2022 NFL Draft: Malik Willis, a tale of two quarterbacks

Out of all the positions to scout at the college level, the quarterback position has proven to be one of the most volatile in recent years. Relative unknowns can become first-rounders with one good season under their belt. Every year it seems that another franchise quarterback emerges out of nowhere to jump to the top of NFL draft boards.

Last season saw Zach Wilson, a little-known quarterback out of Utah, leapfrog more established quarterbacks and score the second overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Kyler Murray and Joe Burrow did the same thing, riding a wave of good press and extraordinary college film in two consecutive seasons.

Here’s a quick recipe for hyping up a quarterback before any NFL Draft: Usually, they come from a second or third-tier team, meaning most of the country hasn’t watched many of their games. They show elite traits at a handful of quarterback skills: You’ll hear this quarterback has a big arm, great pocket management, elite footwork, genius field processing. This is usually enough to get draft scouts and film buffs excited, as both groups are always eager to be the first to know a prospect before they go mainstream (the hipsters of college football, if you will).

The rest of the hype is usually powered by either a season of exceptional play or by mainstream media, who are more than willing to circulate stories from “anonymous” NFL executives saying such a quarterback is the next Patrick Mahomes. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.

If history does indeed repeat itself, then it is reasonable to assume another obscure quarterback will rise to NFL stardom during the 2021 college season. Having a hunch ahead of time about who this quarterback of destiny might be is a valuable resource in today’s NFL landscape. But just like renowned astronomer Carl Sagan once said “You have to know the past to understand the present”.

Liberty quarterback Malik Willis is on many NFL insiders short-list as the 2022 NFL Draft‘s biggest riser. A relative unknown until last season, Willis has many of the same traits that quarterbacks like Burrow, Wilson, and Murray had prior to their breakout seasons. With a surface-level examination of the circumstances, this is a reasonable hypothesis to make. But to understand the parallels between these previous first-rounders and Willis, we must dive deeper into his background.

In this article, we’ll explore the Liberty passer’s background: How he led his high school football team to a state championship and his first two seasons playing clean-up duty for a pillar of the SEC. Next, we’ll explore what Willis showed us during his first season playing as the full-time starter in 2020 after transferring to Liberty. We’ll evaluate three elements of his game that have NFL scouts giddy with anticipation and how his play elevated an unestablished football team into the AP top 25.

At the same time, we’ll review how the best elements of his play are often interlinked with the major problems Willis showed on film in 2021. We’ll examine how the best things about Willis as a quarterback tie into and are ultimately responsible for the worst elements of his playstyle and how disentangling these things will be the key to seeing Willis succeed at the next level. Click below to get started.