When Tim Tebow finished up his college career at Florida, he was a heavily scrutinized NFL prospect that wound up being drafted by the Broncos in the first round of the 2010 draft.
Tebow’s production while playing in a Dan Mullen-coordinated offense at Florida couldn’t be denied -- 9,286 passing yards and 2,947 rushing yards -- but there were plenty of doubts about his ability to pass the ball at the professional level. Those doubts didn’t go away as Tebow found ways to win with the Broncos and his career stalled out after a 2012 trade to the Jets.
Mullen is now the coach at Mississippi State, where he coached quarterback Dak Prescott to great success the last two years. Prescott finished his days in Starkville with 9,376 passing yards, 2,521 rushing yards and the same kinds of questions about whether his dual-threat approach can lead to success in the NFL. In order to improve his chances, Prescott worked with Jon Gruden before the Senior Bowl last month.
“Everything really,” Prescott said of his work with Gruden while on Sirius XM NFL Radio with Alex Marvez and Gil Brandt. “Base fronts, what the NFL calls them versus what we called them in college. Going over the terminology of some plays, plays he ran. Before the Senior Bowl, it was all about making sure I had command of the huddle. I hadn’t been in the huddle in a couple of years. He wanted me to get the plays down, make sure I was able to go into the huddle, relay them to my players and give them confidence.”
Prescott, who was named the MVP of the Senior Bowl, isn’t expected to go as high as Tebow went in 2010. As his work with Gruden illustrates, he needs polish before he’s going to be thinking about running an NFL offense but his production makes him an intriguing prospect as the draft evaluation process heats up at the combine.