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TCU quarterback and 2022 Heisman Trophy runner-up Max Duggan has found great success in his football career by being himself, launching deep balls with his arm and running over defenders with his legs. He showed even sharper cannon for a right arm on TCU’s Pro Day on March 30, placing a pitch of his own 20 perfectly into the arms of wide receiver Quentin Johnston near the goal line.
Duggan credited working on changing his throwing mechanic for the first time since he was a Horned Frog because of the crisp, deep passing. He already excelled at going deep before adjusting his throwing motion, leading college football with nine touchdown passes of 50 or more yards in 2022.
“Yes, it helps me reach guys like that, like Q [Quentin Johnston]dd [Derius Davis]Snow [Barber] and all those guys,” Duggan said.” But yes, there are definitely things I think I’ve improved on. There are other things I need to keep improving and there are things I’m changing with my movements and mechanics and footwork and all that stuff. In my eyes you want to be a perfectionist and there are balls I want back. I can’t go back and change it, that’s how it is. Getting over it, improving and trying to get better [is the goal].
“I’m changing a lot whether it’s things with my footwork mechanism I think it needs a little bit. I’ve been doing the same thing for the past four years and before so I think just changing movements in my body will need a little bit, but I think there are definitely areas that have improved.”
Duggan worked with acclaimed quarterback coach Jordan Palmer, himself a former NFL QB for the Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans who has coached Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Sam Darnold, Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow, before taking Duggan under his wing. He has also been hired by the newly revived XFL to be their director of quarterback development. Palmer began working with Duggan in January, marking the first time Duggan had a private quarterback coach outside of his team’s staff. In Palmer’s experience, that’s a rarity for a seasoned college passer like Duggan. He and Palmer met when Duggan was a four-star high school recruit at the Elite 11 showcase.
“Started in January, so we’ve been at it for a few months, about 10 to 12 weeks of actual work,” Palmer said. “He is [Duggan] a great player with a lot of experience and you know, this season has been pretty incredible [TCU went 13-2. and was the national runner-up]. The fact that he had never really fine-tuned things and hadn’t worked with anyone is unique at this point because everyone is working with someone. It was very nice to work with him.”
Despite Duggan not connecting with Palmer until after TCU’s season ended in the College Football Playoff National Championship—a 65-7 loss to the defending champion Georgia Bulldogs—both student and teacher feel they’ve lost in just a few minutes have made significant progress. months.
“I learned a lot and grew a lot,” said Duggan. “I think it’s a big change, whether it’s stuff on the field, or it’s stuff in the classroom [film study], on the mental side of it. You know, of course it can’t be a finished product in two months or three months, whatever it is, so I just keep working on it and improving that way. But a lot has been learned since that game.”
Duggan built a reel of highlights that TCU fans will revisit for decades in 2022, but he and Palmer are working on simplifying some of his moves, both when passing and when taking off to scramble. The goal: that the dual-threat dynamo can continue to make the same explosive moves with fewer steps.
“I think to generalize it, I think it’s just the movement side of the game, the part that very few people engage with in all of football, college and pro,” Palmer said. “So that’s a big focus of what we did, we move and throw and remove inefficiencies from his game and take momentum out of his game. Just have him move and throw the way we call it as a connection move throw. So, it’s new for a lot of guys and with Max because of his athleticism, because of his buy-in, a meaningful change has happened very quickly, and at the same time it’s still early in that process.
What Palmer means when he talks about movement, he’s talking about making the upper and lower body work in symphony in one fluid and compact movement.
“It could just be eliminating unnecessary movements or unnecessary steps,” Palmer explained. “Guys, when they lean to go somewhere and change direction or come out of the bag, the first thing that goes is their upper body. It goes in the direction they want to go. So then they have to take a few steps, just to get going, and then they change direction, and lean into it, so they have to add a few steps to change direction. So we’re trying to take that out of people’s game. Someone who’s athletic like Max, you can make a big difference because if he comes out of a bad situation in the pocket because he’s really efficient, and then able to take the run, he’s a threat on the run.. really explosive athletes, because of all the false steps and because of all their momentum, they limit the chances of getting out of the bag and making a game I’m not a speed coach or anything like that to make guys faster the NFL game is basically played in a five yard circle [the pocket]and how efficiently you can move and manipulate that circle gives you a better chance of high percentage throws.”
The steps Duggan needs to follow to keep moving in the right direction with his passing sophistication are simple, keep working at it. That’s not something Palmer is concerned about with the Horned Frogs quarterback, given his insatiable love of the game.
“Yeah, that’s a big thing, just throwing constantly and getting yourself in a better position to be able to repeat that same throwing motion over and over again,” Palmer said. “It’s an all-encompassing program though. I mean, he also learned a lot of football, he just introduced the NFL stuff. And then just talk a little bit, speak football more fluently, which is true for anyone going through the drafting process because it’s all being college football players.”
“I got a chance to see how intelligent he is from a memory perspective, memorizing things and just finding out what makes sense to him,” Palmer elaborated on Duggan’s mental state. “If you’ve been around him at all, you know he’s all ball. He doesn’t get tired of talking too much about football or anything like that. I think he’s super intelligent, super interested in learning. And I just think everything that’s out there going to happen to him in this next phase of actually coming and going on a team, I think it’s going to happen very soon for him.
Rapid development for a fast player: Duggan ran a 4.52 and 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine, the second-fastest of any quarterback, trailing only Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson’s 4.4 40 time. While Duggan didn’t think his 40 time changed his draft stock too much in terms of a Day 3 pick (round four-seven), Palmer said the feedback he’s been hearing from teams across the league on Duggan has improved tremendously since the combine. .
“He’s an incredible athlete, obviously well tested in Indy to show how athletic he is and how that matches the game tape he’s running around making plays on,” Palmer said. “But he just has the up arrow, because he has the experience [as a four-year starter]. He has athleticism, but there are elements in his game where it’s a little rawer in terms of what he was asked to do. So moving forward, I think just talking to different teams, I think people are very excited about the prospect, the prospect of working with him and getting him into their system.
In particular, the intangible component of Duggan’s profile, his stay with TCU despite not being named the week 1 starter to begin the 2022 season after being the starter for his first three seasons, resonated with the league’s 32 teams . Arguably almost as much as his clutch play during TCU’s College Football Playoff run.
“There’s a lot of interest across the board, I would say, I have a lot of friends who are coaches or scouts or front office guy, and people I’ve known for a long time, and I think there’s a lot of interest because of the athleticism, Palmer said. “Because of the way he carried himself in the big moments, when the lights got bright, he played his best ball. Then the humility of when he didn’t win the job. Many schools called him. He was fed up with chances to leave TCU and be the starter somewhere, and he wanted to stick with his guys, stay there and finish what he started. That’s a pretty cool gesture because it’s a life-changing decision, but I think it says a lot just for his character. and teams have a lot of respect for that. Especially at a time when children have to transition in order to create better opportunities for themselves. So he got chances to transfer to other places and he didn’t even call back. Most children would like to hear the offer.’
It became clear on his pro day that some of the NFL teams that have shown interest in Duggan are the Los Angeles Chargers, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys. Chargers quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier attended TCU’s Pro Day and took Duggan aside for a chat after his pitching session. All three of these teams have formed starters with Justin Herbert from the Chargers, the Jets expected to acquire Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott from the Cowboys. Palmer and Duggan have discussed the idea of him entering the league as a No. 2 quarterback, but Palmer is confident that Duggan will be able to fill that role well in Year 1.
“Each year there are only about two or three, maybe four guys who are a real backup quarterback as a rookie, not including the guys who are drafted high and sitting,” Palmer said. “I think you have to be able to do these three things: you have to be mobile enough to get out of a difficult situation. You have to be confident enough when the lights are not too bright, and then you have to be able to understand what we are trying to do offensively and seeing the field. So I think if he’s thrown into a bad situation as a rookie, tough game, tough situation, I think it’s just fine.”
As for Duggan, he said he just wants “a chance to compete.” That opportunity may come with the Cowboys, whose home of AT&T Stadium is about 25 minutes down the road from TCU. Dallas owner Jerry Jones gushed about Duggan’s performance during February’s Senior Bowl practices.
“He just looked comfortable,” Jones said via Yahoo Sports. “He looked confident and he really threw the ball around. He was definitely the most impressive quarterback in my mind.”
For Duggan, staying in TCU’s backyard would also be “special.”
“It would be incredible to go there and learn under Roof [Prescott] about how to be a pro and how to be the quarterback he is at that level,” Duggan said. “To play for that organization would make that franchise special.”
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