Breaking Down Taylor Cornelius’ Second Start, Reads and Throws for the Cowboys

“He was a lot better tonight.”

This was Mike Gundy’s quote on Taylor Cornelius after Saturday night’s 55 – 13 victory over the South Alabama Jaguars. I was at the game, and when I left, I thought TC might have played slightly better, but it was still an average overall performance by the Cowboy quarterback. However, I always have to take my in-person analysis with a grain of salt because there’s at least two or three people behind me yelling “that was horrible,” after every pass attempt and I think it messes with my head a little by the fourth quarter.

Last night, I went back and re-watched the game and all 40 of his pass attempts against the Jaguar defense. After going through the film, I think I have to agree with Gundy … Cornelius was a lot better and looked a lot more confident on Saturday than he did against Missouri State. In addition, it seems like, after Dru Brown and Spencer Sanders didn’t see the field for a second straight game, that Cornelius is the guy going forward and it also seems like the leash isn’t as short as some people originally thought.

With all of that said, I wanted to go over the positive takeaways from Corn Dog’s performance this past weekend and then discuss some of the negatives that continue to plague the fifth-year senior.

Positive Takeaways

Decision Making

One of my negative takeaways from last week’s breakdown was Cornelius’ overall decision-making and timidness in the season opener. I thought he made a great deal of progress in this category against USA. At times against MSU it looked as though TC was having trouble reading the defense pre-snap and was not able to identify the mismatch. Well this week, I thought he did a much better job on his pre-snap and post-snap reads.

In this first clip, Cornelius recognizes that there is no defender lined up over the slot receiver Landon Wolf. It’s an RPO, but he knows where he’s going with the ball before the snap after assessing the defense.

He pulls the ball back from Chuba Hubbard and hits Wolf in stride on the swing pass to the bottom of the screen. Tyron Johnson is able to slow down the corner with a block and Wolf speeds up field for the first down and a little more.

In addition, the Cowboys were playing with tempo here, and one of the primary reasons for playing fast is to confuse the defense and catch them off guard. If Cornelius doesn’t make this read, it pretty much defeats the purpose of tempo because he hasn’t identified the mismatch.

The next video shows TC changing the play at the line of scrimmage. He realizes Tyron Johnson has one-on-one press man coverage with no linebacker or safety shifted to his side.

He gets Johnson the ball on the curl route, maybe slightly late on the throw, but still gives his receiver enough time to make a move before the defender can close in.

Something Cornelius might have gotten a little too comfortable with against MSU was the check down. However, I thought he did a much better job of reading his coverage and going to the outlet only when necessary against USA.

In this video, you see him survey the field, realize there’s a pass rusher closing in on him taking away his ability to scramble, so he makes the throw to his check down Dillon Stoner. Great decision making here not to force the ball downfield. Mason Rudolph had a tendency to force feed his receivers and didn’t often hit the check down. It’s great to gain the big yardage downfield, but sometimes you have to take what you can get from the outlet.

The last thing I want to cover in this section is Cornelius’ ability to recognize when he had soft coverage on the outside and hit his receivers on the curl route.

This is obviously a throw he’s very comfortable making as he also looked good throwing it against Missouri State as well, and he didn’t often miss this route on Saturday.

The Fade

Kyle Porter brought this up in his 10 Thoughts but Cornelius really likes throwing the fade route. It may have been a little overkill this past weekend, but he made some really solid throws on this route.

On the touchdown to Tylan, it’s pretty much perfect all around. Wallace does a great job of driving into the defender, as opposed to breaking outside right away and possibly get jammed to the sideline, and Cornelius puts the ball in a perfect spot about four yards from the sideline while the defender’s head is turned.

The throw wasn’t a bullet and he didn’t let it sail on him either.

Again, we see him make another solid throw to Wallace. He times the throw perfectly to Wallace’s back shoulder as the defender flies by, leaving Wallace wide open. If he throws it any later, the safety has time to come over and make a play. This one floated on him, but the timing was there and he gave his man an opportunity to make the catch.

Now, this throw to Tyron is a perfect back-shoulder fade route throw. Coaches teach their quarterback to only make this throw if the defender’s head is turned, and to place the ball right at the back of the defender’s head, a couple of yards off the sideline. Cornelius does just that and his receiver is able to make the play.

Next, this wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but Cornelius’ throw gave Wallace a chance to come down with the football, and when you’ve got talent like that at receiver… it works.

Throwing on the Run

After two games, one thing is for certain… Cornelius is extremely comfortable throwing on the run. He made some absolutely beautiful throws on designed roll-outs as well as scrambling out of the pocket once he felt pressure.

In the first clip we see the designed roll-out, he probably could’ve led Tyron a little more on this throw, but he got it to him quickly and the throw still allowed TJ to turn and get up field before a defender could slow him down.

Just a side note on this clip, Jelani Woods might have 4.4 speed!!

Here’s another designed roll-out to Johnson. This time the throw is perfect and Johnson can continue his stride while making the catch and dart up the field.

Here we see Cornelius flushed out of the pocket. He’s patient and waits until one of his receivers finds a hole in the USA zone coverage. He sees Stoner pop open and makes a nice pass to the Cowboy wideout to move the chains.

For the last clip in this section, I’ll show another example of TC keeping the play alive with his feet and making a nice throw to his receiver. This is great pocket presence and awareness here, he gets outside and throws the ball to where only his guy can make a play.

Outside of these three sections, there were some more great throws from Cornelius. Below you see him stand tall in the pocket, go through his reads and deliver a strike in a tight window.

Additionally, he again showed he’s capable of making plays with his feet, and I honestly would like to see more of this going forward. TC being a threat to run opens up so much, especially when teams are going to load the box against Oklahoma State as South Alabama did.

Negative Takeaways

As far as the negatives go, you can see from his stat line he had 15 incompletions and 2 interceptions. He still missed too many throws, some which could’ve resulted in six, and he still didn’t look great throwing it deep over the middle.

In addition, he still showed a tendency to float and aim the ball at times, as we saw on his second interception, and this is something which needs to get corrected quickly.

Overall, I thought Cornelius had a pretty good second outing. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but the guy threw for over 400 yards and as you can see from the clips above, he made some really solid throws on Saturday.

His hard count is also an added bonus as he drew the Jaguars offsides a few times. If he can become more of a threat to run in the zone-read, and maybe even zone-read option, this will really open things up for the Cowboys on offense.

I’m intrigued by Dru Brown and Spencer Sanders as much as the next person, and I understand the lack of talent in the defenses Cornelius has faced, but he’s definitely going to be the starter next week against Boise State, and I think he’s earned it after his performance this past weekend.