BC 2021 Preseason Position Overview: Quarterback
Andy BackstromStaff Writer
This time last year, Boston College fans were clamoring for an immediate-eligibility waiver for Notre Dame transfer quarterback Phil Jurkovec. The #FreeJurk movement was successful, and Jurkovec turned in one of the most impressive seasons by a signal caller in recent Eagles history.
Despite not having started a game since high school, the 6-foot-5 redshirt sophomore threw for 300 or more yards in three of his first four games in a BC uniform. No gunslinger in program history had started his Eagles career that way, not to mention that there was only one game during former head coach Steve Addazio’s seven-year tenure where a quarterback topped 300 yards passing (Sept. 13, 2018: Anthony Brown versus Wake Forest).
He won over the BC fanbase with his improvisational skills, bouncing outside the pocket to make some head-turning throws downfield. Jurkovec, a Pittsburgh native, drew comparisons to Ben Roethlisberger throughout the season and is in the 2022 NFL Draft conversation.
Still, he has a lot to prove in 2021, and he’s just one of five BC quarterbacks. Let’s dive in.
Projected Depth Chart:
QB1 Phil Jurkovec
2020 Stats: 2,558 pass yards, 61% completion, 17 TDs, 5 INTs; 190 rush yards, 3 TDs
QB2 Dennis Grosel
2020 Stats: 568 pass yards, 68.5% completion, 6 TDs, 3 INTs; 22 rush yards, 0 TDs
QB3 Matthew Rueve
2020 Stats: N/A
QB4 Daelen Menard
2020 Stats: N/A
QB5 Emmett Morehead
2020 Stats: N/A
Biggest Questions:
Are Jurkovec’s Houdini tendencies sustainable?
No quarterback in the FBS had as many pressure dropbacks as Jurkovec in 2021, according to Pro Football Focus. Of his 336 pass attempts, 125 came while he was pressured, per PFF. In other words, 37.2% of Jurkovec’s throws were delivered under duress. He hit on 70 of those passes, piling up 1,080 yards through the air, the most under pressure of any D-I quarterback during the regular season. He also recorded a perfect 8:0 touchdown-to-interception ratio with defenders in his face. The play that jumped out was his 34-yard hookup with Jaelen Gill against his old team last November. Jurkovec retreated, spun out of one sack and ripped through another, stepped up, pointed and rifled a pass to a striding Gill. And that was with a separated shoulder.
Now, Jurkovec did get lucky a handful of times. Like at Clemson when he felt the rush and overthrew Hunter Long, resulting in a Baylon Spector pick, which was promptly overturned because of a targeting infraction. Or when a face mask penalty wiped away a pressure-induced, third-quarter interception against Notre Dame that saw safety Kyle Hamilton corral a badly thrown ball from Jurkovec, who was moving up in the pocket before taking a hit. Sometimes when things worked out on the fly for Jurkovec, he was throwing off his back foot, which is hardly a good habit to form, especially if he’s to develop at the next level. But, with perimeter playmakers who can make adjustments to the ball mid-air, there’s a bit more leeway.
It’ll be interesting to see if Jurkovec’s reliance on escapability proves as fruitful this fall as it did in 2020. Last year, he ranked 23rd out of the 26 ACC quarterbacks with 50-plus dropbacks in average time to throw (2.78 seconds), according to PFF. With that, comes a tradeoff between taking some unnecessary sacks and increasing the potential explosive play total.
If Jurkovec takes another step forward, will he leave Chestnut Hill for the 2022 NFL Draft?
In this scenario, Jurkovec polishes his game inside the tackle box. When Jurkovec had a clean pocket last season, his yards per attempt dropped from 8.6—while under pressure—to 7.0, and his NFL-adjusted passer rating declined from 106.1 to 88.5, per PFF. That’s also when he threw all five of his interceptions. Maybe it means he flashes more of his running ability as well. Jurkovec, who rushed for 1,211 yards and 24 touchdowns on 132 carries as a senior at Pine-Richland, logged just 150 yards and three scores on the ground last season. While he was a quarterback sneak extraordinaire, his legs really only shined in the back half of the year, most notably when he racked up 94 rushing yards on seven totes versus Georgia Tech.
Improved accuracy would do Jurkovec favors, too. He started 2020 red hot, completing north of 66% of his passes in his first three games and finishing the year as the first BC signal caller with a completion percentage higher than 60% since 2013, however, he was a combined 30-of-64 against No. 1 Clemson and No. 2 Notre Dame. His bum shoulder surely played a role in the dramatic decline, but BC needs him close to or above the 60% line for those marquee matchups.
OK. So if that all happens, and Jurkovec guides the Eagles to an eight-plus win season, he could be on his way out. After all, back in May, Athletic NFL Draft analyst Dane Brugler had Jurkovec going to the Pittsburgh Steelers with the 15th overall pick in his way-too-early 2022 mock. Additionally, PFF NFL Draft analyst Mike Renner included Jurkovec in his 12-quarterback overview, providing an initial look at the Class of 2022 prospects. With his size, and the NFL’s recent infatuation with the RPO, Jurkovec could be primed for a first-to-third round grade. That is, if he excels in year two under Cignetti and Jeff Hafley.
Who is BC’s quarterback of the future?
Right now, it’s Jurkovec, but if he stars in 2021, BC will have to quickly reload. Hafley went to the portal to get Jurkovec after taking over the program in December 2019, but the 42-year-old has made it clear that he wants to build this team from within. This offseason, the Eagles lost a pair of quarterbacks to the transfer market: Matt Valecce reunited with Addazio in Fort Collins, and Sam Johnson—once a raw but promising recruit—is still searching for his next destination.
That leaves the Eagles with three quarterbacks in line for the starting job in 2022: redshirt sophomore Daelen Menard, redshirt freshman Matthew Rueve and true freshman Emmett Morehead. All three have yet to make their collegiate debut. Of the group, Rueve got the most reps in this year’s Jay McGillis Memorial Spring Game. In the second half of the exhibition, he completed 5-of-9 attempts for 61 yards and a touchdown to former walk-on and quarterback-turned-tight end Andrew Landry. Menard was 3-of-4 for 13 yards and a score. And Morehead hit on just 1-of-3 passes for a mere four yards in limited action.
Menard is the outlier, in terms of size. The Davie, Florida, native stands 5-foot-11, while Rueve and Morehead are 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-5, respectively. Morehead was the highest-rated recruit of the trio. He’s a three-star prospect from Woodside, California, but he played his high school ball at Episcopal in Virginia, where he became the No. 28 Class of 2021 player in the state. Morehead’s pocket presence and size are palatable for Cignetti’s pro-style offense. Depending on his development, and Jurkovec’s success this fall, he could be QB1 in 2022. But he’ll probably redshirt the 2021 campaign.
Best/Worst Case Scenario?
Best: Jurkovec nears Matt Ryan’s single-season program record for 300-yard games (nine), ups his completion percentage and keeps his interceptions down (no more than 0.75 per game). He picks up right where he left off with Zay Flowers and gets all of his other wideouts involved to form a top-three ACC passing attack. Unlike 2020, he and the offense rarely encounter mid-game scoring droughts. En route to BC’s return to the AP Poll and the program’s first eight-plus win season since 2009, Jurkovec attracts enough interest from the NFL to merit his departure.
Worst: Jurkovec goes down with a season-ending injury, and Dennis Grosel is thrust into action—yet again. The veteran backup plays well enough to help BC beat lower-tier and middle-of-the-pack ACC teams but not the conference’s best. Grosel’s accuracy is higher than his 2019 mark of 48.4% but nowhere near his 68.5% completion percentage from last year’s smaller sample size. BC finishes 6-6, clinches a low-end ACC bowl and questions arise about Jurkovec’s durability after back-to-back seasons of sustained injuries. Grosel graduates, Jurkovec returns, but there’s still no indication of who’s next.
Outlook: It was easy to forget that Jurkovec was playing his first real season of college football last year. He piloted BC’s offense and, at times, looked like a veteran. On the flip side, he had his fair share of questionable throws and bad sacks, like most rookies. But he’s as tough as they come—his knee injury against Louisville was non-contact—and even if he’s temporarily sidelined, BC has a reliable backup in Grosel to keep things competitive. The program is returning its most production since 2018, and the expectations on the Heights are grand for the second year of the Hafley era, especially with an easier schedule this time around. Jurkovec’s development and output in 2021 will affect his draft stock, Hafley’s trajectory and the future of BC’s quarterback room.
