Imagine projecting a first-round quarterback to the seventh round or pinning him as an undrafted free agent over a small handful of games in the midst of an unprecedented season.
That’s exactly what several analysts did to KJ Costello.
Regardless of what some may think about Costello’s performances in 2020, it’s not a reflection of his ceiling as a quarterback.
“I’m battling the perception of what happened,” Costello said. “What the hell happened? We go for 600 yards, we beat the defending national champions.”
Only that first game of the Mississippi State Bulldogs’ season against LSU is reflective of his actual potential in reality.
Costello was a veteran on a team of players who had only a couple of months to learn a new system under new coaches. The effects of that shone after the victory over LSU.
“We were playing defenses that were begging us to run the football, and that wasn’t our style,” Costello said. “If you’re playing against defenses that are running drop eight, and if you’re not going to run the ball, you have to be really good at sitting in zones and understanding space. We were too immature as a team to do that.”
That’s true, considering Mississippi State had one of the youngest teams in the SEC right next to LSU.
It didn’t help either that Costello contracted COVID-19 and also suffered a concussion during the season, bringing him to a total of four weeks missed. So, in terms of showings deemed to be poor performances, we’re really looking at a very small sample size of games — and certainly not enough to underestimate a player who brings practically all that you’d want in a quarterback to the game in his own right.
If we’re focused on numbers, perhaps what we should be looking at more are things like his 78.8 cumulative grade on dropback passes and his 84.2 true-dropback grade from 2018 at Stanford, along with the traits he brings to the table as an individual.
Costello has found success throwing the ball at all levels of the field, his arm strength is strong. His footwork in the pocket is impressive and he has a strong upper-body rotation with a good range of motion. The signal-called is poised in the pocket with a powerful presence.
His accuracy and ball placement is primarily good, though the stat line reflecting that was somewhat skewed by receivers who couldn’t catch the ball, almost more times than not their fault where interceptions were concerned at Mississippi State.
Costello isn’t the most mobile quarterback, and he won’t buy a team extra yardage for the most point in that area. But he has enough to create space to pass — and the concept of mobility in the modern NFL is something he has thoughts on.
“Trends happen… we’re not really talking about mobility in terms of taking off and running, but in terms of creating space to throw,” Costello said. “These defensive linemen are getting better and better every year, to where the from the snap to the time the ball needs to be out is decreasing. That’s where that trend is stemming from.”
In the short time Costello spent in the South, he made an impression and earned the support of those around him. That’s something running back Kylin Hill won’t hesitate to say.
“I can argue for KJ with anybody,” Hill said. “The man was a hard worker and anybody can vouch for that. It’s more to him than just football. He always checked in on me and constantly texted me with positivity and we’ve had some great conversations. He’s a true brother to me and an excellent leader.”
One of Costello’s high school coaches, Rick Curtis, is confident in his ability to come back from rough circumstances and knows how strong he is as a teammate.
“I think the great thing about KJ is his competitiveness,” Curtis said.
He’s always going to bounce back. I think that’s something, that, if I was an NFL team that I would look strongly at. He brings a lot to the table. He’s a guy that a team rallies around. In everything he does, he’s going to put his heart and soul into it.”
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If you’ve ever studied the Air Raid offense, you know that it’s more of a philosophy than anything else.
The phrase “attack, attack, attack” is a big part of that, and Hal Mumme introduces that concept to his students very early on. It’s what the entire system is based upon.
Jeff Grady, who coached Costello in high school, can attest to his ability to do just that. Grady says Costello has one of the strongest work ethics he’s ever seen out of a player he’s worked with.
“He’s tenacious, he attacks,” Grady said of Costello. “He’s the kind of guy that’s always in attack mode. He brought us back from some very large deficits. He never quit.”
Being a quarterback who is confident, dominant and aggressive in nature with a quick release is another important element — and Costello brings it to that.
He learns an offense fast, and his already quick release has continuously improved — something you can see if you look at the film from high school to present day.
Things were not always perfect in the Air Raid in the first year Leach introduced it to Mississippi State
“A lot of success the quarterback relies on the pieces outside of him,” Costello said. “We were in an interesting situation of trying to throw the ball against a defense with five underneath defenders and three defenders north of 20 yards deep in terms of the safeties.”
That became more noticeable after Week 1’s success.
“All of the sudden the defensive coordinators are like ‘hey, we’re going to play a prevent defense and force everything to be caught in front of us and if they want to do this the whole game, we don’t believe they will, but if they want to, they’ll just have to dink and dunk and really check it down to their running back the entire game,” Costello said. “If you go back and watch tape, when they play Washington and Cal, they play a very similar defense. They play a 3-4, the will (linebacker) and sam (linebacker) end up dropping out and they’re playing a prevent defense. A lot of times, people play that on third down or the end of a game, and we were seeing that almost 90 percent on snaps, which was insane to be quite honest.”
I’ve never played in a football game where I felt like it was happening in slow motion in terms of defenders weren’t moving… just stretching defenders… when you have five underneath defenders, nobody has to move. They just pass everything off, so we weren’t able to complete anything downfield.”
This isn’t to say the Air Raid doesn’t work — often times it does. There’s almost always someone open to throw to, allowing the team that runs it to drive down the field quickly and aggressively.
“I learned a ton. I learned how to check the ball down. I learned to be efficient, I learned how not to put the ball in danger,” Costello said.
If we created a tidal wave response when people were dropping eight, I think we would have done what we did to LSU to a lot of people,” said. “I think we would have demanded respect. We would have put a lot of pressure on a lot of defenses. We ourselves had a pretty good defense. I haven’t had that good of a defense in a while, so it wasn’t great not being able to support them.”
The West Coast pro-style system Costello played in at Stanford couldn’t have been much more different than the one he adapted to at the helm for the Bulldogs.
The Air Raid is based on repetition and perfecting concepts as opposed to overall complexity.
“I would play a game where I feel like I’m playing a complete game and putting us in a perfect place at Stanford checking from a run to a run or a run to a run to a pass based on the defense’s structure,” he said. “I’d go 19-for-22 for like 200 yards and I felt like I played a perfect game. In the Air Raid, you go 36-for-60 for 600 yards and you can make 15 or 20 not-so-great passes or throw it away or whatever… The intermittent passing game, a lot more preparation and detail. It’s like, the is what these guys are doing, this what they’re playing.’ Leach’s philosophy is more like we’re gonna run 8-10 plays. We’re gonna run it regardless of coverage and we’re gonna do it so much in practice that we’ve kind of built in a response with something we can execute with.”
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Costello challenges the people around him — whether you’re a layperson looking at his thoughts on bitcoin, democracy and other things on Twitter or a coach who works with him day in and day out.
Grady recalls this from Costello’s high school days.
“He used to challenge me as his coach,” Grady said. “Not in negative ways, but more of a ‘hey, why are we doing this? What’s the reason behind this?’ He challenges you to think, and he challenges you to have answers.”
Anyone who has spent time around Costello will tell you that he’s an incredibly deep thinker and has a lot of thoughts on a wide range of topics.
“He puts that out there,” Curtis said. “He’s worldly, let’s put it that way.”
“He just has that kind of composure, that confidence. He doesn’t flaunt it, it’s just that he has it. I think it’s something that’s built into him,” Curtis said. “It’s not just football with him. It’s world events, it’s politics. All those kinds of things, he’s going to get involved in. He’s not just a football player.”
Harry Welch, one of Costello’s first coaches, noticed it as well and says his high level of intelligence applies both on and off the field.
“He’s always been very cerebral,” he said. “He went through a very rigorous academic program in high school and then at Stanford. He’s always been someone who, his cerebellum has been an asset.”
Costello has a degree in Political Science from Stanford and had Condoleeza Rice as his advisor and mentor.
But he’s not necessarily interested in going into politics at this point, and perhaps not any point in the near future.
“I’m interested in a lot of things in terms of national security and cybersecurity and things like that,” Costello said. “But that’s side hobbies in terms of what I studied at Stanford. I’m more interested in paying attention… it’s taught me how things actually work in terms of style and function and things like that. I think a lot of people don’t necessarily understand the ties that society is rooted in.
A lot of the stuff I studied at Stanford was the interconnectedness of university, the private sector and the government, which a lot of people don’t necessarily think about how all of those are interconnected.”
Costello says he’s interested in working with a team when his own football career is over.
“I want to play as long as I can and I want to manage a team after I’m done playing,” he said. “That’s the plan. I wouldn’t go straight into politics, that’s for sure, especially with nowadays it’s not my cup of tea right now the way it’s shaken out.”
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At the end of the day, Costello has a firm sense of who he is as a person and a player.
Going from being projected as one of the most sought-after players in the 2021 NFL Draft to someone who may struggle to get a hard look doesn’t change any of that.
Each of his high school coaches will tell you there’s no reason to believe he can’t be successful at the next level, and that if anything, the way the season ultimately went at Mississippi State just gives him more drive.
“I battled adversity and I played in the SEC. Now I’m more interested in surprising folks along the way.”
Welch puts who Costello is a person and a prospect in perspective better than anyone.
“I think most people will see a guy who is extremely intelligent and wants to play football, who has the physical attributes and a great desire to excel at the next level. I thought he was an outstanding young man, and I think yet, he’s still an unpolished diamond — especially where the NFL is concerned.”
