Skyler Howard: QB · West Virginia · #3.
Closest statistical matches, adjusted for opponent strength.
Skyler Howard
Pushes it downfield on every look. Three seasons in the West Virginia quarterback room to date. A game that shows it: 389 passing yards and 50 rushing yards against Youngstown State — Week 2, 2016.
Play style
Elite arm talent, pushing downfield. Completion rate is the variable.
Checkdown vs gunslinger · 3rd-and-long
Where the completions actually land
65.0% completion on 3rd-and-8+, but only 42.2% conversion-per-dropback — 26.9% of completions land short of the sticks.
Where completions land is fact — whether incompletions were aimed deep is intent, not recorded here, so this card counts completions only. checkdown by design
Short-yardage / goal-line · enumeration
Who gets the tough yard
12 of 16 on 3rd/4th-and-2-or-less (75.0%). 7 of the team's 24 inside-the-5 carries (29.2%).
No outlet on our list has written about this player by name this season.
Swipe the table sideways for more columns.
| Season | Team | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | West Virginia | 247 | 404 | 61.1% | 3,328 | 8.2 | 26 | 10 | 146.6 | 49 |
| 2015 | West Virginia | 221 | 403 | 54.8% | 3,145 | 7.8 | 26 | 14 | 134.7 | 55 |
| 2014 | West Virginia | 56 | 110 | 50.9% | 829 | 7.5 | 8 | 0 | 138.2 | 52 |
| Career | 524 | 917 | 57.1% | 7,302 | 8.0 | 60 | 24 | 140.4 | 52 |
| Season | Team | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | West Virginia | 142 | 463 | 3.3 | 10 | 38 |
| 2015 | West Virginia | 157 | 502 | 3.2 | 6 | 50 |
| 2014 | West Virginia | 22 | 140 | 6.4 | 0 | 24 |
| Career | 321 | 1,105 | 3.4 | 16 | 50 |
Game log · Week-by-week
2016 season · 13 games
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| Wk | Opp | CMP/ATT | YDS | TD | INT | YPA | QBR | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | W 26-11vs Missouri | 23/35 | 253 | 0 | 1 | 7.2 | 67.1 | |
| Wk 2 | W 38-21vs Youngstown State | 20/33 | 389 | 5 | 1 | 11.8 | 94.6 | Season-high 389 yds |
| Wk 4 | W 35-32vs BYU | 31/40 | 332 | 1 | 1 | 8.3 | 75.7 | |
| Wk 5 | W 17-16vs Kansas State | 24/41 | 298 | 1 | 1 | 7.3 | 53.3 | |
| Wk 7 | W 48-17@ Texas Tech | 21/31 | 318 | 1 | 0 | 10.3 | 88.4 | |
| Wk 8 | W 34-10vs TCU | 16/23 | 231 | 4 | 0 | 10.0 | 79.9 | 4 TD passes |
| Wk 9 | L 20-37@ Oklahoma State | 24/39 | 212 | 1 | 2 | 5.4 | 38.0 | |
| Wk 10 | W 48-21vs Kansas | 16/27 | 260 | 3 | 0 | 9.6 | 95.8 | 3 TD passes |
| Wk 11 | W 24-20@ Texas | 21/35 | 269 | 1 | 3 | 7.7 | 53.6 | 3 INTs — rough day |
| Wk 12 | L 28-56vs No. 8 Oklahoma | 12/27 | 191 | 2 | 1 | 7.1 | 33.0 | |
| Wk 13 | W 49-19@ Iowa State | 12/21 | 330 | 5 | 0 | 15.7 | 95.6 | 5 TD passes |
| Wk 14 | W 24-21vs Baylor | 10/26 | 111 | 2 | 0 | 4.3 | 28.5 | |
 Bowl | L 14-31vs Miami | 17/26 | 134 | 0 | 0 | 5.2 | 28.9 | |
| Total | 247/404 | 3328 | 26 | 10 | 8.2 | — |
Week 13 · 2016
W 49-19
at Iowa State
330 yds · 5 TD · 0 INT · QBR 95.6 · 48 rush yds (9 car)
Dominant 30-point win on the road against Iowa State.
With S. Gibson — 3 rec · 161 yds · 2 TD · M. Pettaway — 181 rush yds (30 car) · 1 TD · 1 rec · 25 yds
The plays that mattered most
Pass Profile · Completions by yards gained (PBP)
Adjusted ANY/A, sack rate, and where the yards came from
Totals here are the box score's. Play-by-play lists 394 passing plays (237 completions) against the box score's 404 attempts (247 completions), and the depth buckets use play-by-play.
Adjusted ANY/A
7.4738 of 193 QBsSack rate
5.8%97 of 193 QBsRarely sacked (97 of 193 QBs) and still 38 of 193 in Adjusted ANY/A.
Adjusted ANY/A uses full-season box-score totals (attempts, yards, TDs, INTs); sack rate is play-by-play-derived.
Short
0–9 ydsMiddle
10–19 ydsDeep
20+ ydsOverall 61.1% completion on 404 attempts · 47 deep completions averaging 33.4 yds.
Is he a different quarterback when it matters
Each situation vs his own 2016 baseline
No situation moves him more than 35 percentile points from his baseline.
Deltas are vs. this player’s own season baseline, never a league average. League sack rate by down is shown as context because sack attribution isn’t incompletion-denominated.
3 seasons under Dana Holgorsen — 25-14 over that span.
Splits · Per-game
2016 season · 13 games
Home vs Road
| YDS/g | TD/g | YPA | INT/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home7g | 248 | 2.4 | 8.2 | 0.6 |
| Road4g | 282 | 2.0 | 9.8 | 1.2 |
First half vs Second half
| YDS/g | TD/g | YPA | INT/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-76g | 287 | 1.3 | 8.3 | 0.7 |
| Weeks 8+7g | 229 | 2.6 | 8.5 | 0.9 |
Supporting cast · Scheme
Staff and system around the player
Head Coach
Dana Holgorsen
Pass share
42.0%
409 pass / 564 run
Plays / game
74.8
13 games
Scheme: Run-leaning.
Player standing · 2016
Our Heisman model had this player inside its top 25 in 2016.
How it ended
Three seasons at West Virginia, 7,302 passing yards — the college career is complete.
Four or fewer games in the first season, then ten or more.
Coaching lineage · 2014–2016
1 coachPlayed every college season under Dana Holgorsen.
