• Nix knows how to avoid negative plays: His 1.0% turnover-worthy play rate in 2023 was the best in the nation.
• A lack of elite traits may have Nix drafted on Day 2: Oregon's offense didn't showcase his skills enough to fully boost him into the first-round conversation.
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PFF Grades and Stats
- 93.0 PFF overall grade
- 4.1% big-time throw rate
- 1.0% turnover-worthy play rate
- 85.5% adjusted completion rate
- 7.6% pressure-to-sack rate
- 92.2 PFF clean-pocket grade
- 91.5 PFF pressured grade
Background
Bo Nix, 24, is a 6-foot-2, 217-pound quarterback from the University of Oregon. Nix spent the first three seasons of his college career at Auburn. He started as a true freshman and transferred to the Ducks after his third season. Nix led Oregon to back-to-back double-digit winning seasons and finished third in Heisman voting this past season.
Strengths
Accuracy is one of Nix’s biggest strengths. His 85.5% adjusted completion percentage in 2023 led the nation, and when removing screens, he still had the highest adjusted completion percentage in college football (79.1%). Accuracy is where he can win at the next level. He proved capable of hitting throws to all levels of the field, not only from within the pocket but also when on the move. Oregon ran a lot of plays where Nix was throwing on the run, and his accuracy never wavered. Ball placement is a huge part of accuracy — outside of merely completing passes — and he showed tremendous ability at putting the ball in the right place in the right circumstances.
From his time at Auburn, Nix has always been a quarterback who can make plays out of structure. He played much more within the structure at Oregon, but that didn’t mean his playmaking ability disappeared. Nix still used his athleticism to escape pressure and make plays when everything broke down. It’s one of the reasons why his PFF passing grade under pressure is astronomically high. His 91.5 under-pressure grade was the highest in the nation, nearly 10 points better than Jayden Daniels in second place (82.2).
#Oregon QB Bo Nix is playing at such a high level, specifically in the red zone. His improvisation skills and accuracy have particularly shined in the red area over the last 3 weeks.
Has 4 TD’s in each of his last two games. He’s a legit NFL prospect. pic.twitter.com/LtjiWb92wu
— Devin Jackson (@RealD_Jackson) November 13, 2023
Part of what made Nix so much better at Oregon was his ability to avoid the negative plays. His combined turnover-worthy plays over the past two seasons were less than his final year at Auburn. In his final season, his turnover-worthy play percentage of 1.0% was the best in the nation.
Pressure-to-sack percentage has become such an important number when it comes to projecting quarterbacks to the next level, and Nix’s 7.6% rate was again one of the best in college football. Avoiding negative plays was a major strength for Nix at Oregon after it being a weakness of his game at Auburn.
Weaknesses
While Nix throws an effective deep ball, throwing deep isn’t the only thing to look at when evaluating arm talent. He tended to struggle a bit when needing to throw with extra velocity. Not being able to add that extra juice can be a problem in the NFL because it requires you to be on time with every throw. Some quarterbacks can get away with being late on passes because they have that added velocity to fit the ball into tight windows. Nix struggled with that, at times, especially on throws from the opposite hash. It allowed defenders to jump the routes and either make a play on the ball or tackle a receiver immediately after they caught the ball.
The Oregon offense didn’t show tons of what Nix can do in terms of processing as well as other college offenses. Nix had more than 100 passing attempts on screens and another 100-plus attempts on RPOs in his final season. As a result, his average depth of target was 6.8 yards, the lowest in the class. That can be concerning, but not detrimental, and it doesn’t mean that Nix can’t process plays at a high level; it’s just that he wasn’t asked to do it as much at Oregon, which raises some questions.
Summary
Nix is an intriguing prospect. He brings experience, handling 2,000 dropbacks in five seasons of college football, but on the flip side of that is the question of how much higher his ceiling is. He showed tremendous improvement in his two seasons at Oregon and performed very well in areas that translate to success at the next level, such as accuracy and avoiding negative plays.
However, there’s no truly elite trait you can point to, compared to some of the others in this class. Nix has a rather high floor due to his age and experience but also a limited ceiling, which can make it tough to justify spending overly valuable draft capital on him.
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