As a Henne watcher, he has struck me as pretty good but not great. He has shown that he can perform under pressure and I feel like poor coaching, not his own personal performance, has caused losses in bowl games because that same coaching has caused losses in bowl games before Henne and will cause bowl game losses after Henne. Lloyd Carr is the Marty Schottenheimer of the NCAA and neither Drew Brees nor Philip Rivers was going to change it, no matter how good of quarterbacks they both are.
He has a strong and relatively accurate arm. His tenacity is also something that has struck me. He isn't a speedy quarterback but has a good presence in the pocket. I don't know how much upside he has, but his leadership, arm and pocket presence make him a good candidate as a starting QB in the NFL.
Maybe Michigan Dave will disagree. I'm interested to hear what he has to say about Henne.
Henne is the best Michigan QB I've seen aside from #10 (which, given my bias toward #10, says something). I think this will be a HUGE year for him. He's saddled by the fact that he's gone against Troy Smith (the best player ever in the M-OSU game) for the past 3 years, and the "hasnt' beaten OSU" moniker is following him around. Henne is the most pro-ready QB I've ever seen. He has amazing tangible assets- a laser for an arm, the ability to hit a good deep ball, he can see the entire field and make every throw an offense can require, and he is deceptively fast (4.6) for a pocket passer. He also has excellent pocket presence, and manages the offense very well. His performances in the big games has been terriffic, too. He hasn't choked at all despite having to start as a true freshman. Here are his numbers in the OSU games:
2006- 21/35 60% 2 TD 0 INT
2005- 25/36 69% 1 TD 0 INT
2004- 27/54 50% 2 TD 2 INT
TOTAL:
73/125 58% 5 TD 2 INT
Not bad at all considering the quality of defense he was going up against in those games. He also went toe-to-toe with Vince Young in the 05 Rose Bowl as a true freshman.
Henne is vastly underrated as a leader, too, because he is a quiet, unassuming guy who doesn't long for the spotlight. Mike Hart may be the mouthy, trash-talking voice of the team, but it is Henne's team. He's pulled some pretty gritty comebacks out- 2004 as a true freshman he led a comeback from 17 down against MSU with 7 minutes left and pulled out a triple OT victory, and in 2005 he led the final drive with 53 seconds left that culminated with the TD to Manningham with no time left on the clock to beat Penn State.
Our offense right now is the ideal tool for making a QB NFL-ready, and Henne picked it up quicker than any QB, ever. His ability to recognize defenses at the line, and adjust his reads and progressions accordingly is better than probably every other college QB except for possibly Booty. I really see him having a lights-out year this year, winning a couple of awards, and seeing his high stock become even higher as the year progresses. I see Henne as a better NFL-ready QB than Brian Brohm right now, though I think both have bright futures ahead of them.