Quarterback Trainer Explains What Makes Will Rogers Such a Talented Quarterback

It's no secret that Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers has had a great amount of success this past season.

One of the biggest areas Rogers has grown in is overall accuracy, breaking the SEC single-game completion percentage record (minimum of 30 passing attempts) back in October when he completed 92.3% of his passes against Kentucky.

Rogers was 36-of-39 passing for 344 yards with one touchdown and zero interceptions in the 31-17 win over the then-No. 12-ranked Wildcats, marking one of his best games of the season in several aspects.

The Bulldogs signal-caller finished out the year with a completion percentage of 75.1% with 4,449 passing yards with 35 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

Quarterback trainer Tony Racioppi of TEST Academy, who has worked extensively with Rogers in his preparation in addition to other notable signal-callers like Pittsburgh's Kenny Pickett, isn't surprised by the quarterback's success.

"He's as accurate as any of them for the most part," Racioppi said. "The thing about the Air Raid offense is it's identifying numbers, identifying grass and leveraging defenders. Once you get comfortable with the concepts they have in that offense, it's being consistent and doing it over and over again. If your eyes are in the right place and your feet are in the right place, you're going to be pretty consistent with your throws."

While there were a lot of throws Rogers completed in the short and intermediate passing game, he showed the ability to get the job done at all places and levels on the field as the season progressed.

"There's a wide range of things he's accurate with," Racioppi said. "He's throwing short stuff on time with velocity, he's throwing second-level throws with velocity into tight windows, and if they're throwing against Cover 1 or Cover 0 or a matchup on the outside, he's taking it and he's hit most of them. I'm not surprised at all by what he's doing right now. It's the perfect blend of Mike Leach being a fantastic coach with a great system."

One of the issues Rogers and the Mississippi State football team as a whole had this season that seemed to become less of a problem in some games down the stretch was sputtering on offense in the first half and then staging a comeback effort for the ages in the second half.

Some of that comes down to age and experience, while some of it comes down to what a defense gives you throughout the game. But as the Bulldogs have gotten more experienced overall and have had more time for real repetition -- something they didn't necessarily have a lot of last season -- they've become more formidable as a unit.

"It's a rhythm offense, once they all get into a flow, when Will gets into the rhythm and they really start rolling, it's practically unstoppable at times," Racioppi said.

Looking at Rogers in particular, Racioppi is proud of the discipline he's shown as just a sophomore, even though Rogers has become a player we talk about like he's a veteran. It's easy at times to forget just how young he actually is.

"There's nothing like game reps, live reps," Racioppi said. "It's becoming more disciplined with some of the things like the way you sue your eyes, leverage defenders, things like that. Sometimes with quarterbacks, they'll hit a lot of the short stuff and then want to get greedy and take a long shot for no reason. I think Will has done a good job being disciplined with his eyes, with his decisions and I think he's only going to get better at it. He has the 'it' factor. He's a confident kid and he's what you want in a quarterback.

Above all else, Rogers' resiliency and ability to rally his team back from difficult situations is something he can hang his hat on.

"There are going to be some bumps in the road and I think he's battled through those well," Racioppi said. "He's a kid of faith and he's definitely a resilient kid -- a tough-minded guy both mentally and physically."