The 2022 NFL rookie class is underwhelming. Two of the top-three quarterbacks who were the most valuable 2022 eligible prospects have had their value drop close to nil with Spencer Rattler and Kedon Slovis. The remaining option, Sam Howell has retained his value over time however many, including myself, view him as a limited prospect. The underlying reason for this class being below-average compared to other recent classes is not because every player in the class of 2022 will be a bust. The reason why the 2022 NFL rookie class is underwhelming is that we have too low of a confidence interval on the likelihood of an individual player being a viable fantasy option consistently.

When facing doubt within the devy lens, a potential value gain is to make a smaller investment in terms of draft capital on a player that has a lower likelihood of hitting but has the tools that NFL evaluators will fall in love with. See Joe Burrow and Jalen Hurts from the 2020 class as well as Zach Wilson and Trey Lance from the 2021 class. Now, devy analysts are trying to project which quarterback with an incomplete profile will be the next surprise first-round quarterback.

Enter Ole Miss’ gunslinger Matt Corral. Lane Kiffin’s play-caller has emerged as the top quarterback option in this year’s draft. His competition for the top spot includes the aforementioned Sam Howell, along with Hugh Freeze’s athletic quarterback Malik Willis. Both of these players are likely to be available in your upcoming drafts. In this article, we will do a deep dive into these quarterbacks’ matchups that happened this past weekend and what insights we can gain from their performances.

MATT CORRAL

Matt Corral was certainly a coveted prospect in the 2018 recruiting cycle. The 6’2” and 202 lbs. prospect from Long Beach, CA was a four-star prospect. He was a top-75 prospect within the 2018 class, including the fourth highest-rated pro-style quarterback. Corral has a rocket arm, and he has the requisite athleticism to be a player who can hurt defenses with his feet at the NFL level. However, 11 interceptions in two games during his 2020 campaign raised questions about his decision-making. He cleaned that portion of his game up this offseason, as he has 16 TDs compared to only two interceptions this year. It is unclear whether this is a product of Corral’s improvement, or Lane Kiffin getting his quarterback into better positions to succeed.

Along with his progression as a passer, Corral has become a significantly more efficient rusher. In 2020 Corral’s threat on the ground was clear, with 506 yards and four touchdowns. In the first nine games of 2021, Corral has surpassed both finishes having racked up 536 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground. Before the matchup with Liberty, I had a high confidence interval in naming Corral my top fantasy quarterback in the 2022 class.

MALIK WILLIS

Malik Willis was not a particularly coveted prospect in the 2017 recruiting cycle. The 6’2” and 188 lbs. prospect out of Atlanta, GA was a three-star prospect. However, his designation as a prospect was as an ATH (athlete) which indicates not only that Willis played on both sides of the ball in high school, but also that most teams preferred him as a defensive back. Willis was the 368th ranked prospect in the 2017 class, and originally enrolled at Auburn, but had to transfer after he was beaten out by Bo Nix as a redshirt freshman in 2019.

Willis transferred to Liberty in 2020 and after a productive season, he became a devy darling for those trying to find the next Jalen Hurts or Trey Lance type. I touched upon Malik Willis’s elite athleticism in the offseason. However, unlike Corral, one could argue that Willis has not taken a step forward in his development in line with Corral. Because of Liberty’s lack of quality opponents, we refused to evaluate Willis as a true quarterback prospect until after this matchup with SEC’s Ole Miss.

THE FILM ROOM

Corral came into this game with a lingering ankle injury, so we are emphasizing what he can do from the pocket rather than as a dual-threat quarterback in this game. Liberty is currently outside the top-50 defenses as ranked by the Football Outsiders so we will be putting more emphasis on his performances against opposing SEC teams. However, this will give us a good insight into whether Corral plays down to the abilities of his opponents or maintains high levels of production regardless of the level of competition.

Corral has above-average arm talent, within this class it would be considered elite, but as, a community, we should be self-policing what we call elite traits each season. He progresses through his reads quickly and has a quick release after he locks in on a read. He possesses good, but not great, pocket presence. Additionally, he shows the ability to move his feet quickly and react to how the pocket is breaking down. However, he fails to set his feet sometimes when facing pressure which could be indicative of turnover-worthy plays in adjusting to the NFL speed. He can deliver the ball off-platform and from a variety of arm angles when needed. There is a lot that NFL evaluators will like on this young man’s tape.

Malik Willis came into this game trending towards the most hyped quarterback in this class. However, his situation is converse from Corral’s as very few teams he played against as Liberty’s starting quarterback had NFL-level defenders. Ole Miss’ defense is going to have lightboxes and is going to primarily rush three defenders and drop eight into coverage. We are going to emphasize Willis’s decision-making in this instance and not over-rely on the lack of talent in his supporting cast.

Willis’ playstyle is similar to Jalen Hurts from a progression standpoint, he may be most effective as a one-read quarterback who can take off and run if the single-read does not create separation. Once he decides to take off and run, he has a running style reminiscent of Lamar Jackson’s in the way he moves to set up blockers and rushing angles. While his 4.5-second 40-yard dash speed will be elite at the NFL level, he does not possess Jackson’s quick elusiveness.

As a passer, Willis has a great deep ball, but his accuracy, precision, and touch are below-average. He also has a longer wind up on his throw which could be a detrimental trait as he goes through the draft process. Similar to Trey Lance, Willis is the best athlete on the field nearly every time he plays due to the lack of competition in Liberty’s matchups. He will need some time to develop as an NFL quarterback. I do not project him to be a starter early in his rookie season without external factors like injury playing a role.

THE ANALYTICS

Ole Miss got up early in this game on the legs of a Jerrion Ealy 70-yard touchdown scamper. Because of this, Liberty was playing with a negative game script for the entirety of the game. Liberty ran 81 offensive plays compared to the 55 that Ole Miss ran. This discrepancy is due to the explosive plays that were created by the Ole Miss offense. Despite playing from behind for the entirety of the game Liberty ran 44 rushing plays, which equates to a 54% run rate. On the 35 remaining passing dropbacks, Willis was able to complete a pass only 45% of the time. He was sacked nine times, threw three interceptions, and had seven incomplete passes. Two of the seven incomplete passes were turnover-worthy plays which add up to 14 drive-ending plays between sacks, interceptions, and passes that should have been intercepted.

Willis attempted six passes of more than 15 yards downfield. He completed two of them for 42 yards (seven yards per attempt). On two of his deep throws he forced penalties on the defense yielding them free plays for an additional 20 yards, one was an offsides call and the other he put the receiver in the opportunity to draw pass interference. His other two deep throws resulted in one interception and one incompletion.

Overall, his play proved the analysis of his tape that Willis is a run-first quarterback. Willis added 11.1 cumulative Expected Points Added (EPA) on plays that he was the primary rusher. However, he added a negative 10 cumulative EPA on passing attempts. This resulted in an average EPA per play of just 0.021. Further making this performance look worse, the Liberty offensive line blocked an average of 4.3 yards on each rushing attempt.

Ole Miss’ offense did quite the opposite, having a rush rate of just 43% on the game despite playing with the lead for the entire game. Corral was able to complete passes on 65% of his dropbacks and totaled 284 yards and one touchdown in the air. He was also able to evade pressure to extend plays at a high rate, taking only two sacks in this game. Four of his seven incomplete passes were due to receiver drops, giving Corral an on-target percentage of 86%.

Corral attempted seven deep passes in this matchup, completing four of them for 155 yards and one touchdown. Two of the three incompletions were wide receiver drops, which yields an overall target rate of 85% and a completion rate of 57%. Corral was great in this contest on his deep balls.

Overall, Corral had a strong and nearly entirely mistake-free game. Despite his ankle injury, he was still used on 15% of the team’s rush attempts, all of which were on scramble drills. Corral had a cumulative EPA of 14.8 on passing plays, and 0.9 on rushing plays, for an average EPA per play of 0.475. Corral is a quarterback that NFL teams will be comfortable with as their Week 1 starter if they do not have a franchise quarterback or high-level bridge quarterback on the roster.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Malik Willis is a player that has insane upside at the NFL level but is a prospect that I view more as a developmental piece than an instant impact player. Matt Corral possesses the rushing upside to create a meaningful floor and the arm talent to reach dynasty QB1 status (a top-12 fantasy quarterback, not first-overall). Once he becomes a starting quarterback in the NFL, Willis will have a higher weekly floor than Corral. However, Corral’s value has baked in safety that he will be a starting quarterback far sooner than Willis, which is noteworthy for fantasy teams that have a positional need at quarterback. Overall, we should feel good if we have either player rostered in devy leagues. However, we still want to see draft capital and landing spots before we close the book on either of these two prospects and their futures in the NFL.

Thank you for reading my article! If you enjoyed it, keep an eye out for my future articles. You can also follow me on Twitter @DynastyDiagnos1 and reach out with any questions, comments, or ideas you’d like me to explore for a new article. 

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