I used to be on the Hackenberg Hate Train, but there was an article I came across awhile ago that broke down several of his replays showcasing his style. The summary is that he plays like an NFL pro QB. Many of the college QBs that go pro take years to develop the ability to read defenses/coverages and go through several receivers to find the one that's open... even the best QBs that go in the 1st round oftentimes don't have that ability. He's incredibly intelligent and has the athletic skills to support it.

Does that mean he's perfect? No, he's still a kid prone to mistakes. It doesn't mean that he never throws into coverage or forces a bad pass, he certainly does. But in terms of the class of 2016, absolutely no QB out there can rival Hackenberg's ability to play like an NFL QB already.

Now you get plenty of people that will cite pass efficiency, sacks, and turnovers in on his stat sheet (it's a usual counterargument to Hackenberg). Simple fact of the matter is he's still only 1 person out there out of 11 people and can only do so much (our O-line and best receivers graduated and we're still rebuilding a lot of our offense). He's young and still growing, he's going to make mistakes and bad throws.

Whether or not his skills can translate to the NFL is up for debate, and everyone's going to have an opinion. There's plenty of people that think Johnny Football was worth a 1st round pick and plenty of people that think he, too, was overhyped and will pull a Tebow in the NFL. It's fun to talk about, but it's not an exact science. People make millions of dollars every year trying to figure out which college players have the best NFL prospects and they still get it wrong a lot too.