We don't know whether Christian Hackenberg will become a four-year quarterback at Penn State just happy to hear his named called at the 2017 NFL Draft or a three-and-done star drafted early enough to walk across the draft stage in 2016. But a month before the Nittany Lions junior embarks on his third season as a starter, opinions on the matter couldn't be louder.
Or more diverse.
He's been called a potential 2016 top-five pick by former Detroit Lions president Matt Millen, who played at Penn State, and NFL Media analyst Charles Davis thinks highly of Hackenberg's draft potential, as well.
When it comes to physical skills, it's no wonder he's drawing attention. At 6-foot-4 and 228 pounds, he has prototypical pro size for the position. He can throw with touch or velocity, and has a delivery and release that shouldn't need much, if any, retooling. In short, he passes the eye test with ease.
Unless, of course, those eyes glance at the stat sheet, where Hackenberg opinions begin to polarize.
He threw all of four touchdown passes in Big Ten play last season. Ohio State's J.T. Barrett, by contrast, threw 21. Hackenberg threw 15 interceptions and completed just 55 percent of his passes, and Pro Football Focus rated him the worst quarterback in the college game. It was a clear regression from his freshman season in 2013, when he threw for nearly 3,000 yards and posted a much more respectable TD-INT ratio of 20-10.
For Hackenberg detractors, he's just another college quarterback with a long way to go in his development. For his defenders, the Nittany Lions' offensive line absorbs much of the blame. Hackenberg took a startling 44 sacks last year, the most of any quarterback in the FBS, accounting for 297 yards in losses.
That's three football fields of backwards.
His offensive line was young, his wide receivers even younger, and a pedestrian rushing attack put Hackenberg in so many third-and-long situations, his pocket was often set up for failure.
Penn State coach James Franklin is quick to defend his quarterback, and downright awful pass protection will no doubt be the primary focus of fall camp in Happy Valley this month. But Hackenberg himself isn't blameless in the sack department. When the Nittany Lions' offensive line did hold up, Hackenberg held the ball far too long at times, showing little sense of when to throw the ball away.
Here is one example. Here is another, an even more egregious refusal to get rid of the ball.
Some quarterbacks hold the ball too long because they are afraid to throw a risky pass, or don't see the field well enough. Former Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, as a freshman, held it a bit too long because he was too determined to find an open man downfield for bigger yardage and was less willing to check down to a dump-off throw. He grew out of that tendency and went on to win two national titles. There is a fine line between a quarterback showing patience in the pocket while waiting for receivers to come open, and showing no sense for the oncoming rush and the value of a throwaway.
Whatever the reason for Hackenberg, it's a correction he must make this season if he hopes to advance his performance and, by extension, his draft status.
But it's the improvement of the players around him -- particularly up front -- that will be necessary for NFL scouts to gain a truer sense of what Hackenberg can do, and perhaps more importantly, what he can't.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread*.
