Elite 11 Makes it Clear: Nobody Can Agree on QB Evaluations

The Elite 11 brought together the nation’s Top 20 quarterbacks for a three-day competition in California. Big Blue Nation kept a keen eye on the activity as future Wildcat Jake Nawrot slung the pigskin around the yard.

At the conclusion of the event, Nawrot was named to the Elite 11 team as one of the top performers at the event. The MVP will not be named until Nike hosts The Opening camp in late June. That didn’t stop outlets from curating their own rankings.

Each day, various outlets published lists of the top performers. Rivals’ Charles Power ranked Nawrot as the No. 3 player after day one. 247’s Andrew Ivins gave the Kentucky QB commit a C grade. Brooks Austin, a film junkie who appears regularly on The Paul Finebaum Show, never considered Nawrot among the top 11 players at the camp.

So what gives? How can three different scouts watch the exact same competition and all three come up with wildly different grades?

That’s the quarterback position, baby. You see these varying opinions come up often in the NFL Draft process. It’s evident at every level of football. Someone once said that evaluating quarterbacks is like astrology for men, and that is once again abundantly clear.

There is no exact science in quarterback evaluations. The Indianapolis Colts paid people a lot of money to invest in Anthony Richardson, and within two years, he subbed himself out of a game because he was tired. People get it wrong all of the time.

The Elite 11 provided more than enough ammunition to get fired up about what Jake Nawrot could be bringing to Kentucky. Rivals said he had the best footwork of any quarterback at the camp. 247 joined Rivals and put him in the top seven of their rankings.

It also served as a reminder for Kentucky football fans. This is just one piece of the puzzle. The film tells a much larger part of the story.

There’s also one other thing to remember: Kentucky has a head football coach and an offensive coordinator who know how to coach the position and exactly what they want from a quarterback. They’ve sent quarterbacks to the Heisman Trophy ceremony after putting up huge numbers on Saturdays. The only quarterback rankings that matter are Will Stein and Joe Sloan‘s. Kentucky had its choice among the best of the best in this recruiting cycle, and Nawrot was their guy. That should tell you all you need to know.