Washington State QB Connor Halliday Has Sleeper Potential

It’s safe to say that a large portion of the NFL scouting community is lukewarm on the upcoming 2015 college quarterback class.  Marcus Mariota has picked the wrong year to be a running-type signal caller given the struggles of Colin Kaepernick and Robert Griffin III.  Jameis Winston  is supremely talented and also a supreme knucklehead, finding new ways every week to get himself in trouble.  Beyond them the pickings get slimmer fast.  Connor Cook may not declare and the senior class is close to being a joke.  It isn’t a pretty sight, which is why it also might be prime territory for a sleeper to emerge.

Enter Connor Halliday.

A lot of people have forgotten about the Washington State quarterback.  Not so much because he’s played poorly but because he suffered an untimely injury.  Keep in mind that Halliday suffered an ankle injury a month ago.  Despite that passage of time he remains tied for 4th in the nation in passing yards with 3,873.  He’s also seventh in touchdown passes with 32.  On top of that he only has 11 interceptions while throwing the ball an absurd 526 times.

At 6’4″ he has the preferred height for the NFL and scouts are high on his arm strength and his ball placement.  He has done a lot of damage playing a spread offense but the ability can’t be discounted.  Halliday has had some good games against top competition.  He beat Utah while throwing for 417 yards and four touchdowns and was almost flawless in a narrow 38-31 loss to Oregon (436 yards, 4 TDs).  Big games don’t intimidate him.

As a senior he most definitely will declare for the 2015 draft.  It’s just a matter of how quickly he can recover in time for the pre-draft process.  The first round is out of the question, but Halliday may be a mid to late-round gem teams need to track carefully.