After shining in Senior Bowl, what’s next in draft process for Fresno State QB Jake Haener?
Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener capped an intense week at the Senior Bowl by completing 12 of 17 passes for 139 yards and one touchdown, taking home the MVP trophy at one of the top pre-NFL Draft bowl games.
Well, not literally. The trophy is still in Mobile, Ala., too big, too heavy and too unwieldy to make a good travel partner. It will be shipped to the West Coast.
But in thriving through practices and game prep, digesting and then commanding new offensive concepts, Haener gave NFL coaches and scouts a glimpse at some of his best assets as he continues to move up draft boards.
His work ethic and ability to declaw defenses stood out in a three-year Fresno State career in which he completed 68.2% of his passes for 9,013 yards with 67 touchdowns and just 17 interceptions.
“I think people got to see that a little bit this week, and how I was mentally able to handle some of that,” he said Monday. “I’ll be able to get on the board I’m sure during some of those (NFL Combine) interviews and during the Pro Day, too, when teams are starting to get a feel for if they want you on their club or not. They’ll sit me down and talk to me about things. I’ll go visit their club, see how they do some of their things and get a feel for that.
“I’ll continue to speak with teams more and more as it gets closer to the draft. I’ll be able to do some private workouts where they’ll be able to watch me and sit down in the classroom and talk to me about some of the stuff I was doing on tape and how I read things, how I used protections to my advantage, how I changed things conceptually and get a feel for what I was doing and what I can handle at the line of scrimmage.”
At the Senior Bowl, the teams ran basic offenses. It was a full playbook, but there were a limited number of formations. There were no shifts or motions and a limited number of protections.
But it is not just a few practices and a football game. The schedule on the first full day included media interviews, three hours of cognition testing, open interviews with a brief chat with representatives of the Raiders, a photo shoot, on-field work, team meetings, and more interviews in advance of the first day of practices.
“Just the whole week, it was a grinder of a week, a long week,” Haener said. “Obviously coming back and having that was awesome, to be able to go through that and be able to experience that and have a really good crowd there, it was fun. It was really great to experience.”
NEXT ON LIST FOR HAENER: NFL COMBINE
And, it is right back to the grind with the next stop the NFL Combine with quarterbacks, wideouts including the Bulldogs’ Jalen Moreno-Cropper and tight ends in the spotlight on March 3.
That will be followed by the Bulldogs’ Pro Day on March 30, and the draft scheduled for April 27-29 in Kansas City.
No time, even, to reflect on a senior season in which he led the final seven of a nine-game winning streak as the Bulldogs became the first team in college football history to start 1-4 and finish 10-4, with added bonuses of a Mountain West Conference championship and LA Bowl victory.
Or, the ride along the way, which included what was believed at one point to be a season-ending ankle injury.
“I’ve just been trying to live in the moment and live every single day the best I can and just do everything I can at each moment,” he said. “I feel like you start looking ahead in the future, you start thinking about all the scenarios and then you start putting too much pressure on yourself.
“I was talking to my dad, talking to my agent and just talking about some of the things I was going to need to accomplish in order to help myself throughout this process and one of the first things that we talked about when I came back (from the injury) and was healthy enough to play was just win each game, win the last seven. Then it was, win the championship. Then, win the bowl game. Then, go to the Senior Bowl, get invited, have a great week and win the MVP. You just keep finding ways to do these things and I think that only exists by doing exactly what you have to do in the moment.”
Haener is doing his pre-draft workouts in Huntington Beach, along with some of the other top quarterbacks in the 2023 draft including Bryce Young from Alabama, and with a long road still ahead. As he pointed out, the draft is still two months away. But Haener would be the latest in a long line of Fresno State quarterbacks to be selected in the NFL Draft, with the most recent Derek Carr, who went to the Raiders in the second round in 2014.
“It’s great to have a great group to compete with and see some of the guys who are highly regarded as some of the best prospects in this draft,” Haener said. “You know, I love to compete. I like to go every day with a positive attitude and go compete and try to get myself better throughout the process.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2023 at 6:11 PM.