Elite 11 Final Thoughts - Ryan Montgomery Checks a Ton of Georgia Boxes

Brooks Austin | Jun 20, 2024

The Elite 11 provides a unique chance to truly evaluate a quarterback. It's unlike any other scouting event at this position. A multi-day event where you get to see every throw imaginable. If you have a weakness as a passer, this event will expose it without a doubt. Though, perhaps more importantly, with 20 of the nation's best QBs all in town, it's a unique chance to find out what kind of competitor prospects are as well.

Final Eval Thoughts - Ryan Montomgery

Frame
Montgomery stands a full 6'3, 210. The first thing that I would imagine Georgia does with him is put on a good bit of mass on him. He's still really lean as a rising senior and given the quarterback room at Georgia, he will have time to put the necessary weight on. Even just adding 10 to 15 pounds onto his current frame is plenty. Rather Georgia put the weight on him than have to worry about keeping weight off.

Athleticism
If I had to guess... 4.82ish forty? 30" vertical? Good enough to be labeled "sneaky?" I think it was Kirby Smart who famously said you have to be at least an 8.0 out of 10 nowadays to play QB? Montgomery,— like Carson Beck — is athletic enough. Certainly not a runner, certainly not a statue or unathletic person.

Instincts
He plays for a high school football program where if he makes mistakes... they likely lose. They play five-wide 75% of snaps. This is a football player that has been taught the importance of protecting the football and you can see it in his play. He's also got a noticeable internal clock. He plays on time and he's going to avoid sacks because of it.

Polish
He's a consistently clean processor in the pocket. He will click through reads right foot, and left foot, with a ready-to-throw base at all times. Windows opens in college at sudden times and they aren't always predictable. Montgomery's not the most explosive athlete or twitchiest thrower of the football, but his obvious dedication to the fundamentals from the ground up leads to consistent results. All week long every quarterback at this event had extreme highs, and lows... except Montgomery, in my opinion. There were no lows. I don't think he will ever play outside of himself. I don't see a player who presses or "does too much"

*PS, as I'm writing this, all I can recall is Kirby Smart consistently saying in 2020 that all he needed the quarterback to do was hit the layups. “The No. 1 thing is the accuracy. I can’t say it’s protect-the-quarterback better, it’s accuracy, in terms of completion percentage, hitting open receivers. You always say you’ve got to make your layups. That’s the most disappointing thing about the last couple of games. Just the accuracy, the ability to hit open guys. How do you improve that? You have to improve your accuracy. When a guy has a chance to catch a ball, catch it. But when you’ve got him open, you can’t overthrow him.” He's always harped on accuracy being the No. 1 thing he seeks in a quarterback. Montgomery's consistent mechanics provide just that.

Bottomline
There's something to be said about wanting to compete. It was something you could just constantly hear from Puglisi last class. He wanted to be at Georgia not only because he wanted to play college football, he wanted to win the job at Georgia someday. You can hear and see the same things from Montgomery. There's also something to be said about wanting to be at Georgia, and there was no doubt Ryan Montgomery wants to be anywhere else.

Intangible note that might mean nothing to you:
Some of the quarterbacks out here prefer to take the 7-on-7 portion of the event's snaps in the shotgun. It's pretty common considering the nature of offensive football today. So, there has to be another quarterback to snap the ball. Montgomery snapped his rotation and then just stayed in there serving his teammates by snapping the ball for the remainder of the time. I stopped counting after the fourth quarterback... they were doing 15-minute rounds. Do you love football? I'm now reminded of another Kirby Smart quote from the 2023 SEC media days...

So we look for two things when we look for people to join our organization. I'm not talking about players, I'm talking about anybody in our organization. Do they love football and do they embrace being part of something bigger than themselves? Are they selfless?

Ryan Montgomery checks a lot of boxes for Georgia... a lot.

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