Desmond Ridder wasn’t a highly touted prospect coming out of St. Xavier High School in Louisville. In fact, he was tabbed as a two- or three-star recruit and his only scholarship offers were from Eastern Kentucky of the FCS and the University of Cincinnati.
An impromptu tryout in front of then-University of Cincinnati offensive coordinator and current Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor allowed Ridder to impress enough to earn a scholarship offer.
Former Bearcats coach Tommy Tuberville was the one who offered Ridder the scholarship, but after he resigned, current coach Luke Fickell and his staff elected to honor the offer. Ridder redshirted his freshman year, won the starting job a few games into the next year, and the rest was history. Which leads me to my player comparison.
Player Comp: Colin Kaepernick
This comp for Desmond Ridder is only to Kaepernick as the player and through that lens, these two are remarkably similar.
Both redshirted their freshman year and played for non-Power 5 schools. Both are 6’4” right-handed quarterbacks whose best traits are their arm strength and athleticism, and both have led their respective college programs to wildly successful one-loss seasons (Cincinnati 9-1 last year in 2020 for Ridder and Nevada 13-1 in 2010 for Kaepernick).
Does this mean I think Desmond Ridder will make multiple NFL Conference Championship Games and a Super Bowl? Not exactly. Let’s take a look at his strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths
Although Ridder will be a redshirt senior at Cincinnati this season, he doesn’t turn 22 until August 31, 2021. This means he’ll have ample starting experience without being so old that he’s already reached his ceiling.
He also plays winning football as Cincinnati has gone 31-5 during the games he’s started and they’ve finished in the AP Top-25 each of his three years.
His accuracy is trending upward as he improved his completion percentage from 55.1% in 2019 to 66.2% in 2020.
There’s no doubt that Desmond Ridder has NFL arm strength. In addition to that, he’s a tremendous athlete who would be well-suited to running some of the more newfangled zone read and run-pass-option offenses in the NFL.
His athleticism also allows him to adeptly throw on the run, improvise when plays break down and make something out of nothing.
He can absolutely make the requisite downfield throws and zip the ball into tight windows. He can consistently hit receivers on slant patterns.
Ridder is a tough competitor who isn’t afraid to run around and take big hits. He has a never-say-die attitude and tries to make the most out of every play.
He makes good decisions with the ball as evidenced by his career 57-20 touchdown to interception ratio.
Weaknesses
He has a slightly thin frame at 215 pounds and would benefit from adding 15 pounds of muscle to be similar in size to the aforementioned Colin Kaepernick, who played at 229 pounds.
Ridder isn’t consistently accurate with the football, and this is certainly his biggest knock. In the 2021 Peach Bowl against Georgia, he threw high to his receivers more than once and missed backs coming out of the backfield on arrow routes (which are pretty basic throws) multiple times.
His mechanics aren’t great, which can lead to the inaccuracy we discussed above. He has a tendency to sling the ball sidearm and his feet can get out of alignment which takes his throws offline.
Ridder hasn’t been frequently asked to go through multiple reads, so he often doesn’t. He either looks for his first read, his check-down receiver or looks to run.
In 2019 he injured his throwing shoulder and missed a big game against Memphis that his team lost.
He needs to improve his pocket presence, as he can bail too quickly out of a clean pocket as well as sit in the pocket too long and get swallowed up by the rush.
While his toughness is commendable, it borders on the reckless. Ridder would do well to slide more and run out of bounds to avoid taking so many big shots.
Outlook going forward
Desmond Ridder’s senior season at Cincinnati is going to determine where he goes in the draft. Coming back to school was likely a smart move for four reasons.
One, there were five quarterbacks taken in the first round last year, and he would have likely slid way down draft boards if had elected to forgo his senior season.
Two, there are multiple areas that Ridder can improve, like making better and quicker reads, and enhancing his ball placement, and being more consistently accurate on intermediate and deep throws.
Three, by coming back to school, Desmond Ridder is betting on himself. He’s betting that he’ll improve as a player enough that he’ll be able to help his draft stock. If he shines this year, he’ll have shown that he can come through with the pressure on and when he has a lot to gain.
Four, coming back shows a commitment to his team. In his announcement that he was coming back, Ridder talked about how hard he wanted to work and how he wanted to grow as a teammate. His stated goals for the upcoming season are a second consecutive conference championship for Cincinnati and a berth in the College Football Playoff.
Desmond Ridder has all the tools to be a prototypical modern dual-threat quarterback in the NFL, but he just needs a little more polish and some time to tighten up some of his mechanics.
I’ve seen projections everywhere from the first round to the fifth round for Desmond Ridder, but I think he’ll be good to great his final year in Cincinnati and ultimately land in the mid-to late-third round of the 2022 NFL Draft.