Mailbag question: Regarding Gardner's Throwing Mechanics

Hey,

I have been reading a lot about how Devin Gardner throwing mechanics are not that great. After watching film on this kid, I just do not see what the problem with his mechanics is. I am a firm believer in the saying "if it isn't broke, then don't try to fix it".

Watching him throw kind of reminds me of Sam Bradford from Oklahoma and Vince Young when he was at Texas. They all have a quick release and they all rather throw a side winding type pass. Maybe I am watching different film from these other bloggers, or maybe it's something I can't see from the untrained eye.

Anyways what to you think about his throwing mechanics, and how long do you think it will take him to correct his mechanics if you think his is that bad.

Thanks,

Anthony

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Thanks for the question.

First off, we think Gardner is excellent prospect and are very happy Michigan got him.

There are some things we would like to see Gardner improve on. We think his arm is a bit low and because of this, he releases the ball a bit lower than we like. There are times he is almost side arm.

With his height, he can get away with this in high school. We are not sure about it at the college level.

There are times he aims and almost shoves or pushes the ball instead of zipping from his ear. We would also like to see him set his feet more when throwing out of pocket.

We do not want to knock his high school coaches or any other high school coaches here, but sometimes at that level, the coaching is not that great. At the collegiate level, he will have a quarterback coach. His fundamentals will be stressed, his mechanics will be altered drastically, and he will get much better.

We're sure his coaches have tried to work with his mechanics, but at the high school level they just don't have the time or maybe the expertise, and sometimes the more talented athletes revert to their old ways, so they may just let him go because he is good enough to get the job done.

We've seen this before in Ann Arbor. Scott Loeffler had a hell of a problem with Chad Henne. They would work on things and then in the game he would go back to his old ways, and that was complicated by his family and high school coach jumping in and telling him to "just do it your way -- it got you here the way we taught you". There was a real struggle there in Chad's early days. It will depend on how coachable Gardner will be at Michigan.

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Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine