How did Tim Tebow, a once-in a generation athlete, spend four years at the University of Florida without learning how to pass?
It’s an interesting question. Tebow has claimed that no one at his alma mater ever told him that his looping delivery, which winds the ball down to around waist level, wasn’t the proper way to throw a football, or that it could cost him millions of dollars if it kept teams from drafting him as a prime first-round pick.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that Tebow isn’t telling the truth, which is akin to suggesting that Abe Lincoln was fibbing when he delivered the Gettysburg Address.
There is some evidence that Florida did, indeed, tinker with Tebow. Head coach Urban Meyer brought in Scott Loeffler as quarterbacks coach before last season — after Dan Mullen left to become head coach at Mississippi State — and the Gators did move Tebow under center some as a senior after previously using him almost exclusively in the shotgun for three years.
Meyer also told ESPN.com last May that Loeffler had worked to make Tebow’s delivery more over-the-top instead of sidearm, but Florida’s head coach apparently changed his mind somewhere along the way.
“It’s called adapting,” Meyer told Mark Schlabach. “It’s not a wholesale change, but I was concerned about it. I watched it closely. I’m always thinking, ‘If it’s not broken, don’t change it.’”
Imagine that: Meyer waffling.
Ultimately, Florida’s coaching staff — Meyer and Mullen, most especially — failed Tebow in not helping him iron out his mechanics. Any coach with an understanding of the passing game had to see the flaws from the start, yet no one stepped forward to correct them.
It’s a shame that one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the college game might not ever reach is full potential — financially or on the field — because of something that could have been fixed.