Rickie Collins 6’3” 190

Build: broad shoulders indicates some room to fill out. Short torso gives way to long, spindly legs. Muscle definition is present but overall is slender, especially in the extremities. I am seeing Ryan Perriloux without the home cooking.

Strengths: first thing that jumps out is that he can really spin it. The ball flies out of his hands from an over the top delivery. On tape, I have seen him hit every throw a college QB is expected to make.

Secondly, his athleticism really stands out. A 3 sport athlete at Woodlawn, I have reviewed clips of him doing dunk contest-esqe dunks, as well as hitting a HR in baseball. On the football field, He’s a long strider with some shake to him. You do not see him open the throttle much. All of his highlights paint him more of a pocket passer, but there are clips where you can see he could be utilized in the run game too.

Weaknesses: Rickie’s release comes with a windup, where he kind of circles the ball around to fire. Looking at some raw Rivals 11 footage, his balls tend to come out high because of it. He’s not Tim Tebow, but some coaches may find issue with it. Other new-wave thinkers “let athletes be athletes”. Ryan Pereiloux also did this.

Rickie to me lacks urgency in pocket at times, his feet settle & he becomes too reliant on his arm strength, at points throwing at weird angles & across his body. Collins is a confusing study because he has mannerisms that look like he may be over-coached. You want to see a little more instinctual QB play. He can get a little robotical & mechanical, then in the next clip, things are out of whack with his feet & arm.

Summary: All in all, his athleticism & arm talent are a great building block for exactly what lsu needs this cycle, a developmental guy. The coaches will have a year or 2 to tweak the finer points of his mechanics, and to see where he is mentally.

Collins wont be your ‘draw it in the dirt’ Steve McNair or Russell Wilson type QB that are really coming into favor again, He is more systemic & will need to be coached, placed into a system, & told what to do. This is Mike Denbrock’s Desmond Ridder, and Coach Kelly’s Deshone Kizer.