“First of all, Taysom is really sound in a lot of things. We get some quarterbacks who come to us who have a major flaw that hinders what they do in throwing the football. That isn’t the case with Taysom." – Former BYU and current CFL QB John Beck
Tweaking a throw. There’s a science to it.
It was a brief, informal and kind of favor to Taysom Hill when John Beck, a fellow member of the BYU quarterback club, shared a few pointers gleaned from one of the fastest growing throwing experts in sports.
Can these abbreviated summer sessions spread over three days in Provo and St. George help Hill become a better passer? Nobody knows. What it does say is the BYU senior is serious in his quest to develop his entire game.
From his sophomore to junior seasons, Hill’s pass completion percentage improved from 53.9 to 66.7 percent. He has a track record for “working on it.”
Beck, a second-round NFL pick by Miami after his BYU career, is currently playing in the Canadian Football League. He has always been a gym rat. He’s studied every nuance of the game over the course of his young life. This included migration to former Major League pitcher and pitching coach Tom House, who has now branched out into helping quarterbacks. A few years ago House asked Beck, who lives in San Diego, to join him in his coaching business in Southern California during the offseason.
House has become an expert in the throwing motion and its unique dynamics and one of his most famous clients is Tom Brady. House told Sirius XM NFL Radio back in June 2014: “We probably have about half the NFL quarterbacks that are out there are at least making inquiries on some phase of their mechanics or functional strength.”
This past summer, Beck and Hill aligned their schedules to discuss some of the science that House has perfected into an applied knowledge base.
Beck set up a throwing camp in St. George this summer and House was there. Beck invited Hill to come and he did. Beck and Hill met again in Provo for a thumbnail session a month later and “texted each other like crazy” afterward to try and meet again.
“First of all, Taysom is really sound in a lot of things,” said Beck. “We get some quarterbacks who come to us who have a major flaw that hinders what they do in throwing the football. That isn’t the case with Taysom. We didn’t even get into a lot of the mechanics with Taysom, things we would call bio-mechanical insufficiencies, he had none of that.”
Beck said the hardest thing for Hill is what is asked of him. He’s playing in an offense that has asked him to be a downhill runner. But the body required to do that is almost the opposite of what is required to be a great thrower. “Yet, they are asking him to throw the ball accurately and efficiently. So, the challenge was to find a balance, what can we do on the throwing side that doesn’t take away from the running side of his game. We discussed how he can’t go completely to the throwing side of things because that would invite injury.”
Beck, who described Hill as a unique, high-level hybrid quarterback, said he and House taught Hill things his body will show him that can create limitations.
“Because Taysom has such a muscular build, it gives him some challenges. It’s pretty amazing with the build he has that he’s just as good of a thrower that he is.”
Beck wishes he had more time with Hill before their seasons got busy.
But it wasn’t like Hill needed an overhaul, not at all.
“With the limited time we had we tried to show him some things he could do from a strength and conditioning standpoint with his rotation because he is so strong in his hips, there still needs to be a mobility factor in his range of motion.”
Beck said the science of what they discussed were minor tweaks, things that would help him produce the maximum rotation, things to do with “scapular and subscapular” strength and mobility. In a golf analogy, it would be taking a guy’s swing and finding a way to give it more torque.
“We train throwers,” said Beck. “But we’ve never had a thrower who is built like Taysom. We didn’t want to pull away from what he’s really good at — running with power and strength and the muscular build to protect his body.”
Hill’s most accurate passing games in his brief 2015 season came against UConn (77.8 completion rate) and Utah State (72.7), his last on-field performance.
If the small tweaks lead to Hill operating in the 70s all season, that could be considered a home run.
If he can pull it off, we'll know Hill is a good science student.
Dick Harmon, Deseret News sports columnist, can be found on Twitter as Harmonwrites and can be contacted at dharmon@desnews.com.