What Gunner Kiel Needs To Do To Go From Good To Legendary In 2015

Gunner Kiel was excellent in his first season as a Cincinnati Bearcat. Against Toledo he threw for six touchdowns and account for over 400 offensive yards. Essentially 10 games later, because he battled injuries all along the way, Kiel still threw for over 3,200 yards and more touchdowns than any UC quarterback over the last decade.

By all accounts his first season as Cincinnati’s field general couldn’t have gone better from a performance standpoint. It was relieving knowing that his right arm would be able to carry the Bearcats to victory in any given game. Even while UC’s defense looked like it would struggle to stop a horde of crawling babies let alone even Miami (OH), we as fans knew Cincinnati was never truly out of games with Kiel lining up at quarterback.

But it wasn’t all roses and sunshine. Kiel had a good season, sure, but there were noticeable holes in his game which can hold him back from potentially having a historic 2015 campaign.

The first knock on him, fair or not, is his recent injuries. Kiel’s, for lack of a better phrase, damaged goods right now. But can you really hold that against him? After all, it’s not his fault that Memphis used and abused him in early September to the point that he could never truly recover.

Obviously injuries are flukes in nature and Kiel can’t really do anything about them.

What I’m referring to is his stubbornness to lock in on covered receivers and not checking down to better options. After the Miami (FL) blowout I wrote about a single play that exemplified this glaring weakness in Kiel’s game.

"That’s Gunner Kiel’s problem in a nutshell.He has Chris Moore for at least a 10 yard completion but he over trusts his arm to throw it 5 more yards to Max Morrison, a ball that could have been picked off if the corner jumps the route. Is the risk of an interception really worth an extra 5 yards? I don’t think so. Kiel has a cannon hanging off his right shoulder, no question about it, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense continuously forcing the ball into small windows."

That wasn’t an isolated incident. More than a few times last season Kiel forced passes to receives that never should have been thrown. In that same he threw a touchdown pass to Mekale McKay that miraculously skipped through the hands of a Hurricane defensive back. Against SMU he forced the ball between three Mustang defenders to hit Johnny Holton in the endzone.

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Now, perhaps that speaks to Kiel’s arm strength. It is NFL worthy, that can’t be disputed and is one of the main reasons why he threw for so many yards and touchdowns in 2014. But it got him into trouble against Miami (OH) when he forced two passes to obviously unopen receivers and was picked off both times.

He can’t repeat the same bad habits heading into his junior year but I’m confident he’ll shake them come Alabama A&M in September.

It’s easy to forget that Kiel, while a redshirt sophomore and a former five-star recruit, had only played his first collegiate game against Toledo last year. While he practiced with Cincinnati’s first team offense for several months prior to UC’s home opener against the Rockets, he was three years removed from playing a live football game against a real opponent. Kiel was extremely rusty in breaking down defenses mid-play and checking down to easier mid-range options instead of attempting passes to covered receivers deeper down field. The college game was simply too fast for him and while Kiel did a nice job hiding that due to his otherworldly physical abilities, that shortcoming did bite him the backside last season.

Thankfully, that’s a mental and maturity issue that can easily be remedied this offseason. With actual game film to digest, Kiel can work with quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw without the time commitments of practices and game prep hanging over his head. He can take a deep, methodical look at his game, understand this glaring weakness, and correct it.

If he can make those steps and learn to find the best options at receiver, and there should be a ton of them this season, Kiel should elevate himself to demi-god status in the eyes of Bearcats fans.