Famed quarterback guru George Whitfield spoke to SB Nation's Wescott Eberts (who can be found via the Twitter @WescottEberts and if you into recruiting, he's a great follow) while in Dallas at an Elite 11 event. For those of you that don't know, Whitifield is the quarterback coach for many of the top quarterbacks annually, and even Davis Webb attended a quarterback school with Whitfield earlier this year.
When asked about what he liked about Stidham, Whitifled said that Stidham is a terrific all-around athlete who has a big arm:
"I like him. I like him. Again Kingsbury pulls off another coup, gets another big kid who can spin the ball. Has that sneaky athleticism to him, good with the second reaction stuff and he's an all-around athlete."
Quarterbacks are almost never finished products and Whitfield did note that Stidham could certainly improve his footwork:
"There are some lower body things. He could be a little more smooth transitioning his weight. He seems to get up on the balls of his feet when the ball is thrown, which means his effort is still kind of pulling him forward, but he's talented for sure."
In watching Stidham and 2014 Texas Tech quarterback signee Patrick Mahomes, they're so much different than guys like Davis Webb as Webb grew up playing quarterback, while players like Mahomes and Stidham picked up playing quarterback relatively late. This probably results in having a few mechanical issues that Whitfield mentions, but overall, you get the idea that this a pretty easy fix.
It seems like that a lot of high end athletes tend to get on their toes. That seems natural in some respect, especially because most of the time you really don't want to be flat foooted, so that makes sense, but this is something that I've never really paid attention to in looking at quarterback tape.
Whitfield also noted that Stidham has a tendency to drop his arm slot a bit, which is something that I think takes lots or repetition to correct, but it's not a huge deal:
"Little bit, but I think his adrenaline gets ahead of the execution. He gets the ball out so fast with his quick delivery that he may not give himself the max opportunity, but once you weigh it all in, those are all things that he can iron out. He'll get those things ironed out."
Pretty minor quibbles overall and we keep talking about how much potential Stidham has in terms of his athletic ability and his ability to maybe fix those minor mechanical issues and have an even bigger arm than he currently exhibits.
Part two of these sets of quotes is from Elite 11 organizer Trent Dilfer.
