Over the past few years, Jared Gough has been one of the most consistent quarterbacks in the NFL.

And normally, that would be a positive thing to say about any athlete in any sport at any level.

But in Gough's case, I think it is the direct cause of his collapse.

A minute and a half to go, quarter number three.

Seam throw, Wards, touchdown. They fake it to number three, seam throw, Woods, touchdown.

They fake it to Gurley, they throw it to cup, down the sideline, touchdown.

Gough, back in the end zone, touchdown.

Now, coming out of college, golf was given kind of this poster child treatment going into the NFL draft being tall super productive NFL arm

maneuvers the pocket well accurate throws well under pressure all these things that NFL scouts love

and when you're a guy like golf who has a lot of these desirable traits I think it's easy for

scouts to be like you know what we can deal with having a couple of flaws here or there we'll'll work on fixing those things. Let's get these traits that we like. And in Jared Goff's case, that is an inability to read a defense at a high level. In particular, he often misdiagnosed his cover two. And to be fair, no one really could have known whether or not Goff would ever improve in that area, but I'll give an FYI, he doesn't. But let's rewind for a second, take a look at Jared Goff's football career, kind of at a macro level, starting with high school. As a senior, Jared Goff put up nearly 3,700 passing yards through a whopping 40 touchdowns and ran for eight more. That's an insane resume. And that's the kind of thing we're like, okay, this guy's going to come into college and he's going to dominate right away. That didn't happen. As a freshman at Cal, Jared Gough was definitely not the worst college quarterback to ever exist. He wasn't T. Martel where it's like, oh, he just never saw the field. But he also wasn't

like J.T. Barrett, where he came in right away and was amazing. And it really is hard to blame

golf for that team being 1-11, especially considering how young they were overall. But when a guy

performs at one level and then comes up to the next and isn't quite as good as you expected,

it's easy to question yourself. But Sunny Dykes,

Cal's coach at the time, has always preached patience with Jared Gough. And this is going to be a common

theme with him. And then sure enough, in Jared Gough's sophomore year, or as I like to call it,

the Goughmore year, we see a massive jump in production to 35 touchdowns, only seven interceptions as he led

a Cal offense that was ranked 11th in scoring in the nation. And obviously, any kind of jump like

that from a freshman and sophomore year is more than enough to get people's attention at the NFL level.

However, Cal is kind of notorious for having this air raid style offense that allows

quarterbacks to put up insane stats but often doesn't produce NFL talent.

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