The "Film Guy," Brooks Austin, came back on the CanesInSight podcast earlier this afternoon and he's more bullish on Darian Mensah than he was a few months ago.
Austin dropped a new breakdown on Mensah this week, and it's the kind of thing where you don't even need to watch the tape yourself; he paints the picture that clearly.
We had him on to talk through it, and what came out of the conversation is a quarterback evaluation that starts at "top three in the country" and only gets more specific from there.
The Jordan Love comp
Austin has landed on Jordan Love as his NFL player comp for Mensah, and he's not budging. It's not about arm strength — Austin was clear Mensah doesn't have the biggest arm in the country. It's about how quickly the ball comes out.
"Every ball is uber catchable. Every ball, like, comes in perfect," Austin said, comparing Mensah's release to Ray Allen's jump shot. "There are some people who are throwers, and there are some people who are true passers of the football. He, to me, is a true passer of the football."
Why the Duke-to-Miami scheme jump isn't a real concern
This was the most substantive part of the breakdown.
One of the knocks on Mensah has been that Duke's offense under Jonathan Brewer — Rhett Lashlee's old understudy running a version of Lashlee's system — did a lot of the thinking for him at the line, more "check with me" than true full-field command. Duke's answers were built on box counts: see the numbers, throw the screen or check to the run.
Austin isn't worried.
He pointed to the Tulane tape specifically — Mensah operating from under center, giving heavy play-action, turning his back to the defense and still finding answers when the picture changed. That's a skill only a small fraction of college offenses even ask a quarterback to develop, and Austin expects Shannon Dawson to lean on it given how similar Dawson's offensive identity is to what Todd Monken runs — real, professional systems, not RPO-heavy gimmick stuff.
The quarterback industrial complex
Austin's biggest gripe isn't with Mensah — it's with how the sport evaluates quarterbacks before they ever throw a real snap. He ran through the list: Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert were all lightly recruited. Fernando Mendoza had one FBS offer, from Cal, after committing to Yale. Cam Ward had zero offers. Mensah had one, from Tulane.
His theory is that camp evaluations measure the wrong thing entirely — how pretty a ball looks in shorts and a T-shirt with no pass rush and no coverage, rather than whether a quarterback can actually process a defense and take a hit.
He name-checked Trinidad Chambliss as the same kind of story: a guy who had all the answers pre-snap last year and rarely got surprised, despite sitting behind Austin Simmons at Ole Miss to start the season.
Ball security, and the one exception
Austin's read on Mensah's decision-making: he doesn't put the ball in harm's way, which tracked with what he saw at Duke.
The exception is money downs.
He pointed to a two-point conversion clip he'd tweeted out — Mensah rolling right, scrambling, then throwing back across his body to Cooper Barkate, who somehow got two feet down in the end zone. That's not the conservative version of Mensah. That's the version that shows up when the situation demands it, and Austin drew the contrast with Ward, who he felt held the ball too long in college looking for the home run instead of taking the easy completion in front of him.
Austin's file on Mensah, in short: not the biggest arm in the country, but a true passer with elite touch, timing and ball security who protects the football until the moment calls for something else — and Austin thinks that's a dangerous combination heading into the season.
Listen to the full breakdown alongside camp intel from @DMoney and Mike Ryan below:
Austin dropped a new breakdown on Mensah this week, and it's the kind of thing where you don't even need to watch the tape yourself; he paints the picture that clearly.
We had him on to talk through it, and what came out of the conversation is a quarterback evaluation that starts at "top three in the country" and only gets more specific from there.
The Jordan Love comp
Austin has landed on Jordan Love as his NFL player comp for Mensah, and he's not budging. It's not about arm strength — Austin was clear Mensah doesn't have the biggest arm in the country. It's about how quickly the ball comes out.
"Every ball is uber catchable. Every ball, like, comes in perfect," Austin said, comparing Mensah's release to Ray Allen's jump shot. "There are some people who are throwers, and there are some people who are true passers of the football. He, to me, is a true passer of the football."
Why the Duke-to-Miami scheme jump isn't a real concern
This was the most substantive part of the breakdown.
One of the knocks on Mensah has been that Duke's offense under Jonathan Brewer — Rhett Lashlee's old understudy running a version of Lashlee's system — did a lot of the thinking for him at the line, more "check with me" than true full-field command. Duke's answers were built on box counts: see the numbers, throw the screen or check to the run.
Austin isn't worried.
He pointed to the Tulane tape specifically — Mensah operating from under center, giving heavy play-action, turning his back to the defense and still finding answers when the picture changed. That's a skill only a small fraction of college offenses even ask a quarterback to develop, and Austin expects Shannon Dawson to lean on it given how similar Dawson's offensive identity is to what Todd Monken runs — real, professional systems, not RPO-heavy gimmick stuff.
The quarterback industrial complex
Austin's biggest gripe isn't with Mensah — it's with how the sport evaluates quarterbacks before they ever throw a real snap. He ran through the list: Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert were all lightly recruited. Fernando Mendoza had one FBS offer, from Cal, after committing to Yale. Cam Ward had zero offers. Mensah had one, from Tulane.
His theory is that camp evaluations measure the wrong thing entirely — how pretty a ball looks in shorts and a T-shirt with no pass rush and no coverage, rather than whether a quarterback can actually process a defense and take a hit.
He name-checked Trinidad Chambliss as the same kind of story: a guy who had all the answers pre-snap last year and rarely got surprised, despite sitting behind Austin Simmons at Ole Miss to start the season.
Ball security, and the one exception
Austin's read on Mensah's decision-making: he doesn't put the ball in harm's way, which tracked with what he saw at Duke.
The exception is money downs.
He pointed to a two-point conversion clip he'd tweeted out — Mensah rolling right, scrambling, then throwing back across his body to Cooper Barkate, who somehow got two feet down in the end zone. That's not the conservative version of Mensah. That's the version that shows up when the situation demands it, and Austin drew the contrast with Ward, who he felt held the ball too long in college looking for the home run instead of taking the easy completion in front of him.
Austin's file on Mensah, in short: not the biggest arm in the country, but a true passer with elite touch, timing and ball security who protects the football until the moment calls for something else — and Austin thinks that's a dangerous combination heading into the season.
Listen to the full breakdown alongside camp intel from @DMoney and Mike Ryan below:
