Creating Accuracy by Being “In Phase”

I’ve heard many college coaches wonder aloud if accuracy was a teachable skill for their quarterbacks. Generally speaking, their conclusion was that accuracy was not something they could reasonably improve. If a player was an inaccurate passer, they saw that as a static fact. They either felt that he wasn’t coordinated enough, or wasn’t consistent enough, or some other global skill was missing. In my experience, I vehemently disagree.

In one of my stops as a college coordinator, I had that same conversation with the head coach. We had one quarterback who was very talented, but lacked consistent accuracy. The head coach thought he was going to struggle with accuracy for his entire career, and that it was likely he’d be a backup throughout. I had a working theory that his accuracy was tied to his footwork. Most QB coaches would say the same thing, that good feet make a passer more accurate, but I wanted to make the information more specific and tangible, so I did a study during our Spring ball practices. What I did was apply a grade to every spring practice throw. I would grade whether or not the throw was accurate (regardless of whether the read was correct or the ball was completed) and whether or not the quarterback was in-phase (in-phase meaning his feet, hips and shoulder all aligned down the target line and parallel to each other).

I graded all six of our quarterbacks through the entire Spring. The results were extremely strong - when a quarterback had his feet and body in phase, he was accurate about 85% of the time, and that number was fairly consistent across all six quarterbacks. When the quarterback did not have his feet and body in phase, he was accurate less than 20% of the time, and again, that number was consistent across all six quarterbacks. The only difference between the players was the percentage of the time that they were actually in phase. Our starter, who at the time was already very accurate, was in-phase most of the time, therefore his accuracy was nearly 85%. The other example, our talented quarterback who lacked accuracy, was hardly ever in phase, so his overall accuracy grade was well below 50%.

The conclusion was that being in-phase was directly correlated with accuracy, and if a quarterback could learn to settle his feet and create some structure in how he maneuvered his feet through his progression, he’d develop the foundation needed to be accurate. In a small sample size, this turned out to be true. The starter had one more year left, and had a great year, winning conference player of the year, largely due to his accuracy down the field. For the better part of 18 months, the other quarterback (talented but inaccurate) was taught to get in phase to each part of his progression. The following season, the previous starter had graduated, and we had two quarterbacks competing to be the new starter - the quarterback who had revamped his footwork ended up winning the job one week into the season, and never looked back, serving as the starter for two seasons and setting school records in the process. His footwork corrected, he became a very accurate passer, but even beyond that, his attention to his footwork also helped him structure his mind and system of progressions.

So, when it comes to teaching mechanics and accuracy, make sure you focus on getting the feet and body in phase with the target. And, when it’s time to add footwork and pocket fundamentals, you should ideally work to get in phase there as well. All the off-platform, off-schedule stuff is great and fun and worthy of the highlight reel, but consistent accuracy starts with a consistent platform. Only play off-platform when you have to.

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