Summer Scouting: Mississippi QB Matt Corral

Summer is known for any number of things. Grilling with your friends and neighbors, vacations to the shore, enjoying a cold adult adult beverage on the porch as the sun surrenders to the horizon at the end of the day.

In the football world, it is also prime scouting season for the next draft cycle.

But summer scouting should be approached with the right lens. This is not the time to make definitive statements about players, but rather to identify a solid baseline for the fall season. Where the players perform well, and areas where they can improve. Then in the fall when games kick off in earnest, you can measure their performance against those baselines.

We kick off the summer scouting with a look at Mississippi quarterback Matt Corral. As we will for each of these pieces, we will identify an area where the player performers well, as well as an area of their game that could benefit from some improvement in the fall.

Corral the Manipulator

(Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports)

Corral put up solid numbers last season, throwing for 3,337 yards and 29 touchdowns while completing over 70% of his passes. Of course, Lane Kiffin's offense gives him some easy reads and throws, but it is also training Corral to use his eyes as an effective manipulator. In this video we'll dive into how the Mississippi QB uses his eyes and his field of vision to get defenders out of position, and set the offense up for some huge plays in the passing game: https://youtu.be/FhAQJSIdPL0 When the games kick off in the fall, keep an eye (pun intended) on how well Corral uses his eyes to move defenders and create bigger throwing lanes in the passing game.

Anticipation Throws

(Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports)

Now let's look at an aspect of his game I'll be paying attention to in the fall. Anticipation throws. There are two ways to look at this trait. First, there are the traditional "anticipation throws," where the quarterback gets the ball at or even before the receiver's break, maximizing the separation between the target and the nearest defender. Then there are throws where the QB needs to anticipate the throwing window, to properly attack the coverage and/or execute the route concept. In both areas, Corral has room for growth. In this video we'll dive into this aspect of his game: https://youtu.be/Pc1JXsFMjTo Corral is an enticing prospect as we think about the fall. This is one area of his game that he could truly improve, and round out his entire evaluation.

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