Scout.com’s Jake Worthen on the future of Husky Quarterbacks

I was able to sit down to chat with Jake Worthen, Northwest recruiting analyst for Fox Sports Next/Scout.com about the recruiting and the future of the Husky football program. Here are some of his comments on the future of the quarterback position.

Can you give me your analysis of Husky QB commit Jeff Lindquist? 

I think Jeff is a great player. He is an athletically under rated player. I think that because he can make all the throws, people under-estimate how good of an athlete he is. He is a big player, a strong kid, and he rushed for over 1000 yards in his sophomore year I believe. He can run the ball really well and can take hits, but he is a very good thrower as well. The thing I like best about him would be the touch on his throws, he throws a very catchable ball. He knows when he needs to put his full arm behind it and he knows when he needs to take something off. He didn’t have the best offensive lines at Mercer Island, so a lot of the times he was scrambling, and he did a good job of keeping his eyes down-field while rolling out and running away from pressure and still finding open receivers and making something out of nothing.

Is there a current college Quarterback you would compare him too?

In some senses it’s going to sound like a lofty comparison, but I would probably say Andrew Luck. I don’t say that in the sense that I expect him to accomplish all the things Andrew Luck has accomplished. However, Andrew Luck is a player that does everything well and teams might overlook his athleticism. I think Luck might have had a 63 yard run against Washington a few years ago. It’s things like that where people don’t see Lindquist as an athlete but he has the arm, he has the athletic ability, and great mental makeup. Jeff is a smart kid; he one of the most well spoken kids I have covered. He’s a great kid and I think that Coach Sarkisian and Nussmeier will be extremely happy to get him in the film room where they can teach him. I think that how coachable he is will be a big thing for the coaching staff.

Can you talk about Husky recruit Cyler Miles as well?

Cyler is a bit of a different case. Coming out of high school, Cyler is, in some ways, a better Keith Price. Coming out of high school he is very athletic, but his question marks are his arm and his accuracy, and that’s what surrounded Keith when Washington first got him. We knew Price could move around and play high school quarterback, but we didn’t know if Keith could throw. Miles may have a longer development track than Lindquist does, but both of their potentials are extremely high, and I think that Washington is looking very secure at the quarterback position with both of those guys coming in and being able to red-shirt behind Keith Price next year and then battle against each other down the road. Miles needs to get his arm, his throwing, and his accuracy down. He’s a better athlete than Keith Price, so Miles has a very high ceiling.

Can you talk about Max Browne, the highly recruited quarterback who is currently in his junior year of high school?

Max is a kid that Washington fans are already looking at. He has been at Skyline High school and has thrown for over 4,000 yards for each of the past two years and led Skyline to the state championship this year and went the state championship last year but lost. He is a kid that a lot of people had questions about. He had Kasen Williams on his team last year, and a lot of people wondered how good he would be when he lost a division 1 player, and he was even more impressive this season. Max has a chance to be the top QB in the entire west next year and one of the top 5 or 10 in the country. He has offers from all over; from Clemson and from Cal already. I think that Max will be the big guy in state. Washington is going to have a little bit of a challenge because he has mentioned that he wants to go somewhere that he will have an opportunity  to play. Not that he’s avoiding competition, but he’s looking at the depth chart and bringing in two 4 star quarterbacks this year could have hurt Washington a little bit. I think that the home factor and what Sarkisian and Nussmeier have done for quarterbacks and preparing them for the NFL will be a big factor. Max will be a heavily recruited guy next year. He would like to commit before his senior season, so if Washington is going to get him it will be sometime before this coming summer. Browne is a guy to keep an eye on and definitely the number 1 prospect in the state of Washington next year. 

Sophomore BYU QB and Washington native Jake Heaps has announced his intention to transfer out of BYU. This is a guy that you spoke of very highly in his high school days, what do you believe the chances are of his transferring to the Washington? What kind of an impact do you think he would have on the program if he came here?

I think the chances of him heading back to the Udub are slim. I think he is looking to go somewhere where he can play right away. The situation at Washington just isn’t very beneficial with Price having two more years, and at that point he would still be competing with red-shirt sophomores in Lindquist and Miles. I think there are some schools that would be a better situation as far as a lack of depth at the position. I think that if he were to come to Washington or wherever he ends up, he has the talent. He was scout.com’s number 1 QB coming out that year. While most people look at him and would probably say that he has been disappointing thus far, he still has two years to play and there are a lot of guys that don’t hit their stride until that point. The situation with the coaching staff at BYU and the pressure from the community just got to be too much for him. Hopefully if he just got himself into a new situation and get his legs back under him, he has the ability to put up some big numbers somewhere. I see Cal as a very likely landing spot for Heaps; that’s my guess right now.

Who do you expect to fill the hole left by Keith Price when he either is drafted or graduates?

I would expect one of the two quarterbacks coming in this recruiting class to be the guy who takes over. I think Montana is a solid quarterback but at that point, assuming Price stays the two years he has left, Montana would be a senior and those guys would be redshirt sophomores. I think the possibility of bringing a guy in and giving him experience outweighs the one year senior quarterback. I would anticipate that Lindquist would be the guy taking over at that point.