When skimming the sea of recruiting information that is the 247Sports database, it would be easy to scroll past Mack Howard’s profile and not give it a second look. Howard is a three-star prospect from Oxford (Miss.) High who is ranked No. 702 overall and the No. 34 quarterback in the 2023 class.
But Howard’s profile elicits a double-take. Why?
Nothing screams home for a Mississippi prospect like Salt Lake City, Utah.
“I get that a lot,” said Howard, who committed to Utah in March. “A lot of people were kind of shocked because I shut it down early in my recruitment, right before Ole Miss and Mississippi State were starting to heat up. I like Utah more than both of them, and that’s why I decided to go there.”
COMMITTED. #GOUTES @UtahCoachWhitt @Coach_Ludwig pic.twitter.com/HWCwJjZUHE
— Mack Howard (@MackHoward_) March 26, 2022
This recruitment may seem like an odd fit because of geography alone, but it makes perfect sense for both sides when you take a deeper look. Howard is actually the perfect illustration of why Utah football, which has now won the Pac-12 in consecutive seasons, has been so successful. Howard and Utah are unapologetically themselves, and they found each other because of it.
Howard grew up vacationing with his family in Aspen, Colo., multiple times a year. They are avid skiers. They also own land near Starkville, Miss., where Howard grew up hunting, fly fishing and enjoying the outdoors. You may look at this Southern prospect and view him like an SEC football robot just based on where he’s from, but he’s an outdoorsy guy who has spent a lot of time near the mountains and enjoying the elements.
Utah offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig was the first to offer Howard a scholarship. Though Howard had been to Mississippi State and Ole Miss multiple times, he fell in love with Utah — its natural beauty, its proximity to outdoor activities and the fact that the Utes football program has quietly been owning the Pac-12.
This is Utah’s version of recruiting nationally. The Utes identified a quarterback with the ideal profile and went all the way to Mississippi to land him. That’s good, fundamental recruiting for head coach Kyle Whittingham and his staff.
Utah isn’t flashy. Neither is Howard. Both, though, are very good.
“I just wanted to be different from everybody else and kind of do my own thing,” Howard said.
Howard is the perfect case study as it pertains to how we evaluate quarterbacks. He’s a 6-foot-2, 185-pound prospect, so he has a nice frame. But there’s nothing freaky about him athletically. He doesn’t have off-the-chart measurables that make him a slam-dunk prospect.
But impeccable physical specimen doesn’t always mean good athlete.
This is not to take away from the work that the elite prospects have had to put in. They are five-star recruits for a reason. But Howard has had to grind to cultivate his skills. He has been working with private quarterbacks coach David Morris for years to refine his skill set. He has won a state championship at the high school level, and he shut down his recruitment early to focus on personal development.
Morris, the founder of QB Country, has worked with too many elite-level quarterbacks to count. His quarterbacks school has 13 alumni in the NFL, including Daniel Jones, Mac Jones, Davis Mills, Sam Howell, Bailey Zappe, Cooper Rush … the list goes on. At the college level, Oregon’s Bo Nix, Georgia’s Stetson Bennett and North Carolina’s Drake Maye have worked with QB Country. Morris, who was Eli Manning’s backup at Ole Miss, has also worked directly with five-star quarterback and Texas commit Arch Manning.
Needless to say, Morris knows a thing or two about the quarterback position.
“There are guys who are freaks, and then there are really, really good quarterbacks in the mold of Tom Brady,” Morris said. “He’s a really good athlete and he’s a good basketball player, but he’s got good upside. It’s big. He doesn’t need to play immediately. Take some time to learn and grow, and he’s going to be a really, really good player.
“You know, occasionally you’ll be watching a football game and you’ll see a quarterback and say, ‘Wow that’s the best player on the field.’ Then you’ll say, ‘But the guy on the other team is the best quarterback on the field.’ Mack is just a really good quarterback. He’s not going to lose you games. He’s going to throw it exactly where it needs to be thrown and he’s going to be on time.”
It happens in the NFL Draft, too. So much time is spent looking over combine numbers that we sometimes just forget to turn on the film. Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, isn’t a physical freak. He’s just an incredible quarterback. Don’t take that as a comparison between Howard and Brady, but it is a nice picture of the type of quarterback Howard is trying to be.
And how well does that match up with what Utah is as a program? Accurate, reliable, consistent and driven.
“People ask me why I shut down my recruitment so early when things were just starting to blow up,” Howard said. “I just knew where I wanted to be. I’m not in it for the attention or the offers. I just want to play football.”
There is nothing more Utah than what just came out of the Mississippi prospect’s mouth.
Truth is, Howard could be headed for an SEC roster right now. LSU, where Howard’s father played, got involved. Mississippi State and Ole Miss were certainly interested, but both waited too long to offer. TCU and Miami also recruited the quarterback really hard. Howard’s offers list isn’t an indication of his talent. He could have stretched his recruitment out and become a hot commodity.
Nope. It was always going to be Utah.
Now Howard is a key piece to what is shaping up to be the best recruiting class in Utah history.
Since Nov. 27, Utah has picked up commitments from four four-star prospects, including three — offensive tackles Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu and edge Hunter Clegg — who will soon be among the top 15 players to sign with Utah in the modern recruiting era. They are part of a class that currently ranks No. 21 nationally.
“I know what I want,” Howard said.
Chalk it up as more good news for Utah’s surging program.
(Photos: Courtesy of Mack Howard)
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