What are the Miami Hurricanes getting with the addition of Albany transfer quarterback Reese Poffenbarger?
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00:00 Reese Poffenbarger announced his commitment to the University of Miami.
00:04 Now, I don't want anyone to overreact or underreact to this addition, right? I don't want
00:12 you to overreact because Reese Poffenbarger coming in, whatever playing time he gets next year and
00:18 the year after that, he's got to earn it, right? He's not coming in to be the surefire starter.
00:23 He's not being handed the starting job. He's coming in to compete. Coming in from an FCS
00:28 program, you bet your butt he's going to embrace that competition and he's going to have a chip on
00:33 his shoulder because he knows what certain fan bases and rival fan bases will be saying about
00:38 him that, "Who is this guy? Who's Reese Poffenbarger?" He knows he's got to come in and prove
00:44 himself. And I also, you guys remember a couple of weeks ago when the report came out that Jakari
00:50 Brown, well, less than a week ago when the report came out that Jakari Brown would not be entering
00:57 the transfer portal and he's going to stick with Miami, he talked about wanting to compete for
01:02 playing time. So, Jakari knows he's going to have to compete with Emory Williams, who knows he's
01:06 going to have to compete with Jakari and Reese Poffenbarger and Judd Anderson who's coming in.
01:11 So, I don't want anyone to overreact to say, "Well, Miami missed out on Cam Ward, but now
01:16 they're bringing in Reese Poffenbarger to be the starter." He's going to have to try and earn that
01:20 on the field. I also don't want people to underreact and just make a lazy argument that
01:27 "Oh, now Miami's getting guys from Albany? Who is this kid? He's terrible. How come he wasn't
01:34 recruited out of high school by any serious programs?" Trust me, take some time, study Reese
01:41 Poffenbarger, watch his tape, read about the young man. There's a lot of potential there.
01:46 I appreciate this comment from BJC. Thank you so much. He says, "We keep saying we need someone
01:51 with experience. How does Jakari get it if we don't play him like a college grad looking for a
01:57 job but need experience?" Here's the thing. Again, Jakari Brown is going to be competing with
02:05 Poffenbarger, competing with everyone else. So, these guys are all trying to develop.
02:09 Another reason why you add a guy like Reese Poffenbarger is, and we're going to talk about
02:15 whether or not Miami is still trying to add another quarterback in the portal, but for argument's
02:20 sake, let's say they don't. You've now got four scholarship quarterbacks to go through spring
02:26 football to take you into fall camp. Most serious college football programs have at least four
02:33 scholarship quarterbacks. Had Miami not added Poffenbarger, if you were talking about maybe
02:37 having just three guys in the spring, and we're not positive that Emory Williams would be completely
02:43 healthy come spring football. I know Mario Cristobal said like two days after his injury
02:48 that we expect him to be healthy for spring. I don't know if anyone can say that for sure
02:52 after he's broke his arm in that Florida State game. So, you're talking about two to three
02:56 scholarship quarterbacks for spring. That's like a bare minimum. So, adding somebody is really,
03:01 really important. Let's talk about Reese Poffenbarger. FCS All-American this past year
03:08 was FCS Rookie of the Year his first year at Albany, which was 2022. This past season for
03:14 the Great Danes, they got to the FCS semifinals in that tournament. This season he threw for 3,614
03:21 yards, 36 touchdown passes to 13 interceptions. So, he did throw double-digit INTs, but he led
03:27 the FCS in passing yards and in touchdown passes. In two years in Albany, he combined for 60 touchdown
03:34 passes with 17 interceptions. He's a career 60% passer so far. You'd obviously love some
03:41 development, continued improvement with the accuracy. But honestly, folks, if you actually
03:45 look at the charts of where he throws the football, you can kind of understand why Poffenbarger is a
03:51 60%-er because he takes a ton of deep shots. And actually, from a deep ball standpoint,
03:56 completes a very high percentage of those deep shots, but that does hurt the overall average.
04:01 One of the reasons why he's a 60% career passer and not, say, a 70%-er because he is the opposite
04:07 of a dinker and dunker. He's a gunslinger. He comes in a little bit on the shorter side at 6
04:12 feet tall, 205 pounds. The 24/7 Sports Transfer Rankings Council gives him a three-star grade
04:21 as a transfer, an 86 score. He also, something that I like about Poffenbarger, this is very
04:27 evident when you watch him on tape, in addition to the fact that he's very aggressive, throws a lot
04:31 of deep balls, he is very mobile. He scrambles well. He runs pretty well. He scored five rushing
04:37 touchdowns this past year. He extends plays. That's something really, really important.
04:41 He's pretty comfortable maneuvering inside and out of the pocket, and he throws very well on the run.