on the edges.
When you’re breaking in a slew of new receiving targets, forcing more attention up front can only work to your benefit; it’s imperative that Mauk is deployed using his natural athletic gifts.
Or you might just make him mad; you wouldn’t want to see him when he’s mad. (As UGA’s Mike Thornton found out the hard way.)
The spring game revealed that the Tigers are focusing on Mauk becoming more prominent in the run game — with focus on the traditional sprint-option — and that will only make him more productive and harder to defend.
Besides, when your QB is as tough as nails (see above), why not use his legs?
Arm Talent
What should excite most about Mauk is his ability to spray the ball around the yard in a scheme designed at putting some serious pressure on second- and third-level defenders with, sometimes, up to five receiving targets.
As I mentioned before, the Pinkel-Henson offense has a ton of high-risk, low-percentage throws designed at keeping the defense honest. Mauk throws a pretty good deep ball as he has a very strong arm — especially considering his lack of prototypical size.
But if Mizzou wants to continue its dominance of the SEC East, it may be time to take a page out of Christensen’s old playbook and incorporate more multiple-tight end sets where Mauk has bigger targets for the mid-range portion of the playbook.
Thus far, Mauk has yet to crack the 55 percent barrier for completion rate in his first two seasons on campus — 51.1 and 53.4, respectively — where 62 percent is the organic cutoff point for acceptable QB play.
Mizzou’s scheme has a ton of Hi-Lo reads where Mauk has to read deep to short. And although it seems there’s never been a receiver on Mizzou’s roster under 6’3″, it’s hard to take advantage of a pronounced catch-radius when going deep is your M.O.
This is why talented tight end/H-back Sean Culkin needs to be featured more in the mid-range game while finding him another cohort of the H-back variety — “12 personnel” — preferably that athletic freak Jason Reese!
Here we see some of the polish of Mauk: He initially looked off the safety in his gather phase; he proceeded to scan his progression from Hi to Lo; he had great weight transfer and led his receiver, running a “Dig,” to greener pastures allowing him to gain yards after the catch.
Mauk can navigate a mid-range offense as long as he’s aware of his mechanics. Too often he trusts his ability to make something from nothing and forgets to utilize proper mechanics.
But the kid is just a natural thrower of the football.
Just look at the touch — and placement — he put on this back-shoulder fade during the spring game.
He throws on the run as well as anyone I’ve studied on film and that mentality often creeps over to his in-the-pocket functionality. However, Mauk can be helped out with the two-tight set much like Daniel was when he had the benefit of throwing to both Martin Rucker and Chase Coffman, two talents who ended up in the NFL.
Providing Mauk with more higher-percentage throws will not only improve the efficiency of the offense, but it may actually improve the long-range game he’s come to be known for as the defense may be forced to deploy base personnel to combat the thought of those tight ends being used in the run game.
Mauk has one of the livest arms in the conference, some serious playmaking ability and a certain swagger, for lack of a better term, that can often galvanize a team.
He will be counted on to now be a leader of a team with designs on a three-peat in the eastern division and will now have experience on his side after being judged as if he’s a veteran because he filled in for a few games for an injured James Franklin during his freshman season.
So continue to pray on the Tiger’s downfall and watch them break your hearts again behind a more efficient, yet still explosive, Maty Mauk.
