NFL Draft Scouting Profile: Michigan Football QB Jake Rudock
NFL draft week has finally reached us. One Michigan football player who’s on the edge of being drafted is Jake Rudock. What do scouts see from him?
This isn’t going to be a great year for Michigan football in the NFL draft.
Related Story: How will Michigan do in the draft?
On one side, the Wolverines will very likely extend their streak of having a player drafted to 78 straight years. On the other side, it’s unlikely anyone goes before Round 4.
Offensive lineman Graham Glasgow and defensive lineman Willie Henry are both being projected in the fourth round for the most part. Many mock drafts have them as the only Michigan players being drafted this year.
One player who could definitely sneak in there, though, is quarterback Jake Rudock, who transferred from Iowa to play at Michigan for his final season and performed very impressively to improve his draft stock.
| The Basics | ||||
| Age | Height | Weight | 40-Time | Vertical |
| 23 | 6-foot-3 | 207 lbs | 4.85 | 29″ |
Rudock basically played two seasons last year for the Wolverines, three if you want to cut out a slice in the middle. Here’s what I’m talking about.
First five games
| Comp | Att | Yds | Comp% | TD | INT |
| 89 | 148 | 956 | 60.1% | 5 | 6 |
Next two games
| Comp | Att | Yds | Comp% | TD | INT |
| 32 | 48 | 347 | 66.6% | 0 | 0 |
Final six games
| Comp | Att | Yds | Comp% | TD | INT |
| 128 | 193 | 1,714 | 66.3% | 15 | 3 |
Season Stats
| Comp | Att | Yds | Comp% | TD | INT |
| 249 | 389 | 3,017 | 64.0% | 20 | 9 |
Rudock is one of three Michigan quarterbacks in the history of the program to throw for at least 3,000 yards in a season. He had a six-touchdown, 440-yard performance against Indiana. Rudock played his first five games and then really brought it the rest of the season.
Positives
Rudock played in one of the most timid quarterback roles in the country at Iowa, but he really grew into himself at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh. He proved himself to be a good decision maker as the season went along, and, as Sayre Bedinger of NFL Mocks notes in his scouting report, Rudock is “[n]ot the fastest, but will be able to scramble away from defenders and pick up yardage that way in the NFL.”
What NFL teams have to love about Rudock is how he showed he’s capable of taking over the offense when he has to. Michigan went through droughts in the running game, but Rudock stepped up multiple times to keep the offense afloat. Look at the Indiana game for example: Rudock threw the ball 46 times and got the Wolverines out of a many tough spots.
Negatives
Rudock is generally a safe decision maker with his throws, but that means he hardly ever takes shots downfield. When he did last season, most of them missed. Along those same lines, Rudock is seen as a quarterback who “takes what the defense gives him,” but he rarely worked through his progression as a result.
There aren’t any glaring holes in Rudock’s game. The question will be whether he’s impressed a team enough to take a shot on him.
NFL Potential
Although he improved greatly last season under Harbaugh, I don’t see anything that suggests Rudock is going to be an NFL starter at any point in his career. Instead I see a very qualified backup, something many teams don’t have.
Projection
Rudock improved is draft stock immensely last season, but was it enough to see him drafted? If it was, it’ll be in the very late stages.
Next: Michigan's top 5 draft prospects in 2017
Projection: Round 7 – free agent.