In Two Years as Liberty’s Starting QB, Malik Willis Blossomed into First Round NFL Draft Pick

As the April 2022 NFL Draft continues to inch closer, the hype train for Liberty quarterback Malik Willis continues to build. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. has him as the first quarterback off the board in the first round. He has been considered a likely first round draft pick for much of the 2021 season and continues to be included at the top of NFL Mock Drafts as the calendar has turned to 2022.

This week in Mobile, Alabama at the Senior Bowl, Willis has received plenty of additional attention and hype as he goes through this draft process. Willis took the college football world and NFL by storm over the past two years since taking over as Liberty’s starting quarterback, but it was not obvious that he would develop into a potential first round NFL Draft pick.

“There was no indication,” said Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze of Willis when he was recruiting him from Auburn. “I had no, really, sample size that would make me feel like I could tell him in that time frame, ‘Hey, you’re going to be an NFL draftee.’ I don’t think anyone in their right mind could assume that. He hasn’t been on the field in the college game for any significant snaps, maybe to zone read a play here and there, but nothing significant. We were just trying to get a guy in here that could help us win football games that I knew was a dual-threat and a great kid. We got that in Malik.”

Willis did not move to the quarterback position full-time until his senior year of high school. He was originally being recruited at the college level as a defensive back, but he was set on wanting to continue his football career at quarterback. The four-star prospect got his first opportunity at Auburn.

Willis got very brief playing time during his first two seasons in college with the Tigers in 2017 and 2018. He completed 11 of 14 passes for 69 yards and one touchdown at Auburn while rushing 28 times for 309 yards and two touchdowns. Once he lost the starting quarterback competition in the spring of 2019, he decided to enter the transfer portal where Liberty and Hugh Freeze would enter the picture.

After his transfer waiver appeal was denied by the NCAA, Willis spent the 2019 season as Liberty’s scout team quarterback while Buckshot Calvert finished his record-breaking Liberty career. Willis would take over in 2020 and he immediately showcased his talents.

In his first game as Liberty’s starting quarterback, which was also his first time starting a collegiate game, he rushed for 168 yards and three touchdowns while completing 61.9% of his passes for 133 touchdowns. Liberty knew then they had something special, and the Flames would ride Willis to a 10-1 record in 2020 and a final national ranking of No. 17 in the Associated Press top 25 poll.

He finished his first season at Liberty by completing 170 of 265 passes for 2,260 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions. He also led the Flames in rushing with 944 yards and 14 additional touchdowns. Following that first season, the hype around Willis would take off.

“After year one, then you start thinking, it’s more than just us winning games, he might have a future at this deal,” Freeze said. “We quickly learned in year one that he’s got a chance. We were right and he’s got a chance and an opportunity.”

Freeze and the Liberty coaching staff weren’t the only ones to jump on the Willis hype train following his first season behind center for the Flames. Bruce Feldman wrote an article for the Athletic calling Willis the most likely breakout candidate for the 2022 NFL Draft.

He carried that over into the 2021 season, but he was no longer a question mark. Instead, opposing teams focused their game plans around slowing down Willis. Most of the time, it didn’t work. This past season, Willis completed 207 of 339 passes for 2,857 yards, 27 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He also led the Flames in rushing with 878 yards and 13 touchdowns on 197 carries.

In his final collegiate game, Willis completed 13 of 24 passes for 231 yards and 3 touchdowns and 8 carries for 65 yards and 2 additional touchdowns as he was named the MVP of the 2021 Lending Tree Bowl, helping Liberty to a 56-20 win over Eastern Michigan. The 6’1″, 225 pound athlete and native of Atlanta, Georgia, finished his time at Liberty with a 17-6 record as a starting quarterback.

Now, as Willis is turning heads at the Senior Bowl and seeing his draft stock rise, many have questioned why it didn’t work for him at Auburn. Willis has never shied away from the fact that the transfer to Liberty has helped him learn the amount of work it takes behind the scenes to become a quarterback at the highest level.

Perhaps nobody knows Willis better that Sean McEvoy, a quarterback coach from Georgia who has worked with Willis since his high school days. He says that during Willis’ time at Liberty is when the talented quarterback learned the preparation level it took to succeed at quarterback. He learned how to watch film, how to understand what defenses are doing, while also maturing as a person on and off the field and growing as a leader.

“I know what the quarterback development looks like at a lot of the top colleges, and I’m not sure there’s anybody who does a better job than Kent Austin at Liberty in truly developing that position,” McEvoy said in a recent interview about the Flames’ quarterback coach. “Obviously, everybody knows what Coach Freeze does. Being around Coach Freeze and Coach Austin, you saw that football intelligence part really take a step up.”

Many have begun projecting Willis as the top quarterback in this year’s draft class. Others have some combination of Willis, Kenny Pickett, Matt Corral, Desmond Ridder, and Sam Howell as their top five quarterbacks. There have been at least two quarterbacks selected in the first round of the NFL Draft every year since 2014, including five taken last year and four in 2020.

There are questions around Willis. Only having two years of experience as a starting college quarterback and not playing against Power Five competition each and every week, will lead to him having some naysayers. Coach Freeze doesn’t doubt his abilities one bit.

“I don’t know that I could describe Malik in any other way, as far as his football part, we could talk about his humility and his confidence and how it’s rare that kids like him have that, but football-wise, I don’t know that I can describe it any better than he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” Freeze said. “He’s only played the game at this position for two years. When (NFL personnel) would ask me questions about can he, I believe he can do everything, but does he do everything great right now, no, but it’s because he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.”

Willis hopes to become the first Liberty player to be selected in the first round of the NFL Draft since 1990 and only the second ever. Liberty has had eight players drafted in the NFL Draft all-time, but only one has been selected earlier than the fourth round. In 1990, tight end Eric Green was taken in the first round with the No. 21 overall selection by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Several Liberty players have been taken in the 4th round including Kelvin Edwards (1986), Walt Aikens (2014), and Antonio Gandy-Golden (2020).

“I don’t know what that looks like for the Draft yet,” said Freeze of where Willis will be selected. “It will start developing itself throughout all the interviews, and all the workouts, and Pro Day, combine, all of that will sort itself out, but the great thing is we can take great pride and comfort that we helped him achieve a dream. We helped develop him.”