he is tall, so his release point isnt a huge issue for me. he does push the ball, but being 6'6, having a lower release point shouldnt be a problem except for taking away that advantage of being a tall QB. what is an issue is that he never gets on top of his throws; meaning, throughout his entire motion, his hand is always underneath the ball. that limits the power he can get on the ball as he doesnt get all his arm power into it. an advantage is that it gives him a quicker release than normal for having long arms, but that isnt worth the trade-off. it not only could create future arm problems, but it also tends to have a ball takeoff or float high. of course, you wont see that in a highlight video. a good view of him never getting on top of the ball is at the 2:54 mark in his HUDL video. the down marker says 2nd down in the background.
because he doesnt get on top of the ball at all during his motion, he does a good job of keeping the ball above his elbow line. it appears that he has been coached to get the ball into the L position, but in doing so, he neglects other important parts of mechanics. perhaps, he may have been overcoached or he overcoached himself on focusing on that L position. if you watch his HUDL video, you will notice two big things: 1) his hand is never on top of the ball. from the beginning of his motion until he releases it, his palm is always underneath the ball 2) he has no ball rotation. throughout his entire motion, the front of the ball if facing forward and the back of the ball is facing backwards. that's fine at the release point, but you cant get any shoulder rotation/as much velocity into your throw by doing that. there is absolutely no shoulder rotation in that throw.
now, there are different schools of coaching in this situation. if you think a kid has enough arm strength already and arent as concerned about throwing mechanics/arm injuries down the line, you dont touch him. why mess with something good, right? that is even more true if you only have a year or two to work with him (you started coaching him late into his college career, he is a transfer, etc.). why mess with a good thing? the other school of thought is the complete opposite. ron whitcomb, the QB coach at old dominion, focuses his entire QB coaching on the phrase "if it's not perfect, it isnt right." i can respect that throught process to a certain extent. however, there are dozens upon dozens of top NFL and college QBs who dont do things, especially throwing mechanics, in a perfect manner. overcoaching is an underrated problem. you start overcoaching kids on throwing, and before you know it, they have lost all accuracy, power, and confidence in their arm. it's a fine line. when i came to cookman, the kid i liked as the best QB had a flaw in something he did. with the three freshman QBs i had my first year, i made it a point to call out the older QB for the flaw. but, i also explained to everyone that i wasnt going to harp on the older QB about the issue because 1) it was too late to fix (risk vs. reward) and 2) he had been successful doing it that way, and it hadnt been a major issue for him. but, i wasnt going to allow the younger guys to get into the same habit.
the pics below show some of the things i was talking about. i am a huge believer in pictures. luckily, cookman had two photographers who took hundreds of shots just about every game. i used those still-shots as great teaching points for QBs. it became so helpful for them that the RBs started coming to me to breakdown their flaws, which were easy to see in pictures when it came to ball security and blocking technique out of the backfield.
the first picture of byron shows a huge flaw he had. his wind-up was so big, his ball dropped well below his elbow line. it negated his height and made his release time shitty:
these next two pics show the L position of the ball in relation to the upper arm and then again with the body:
these final few pics show the big thing i never see litton do - getting on top of the ball because he tends to push the ball, shortarm it, and not get any shoulder rotation: