The Return of Conner Weigman | How He Fits in Klein’s Offense | Texas A&M QB Room Preview

when head coach Mike Elco was asked if he considered courting Riley Leonard from duke when he came to Texas A&M he told us that he was happy with the quarterback situation he has Connor wigman he needs nothing else Connor's back folks he's healthy according to Elco and he will hit the ground running in Fall camp in 2024 we know Connor we know what he brings to the table we saw him take over as a true freshman in 2022 and at worst he showed tremendous promise at best was a good SEC quarterback his freshman year with games versus LSU and ol Miss he's back guys he's healthy and he has a new offensive system to flourish in to show what he has to show that he's healthy and that he is worthy of the draft hype he is already getting going into the year analysts Talking Heads across the country are very high on Connor wigman of course if he's healthy so today I want to break down the quarterback room and of course that conversation will center around Conor wigman the number one signal caller going into the season make no mistakes about it and of course we'll round out the room talk about Henderson and Reed quickly but I really want to focus on Connor today this will be the first of several position group breakdowns I'm going to do going into the 2024 season so make sure you guys like And subscribe so you don't miss a thing and hit the notification Bell so you see when I drop the next video thank you guys for being here let's get into it so let's start with the eye test of Connor wigman what do you see from Connor what are his strengths as a quarterback a passer of the football a head man of the offense I recently went back and watched every game that he's taken at Texas A&M every snap that he's taken and I'm going to tell you a bunch of stuff you already know but for the purposes of this video I'm going to revisit everything just so we get a good feel for Connor going into the Year Connor is a great release quarterback he has a lightning quick release the ball comes from his ear area and it's out of there without a tell without delay it's a zippy quick release now he doesn't have an amazing throwing on arm it's not a Goliath arm but it's absolutely adequate and he makes up for it with his timing his anticipation which are other strengths of his he throws the ball before the receivers are open at times when it's necessary he has great timing great release great feel for the ball great thrower of the football now you combo that with his other great attribute his feel in the pocket he has great pocket presence he feels pressure he detects pressure he can get the ball out before the defender is in his face but even if the defender is in his face he can still throw a catchable ball now that happened too often before under the previous regime in Jimbo's offense with a lackluster offensive line who was coached poorly it wasn't as effective it happened too often but he was still able to do it that should improve this year and we'll get into more of the offensive scheme stuff later in this video Conor wigman also has great footwork in the pocket he keeps his base he's able to chop his feet stay balanced keep his eyes up those those are all great things that he brings to the table we know this it can be even better under Colin Klein's system he's a great improviser of the ball actually I don't know if the word is great he's a solid improviser with the football he's not an elite Scrambler he's likely not going to Warrant a spy but he has a great knack for scrambling for first downs on Third and short and third and medium situations he did it several times in his time at the quarterback of Texas A&M he takes care of the ball he's thrown two interceptions at Texas A&M one of which came from an Smith slip and the defender behind him caught the ball that was that slippery playing condition at the Miami game the other interception also came in that Miami game in a late touchdown effort A desperate effort at the end of the game desperate to score a touchdown on fourth down through an interception aside from that 16 touchdowns to two interception ratio takes care of the ball passing for about 68% completion rate highest qbr in the country when he went down last season he brings all of that back and hopefully with a more effective offense let's talk about how he fits into the new system under Colin Klein so even in Jimbo's sluggish Zone running dropback passing slow read slow developing offense Conor was still effective so anything that Colin Klein can bring to the table is going to basically be icing on the cake it's going to be the cherry on top it's going to make Connor even that much better so there are three main things that I think are going to help Connor in this new system pace of the offense the use of motion and a more Innovative and indepth running game so Pace Colin Klein is not afraid to increase the tempo of an offense when he needs to and I I think overall you're going to see the offense get lined up quicker now don't think Josh hyp 100 miles hour at all time offense don't think that think about an offense that kind of revs the engine as needed it's going to speed up and it's definitely going to get into its alignment quicker so first of all that's going to keep defenses on their heels they're not be able to sit back and read the offense get into their formations change their formations make a bunch of reads at the line that's not going to happen quite as often and as effectively that will happen but they're going to not be in such an advantageous position with Jimbo's slower full substitution every play offense you're going to see things you're going to see the offense move to where the defense can't sub as often get their packages out there adjust as efficiently it's also going to help the offensive line when the defense is on their heels and the Personnel isn't exactly able to match the offense exactly that's all beneficial for the offense but getting lined up and getting in and out of forms is probably going to be the most beneficial thing to a quarterback because it just gives the quarterback a time to read the defense so many times under Jimbo's offense the offense was only getting a line with 15 seconds left on the play coock I I think you're going to see the offense get a line closer to that 2025 second marker give Connor time to read the offense give Conor time to make his calls of the line of scrimmage give the offensive line times to time to read the the look that they're getting with the box that's all going to benefit Connor tremendously so I think just a more efficient offense but specifically the pace of the offense the pace of getting in and out of forms that's going to help Connor a lot kleinon needs a lot more motion than Jimbo and Jimbo did use motion sporadically in his last year with Bobby patrino assisting him but kleinon needs motion a lot so it helps in a lot of ways it can be done to set up RPO options it can be done to get receivers in motion as an RPO threat it can help create leverage in the running games whether it's a tight end moving a receiver moving to block a receiver getting a handoff it can help with all that but the most beneficial thing it will do for Connor is it's going to allow Connor to identify defensive coverages first of all you can tell zoner man typically from a from a from a motion you're going to see a lot more motion a lot more um tells for defensive coverage schemes that's going to help Conor Rita defense it's also going to create stress points on defensive coverages you're going to be able to Leverage The Field you're going to be able to overload sides of the field with the motion that Colin Klein uses in his offense you're going to be able to find more soft spots in zone coverage you're going to be able to get more leverage in man coverage all this stuff is going to help Connor wigman tremendously and in college ball this isn't Pro level DBS you're seeing I mean you're going to see some in the SEC but they're going to be less polished than they will be at the next level you can easily confuse a defense with controlled motion on the offensive side of the ball we're going to see that a lot more in calling Klein's offense that's going to help Conor tremendously and I think we're just going to see a better run game overall Colin Klein's going to run to set up the pass whether that's the quarterback running the running back running or getting receivers in motion running a lot of guys are going to touch the ball and I would wage you're going to see a lot of multi- running back sets given the Personnel strengths of this Texas A&M offense where you have four viable running backs maybe a little bit more shallower in the receiver room you're going to see them lean more on on the on the running backs here especially without a fullback or an HB that Colin used a lot at Kansas State so I would wager you see multiple running threats by way of multiple running back systems uh multiple running back sets also the blocking is going to be very uh uh what's the word Innovative he uses a lot of trap blocks a lot of counter blocks a lot of pulling linemen a lot of power running as opposed to Jimbo's Zone scheme running that stuff's going to help get the run the the defensive box out of position on their heels and less able to pin their ears or just straight up attack the running Lanes that's going to create more gaps but it's also going to create deception because he's going to use that stuff to create deception that stuff's going to create a more unpredictable running game so that's going to help set up play action that's going to help Connor wigman uses Wheels that's going to help the defense stay on their heels and that's all going to help Connor wigman as a passer and while Jimbo used rpos I think kle will lean on them a lot more and I think he'll do them in a lot more creative way with more motion more threats and more leveraging the um the numbers as far as overloading sides of the field you'll see motion into the RPO side motion away from the RPO side you're going to see a lot of different things under this running scheme and RPO scheme it's all going to tremendously help Connor you're also going to see more screens under Colin Klein something that Jimbo did not utilize a lot and that's great for players like moose muhamad any of the running backs Juday a lot of these guys will do well with these screens with the uh o linan out in the field to block downfield a lot of stuff that's just going to help a quarterback out but I think the main benefit will be the pace in which this offense plays getting in and out of plays quicker that's all going to help Connor wigman so so much so where does Conor wigman stack up against the rest of the country at least in his time that he has played before I'm going to put PFF grades on the screen in this grades Conor against the rest of the country you can see 96 percentile in clean pocket grade that's passing with the clean pocket obviously standard dropb grade 97% first and second downgrade 94% no play action grade 97% at or beyond the sixth grade 907 94% that's his efficiency passing in nonscreen non-bubble type plays that's his dropback reading the defense great in that department avoid negative plays 998th percentile which is amazing considering his offensive line before the offensive scheme before that lends itself to his attributes that we mentioned earlier his ability to navigate the pocket and read pressure sack rate 88 percentile not as high as the others on this list but again considering what he was working with before amazing and now let's look at Colin Klein's last couple of quarterbacks at the helm it was Will Howard mainly Avery Johnson did get some looks we're going to look at will Howard's numbers here efficient quarterback play he had an 104 pass rating 91% completion 24-1 touchdown interception ratio and I think we all believe that Connor wigman should be a better passer of the football than will Howard and he'll have better Talent around him at Texas A&M than Kansas State so if he can do that with Will Howard let's see what he can do with Conor wigman it could be really really special and fun but again confidence Health name of the game now let's just take a quick second to talk about Connor wigman's injury proness is Conor wigman injury prone no there is a narrative out there that he is though and this is amongst you know Message Board chatter chatter on Twitter fans talking there's this perception that Conor wigman is injury-prone and it just pisses me off man it's not the real deal it's not it's not based in reality now I do understand the misunderstanding Conor bman got hurt once really bad in 2023 untouch Blitzer made direct contact with Connor wigman broke his foot that happened that was an injury he has to get over that and if you want to say he's injured sure he's coming off of an injury sure but that's the only injury he sustained in his time at Texas A&M and yes he's been hit several times but he's played through everything he's been nicked up with and everybody gets nicked up at quarterback every in in in football it's just how the game is Conor wigman stayed on the field and it only took the flu for him to miss a game in 2022 he was out there the next the next week so no Conor wigman is not an injury-prone player he got hurt once if you want to say he needs to come back from the injury that's fine but to say he's not an injury proof player you're you're taking the issues that have played Texas A&M's quarterback room overall in putting that all on Connor yes A&M's had a ton of quarterback injuries but again Connor's only been injured once so that narrative that that's not based in reality it's a misunderstanding it's an understandable misunderstanding based on the history of the A&M's quarterback room that's not it though Connor's healthy he'll have better offensive line play this year you have to believe that under Colin Klein under Adam Cushing under Tommy Moffett under Mike Elco and we move forward and we play ball let's talk about the rest of the room real quick obviously we've seen Marcel Reed and um Jaylen Henderson in action at this point we've seen Jaylen Jaylen Henderson play a great game especially running the ball versus Mississippi State not the best defense but damn it he did well Marcel Reed against Oklahoma State maybe the best quarterback performance of the year last year this is an experienced quarterback room as much as a backup can be experienced you have full game experienced amongst your two backup quarterbacks and I think we're okay with either one seeing the field if they have to but make no mistake about it guys this is Conor wigman's year for A&M to reach their highest goals in 2024 it's Connor wigman or bust that's it there's no way around it you cannot go out there and expect the same level of play with either one of those quarterbacks as much promise as they have because yes they have experience but they're going to need a ramp up to their college careers to get to that level if they have that in them Connor gives you your best chance in 2024 so so guys tell me what you expect from Connor wigman in 2024 maybe predict his statline is he a 3200 plus yard passer this year does he have the weapons around him to achieve that number are they going to run the ball so much that he doesn't maybe get close to that is it going to be a running first team I I think the sky is the limit for Connor wigman I I think it will be a run first team but I think that just opens the door for Connor to do amazing things on passing scenarios and with play action I think we see the best Connor we've yet to see and as long as he's back from that FL injury the sky's the limit and there's Heisman Contender upside for Conor wigman this year there really is and if you're breaking down A&M's offense maybe not the most high-powered flashy offense with amazing skill position players you have running backs who are promising but still really need to prove themselves Connor wigman gives you that upside he's the sure fired star you have going into this offense him and treyzon are your best two players on offense going into the year so we have that going for us he has to go out there and do it so guys thanks for watching this video I am doing a giveaway if you haven't entered yet I'll tell you how to enter you see this sign right here I had a second one made and I'm giving this one away it's a beautiful maroon version of that sign behind me and to get a chance to win this game to enter into the drawing here's what you need to do you need to be subscribed to this channel you need to follow me on X and you need to share my channel on X it can be this video it can be a previous video it can just be a link to my channel those are the three things you need to do to get an entry if you want additional entries you can tag up to four friends in this video or whatever you retweet on X tag four people that will get you five entries for the drawing to win this sign guys we have a lot more to go through this is the first of many position group breakdowns we'll be doing the running back room next stay tuned for that like And subscribe thanks for watching gigum