What to expect from incumbent QB Alex Hornibrook for the 2017 Wisconsin Football season
Redshirt sophomore Alex Hornibrook enters the Wisconsin Football season as the seasoned veteran at the position. The three other quarterbacks on the roster are all freshman.
Last season Hornibrook started nine games and played in 12 total, sharing the job with redshirt senior Bart Houston. With Houston gone, and inexperience behidn him, its Hornibrook’s job barring some significant injury or disastrous play on the field forces the Wisconsin Football coaches to make a change.
Hornibrook has ideal size for playing QB standing at 6’4″ and 215 pounds. But there is quite a bit more to playing QB for Wisconsin Football than physical stature. Based on his 2016, what do the Badgers need to see from Hornibrook this fall?
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Wisconsin is so run heavy Hornibrook is not going to be throwing the ball that often. In fact, he only attempted 181 passes in 2016. To count for statistical purposes, the Big Ten requires QBs to have 15 attempts per game, so Hornibrook just missed qualifying for the conference numbers.
Of the pass efficiency stats for qualifying Big Ten QBs, Peyton Hillis of Maryland had the fewest total attempts at 191. In 11 games and with 10 more attempts, Hilis threw for just over 202 more yards than Hornibrook.
Of note, Houston split the QB job with Hornibrook and Houston attempted an additional 141 passes. All told Wisconsin QBs threw 323 passes for 2,507 yards. Assuming he’s in good health, Hornibrook should have 300+ pass attempts to himself this fall.
Hornibrook’s 58.6 percent completion percentage would have ranked him as tied for 5th with Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson. Three more completions for Hornibrook would have moved him to over 60 percent completion on the season, a figure only three other Big Ten QBs reached in 2016.
As I’ve written before, I want to see him step into his throws and drive the football down the field. Whether that’s a mechanical fix or simply arm strength, he has to be able to throw with more venom to fit passes into tighter windows. This is especially important in the red zone where the field shrinks and 11 defenders are compressed.
Hopefully a more compact powerful delivery will also help him avoid taking extra hits in the pocket. He isn’t the most elusive QB as shown by his 23 rushing attempts for 11 yards last fall. Wisconsin does not have a redshirt senior to lean on in case Hornibrook gets hurt this year.
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The Badgers are going to prefer to run in the red zone as evidenced by the team only throwing for 11 TDs and rushing for 26 red zone TDs in 2016. But Hornibrook does have some weapons in the pass game including Jazz Peavy and Troy Fumagalli. Wisconsin doesn’t need to be one-dimensional or predictable for opposing defenses. Hornibrook’s maturation as a passer will be key to adding some diversity and complexity to the Wisconsin offense.