hey what's up everyone Morey Croson here from the performance lab of California we're gonna
do another breakdown here today of Sam Donald the quarterback from USC a lot of guys have
him as the number one quarterback going into this this season or that's projected to be the number
one quarterback going into the the next year's class is only going into a sophomore year so we
don't know exactly if he's gonna leave or not but either way you know really yeah yeah one of the
top quarterbacks I think a lot of what he does is more of his ability to extend the play and
make throws from there but we'll still look at his mechanics here I would say his big thing is going
to be his release I read up on you know his you know what he's been working on things like that
and they said that he's been working with Jordan Palmer on getting a better release to get him
ready for the NFL which i think is great because you can see that right away you know what he's
gonna do his first action is gonna be to drop the ball okay the issue with that is it just overall
makes it so you're gonna have a longer period before you can obviously you know the release
sounds very important the NFL you want to be able to get that release time down as fast you can and
so by dropping the ball you know you're gonna end up having it's gonna take a longer time for
you get actually get the ball out of your hand I think what he does really well is he doesn't let
the bulk get behind his head which is good but I do think it's kind of a overall range of motion
thing that makes it so he wants to drop the ball he doesn't want to make it so he has to put his
arm into too much external rotation and that's why can't he can't throw the ball and I'm gonna
let you go and see the hole throw here too just so you could see kind of the the whole process there
but you could see kinda ends on his back he does he's start standing and he drops his knees down
drops that center of gravity really you know pushes down into the ground and then when he's
throwing the deep ball he really rises up into the throat and he actually ends back so far on to his
heels a lot of these throws he ends up almost you know falling backwards during which I think it's
kind of interesting so I wanted to show you that one I thought that was a cool angle and then also
we got a couple of them here that are I mean this ball is just a freakin beauty and a couple good
angles from its old gonna do this next one here so it's all play-action I'm kind of sitting down
it you can see how low he is you can see that he gets that good push off that back leg transfers
all that weight forward he goes into again he doesn't get all everything going onto that front
leg though he starts to almost push back but like I said he pushes back and he kind of ends back and
you could see that all the weight doesn't get onto his front leg but he does create a lot of force
because his weight does end up going backwards so he's pushing hard off that inside part of the foot
and and he'll which i think is really the most important thing to tell you to get is that you
know you've got to be able to create force off the ground the more times we see this the more
we see different ways that people use their hips different ways people use their arms different
people's different ways people even then in their spine but I do think that you know what we end up
seeing with these these top I'm college and pro quarterbacks is that they are able to really get
a lot of force out of the ground which just means when you're getting rid of the ball you've got
to really be pushing down on that front lay that front leg needs to be really stable okay I don't
think you want to go into a ton of extension on that in that front leg you know he goes into a
little bit there but you do want to make sure that you are creating a lot of force I mean you know if
as long as you're pushing down the front leg if you're you know going into extending in that that
you know a lot of extended in the extension into the knee then you know I think that you can end
up getting away with it but I think the better option is really to push down and go more bent
knee rather than straight knee just because if somebody falls into them right here you can get
some hyperextension so that's I think another thing that you could work on and then I think
overall range of motion and again the shoulder so in order for him to you could see how perfect of
a ball that is huh I just hit him right in the in the shoulder pads right and stride so that
was great you can see it from the other angle see how low he drops the ball and so he's gonna have
to get more range of motion because he's coming through here we could see that that very we see
this common hyperextension going on with the back okay so one the reason why he wants to drop that
ball just you know how his just as responded to throwing is because of a lack of range of motion
so he goes into that hyperextension there and then he tries to really push down the ground and
generate the force from there and he creates a lot of whip I mean he's obviously he's one of the best
quarterbacks in the college football so there's not a ton that you could say is he doesn't do
good he's also very very accurate so you know but I'm just saying some things that you could work on
from an overall biomechanical standpoint would be increase that range of motion in the shoulder make
it so you can better transfer your weight onto that front leg and rotate that hip and bend that
front knee rather than extending the front knee okay and I think those would be some key takeaways
to go away from here I do think what he does really really well is he still is able to create
that that large amount of force into that front leg whether he extends it or not and you could
see know how he kind of has that stiffness in that front leg as he's gonna transfer him forward where
that's where he gets a lot of that that force when he doesn't use as much of his back leg he
just shifts his way out to the front leg goes in and do extending that front leg and lets it whip
out of his arm you could tell he's got a strong trunk kind of spine and shoulder area so he uses
a good amount of arm when he's throwing and so I you know you could go in and really work on that
and help that out but you know that's gonna be you know something that he'll have to do probably
now in the in the offseason and I'm sure he's been working on that so you know I'm looking forward to
see his improvement from one year the next year especially he's been working on his release you
know maybe we'll do a video about what was his big differences from release last year to release this
year if we see a big difference so it's always thanks for watching these videos I wanted to do
a cool one of Sam Donald here just because you know he's starting to get a lot of height going
into the college football season and you know if you want to learn anything more about the throw
you could check out our membership and on our page on our website performance lab of California com
slash members also if you're looking to improve your mechanics as a pitcher as a quarterback send
us an email we do break downs I think we're gonna definitely kick off some cool stuff going in the
offseason but right now we could still do some stuff now that you know even if you want to get
some quick tune ups during the season and then also check out all of our other YouTube videos
we don't only have throw breakdowns you have speed breakdown exercise we want to just make it so you
have as much value as we possibly can so as always thanks for watching and we will see you soon