Dan Wolken

USA TODAY Sports

DAVIE, Fla. — On a steamy May morning just outside of Miami, Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock and Western Kentucky quarterback Brandon Doughty are standing 5 yards apart, tossing each other small green plastic balls.

Ken Mastrole, the former Maryland quarterback who bounced around NFL Europe and the Arena Football League in the early 2000s, is standing behind them, barking instructions for the drill they're about to start, which will have them twist into their throwing motion twice without releasing the ball, then make a quick toss on the third attempt.

"Pretend like there's a piece of glass in front of it," Mastrole said. "When you come through, you're going to tap the bone on the outside of your forearm and nose of the ball on the glass, quick. You're using less arm; you're working on twist. If the ball is coming out of your hand, you're doing it wrong. Twist and tap. Don't lead with the arm! Don't lead with the ball! Twist and tap."

Over the course of the 90-minute workout, Mastrole will lead them through various quarterback drills — some conventional, some less so — that focus primarily on footwork, balance, breathing, getting the body properly aligned to a target. At one point, he even mentions to Doughty that he's adjusting his grip too much as he's dropping back.

The next day, both quarterbacks would be headed back to their respective campuses for offseason workouts. But Mastrole hopes they can take some of the lessons from the workout and incorporate them into their preparation into the upcoming college football season.

"Guys like LeBron James or Usain Bolt, they get into the moment, but they're very relaxed, they can control their body movements," said Mastrole, who counts South Carolina's Dylan Thompson and Houston's John O'Korn among his pupils. He also helped E.J. Manuel, Tajh Boyd and Teddy Bridgewater with NFL draft preparations. "Quarterback is all about rhythm and feel, so I try to get these guys, when they're finding that time when they can't put the ball in the ocean, how do they get back to a rhythmic, relaxed state. I want to give guys one or two things they can go back and dial in on."

Mastrole, 37, is at the forefront of an industry that has grown significantly in recent years, offering quarterbacks specialized training from the high school level all the way up to the pros.

Thanks in large part to the celebrity of people such as George Whitfield, who worked with Johnny Manziel before his Heisman Trophy season and landed a regular spot on ESPN, quarterback gurus have seemingly popped up everywhere and secured dozens of clients from the college ranks.

But at the college level in particular, their presence has become a somewhat divisive issue, particularly for coaches whose philosophy is to control every aspect of what their quarterbacks learn.

"We've got good quarterback coaches," Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher said. "My guys aren't going out there. I'll coach them. When they go to pro ball, they can do whatever they want. We'll coach our guys. I don't think it benefits you. We know what we're doing, too."

The first time Utah State coach Matt Wells met Whitfield, he wasn't sure what to make of him. Here was this guy Wells had never heard of, standing in his assistant's office at Louisville in 2009, pulling out beanbags for footwork drills.

"I was like, 'Ehhh, I don't know, George,' " Wells said.

But Whitfield, who was there to train former Louisville quarterback Hunter Cantwell for the draft, impressed Wells by tightening up Cantwell's elongated throwing motion in the span of several weeks.

"I was a big project," said Cantwell, who was introduced to Whitfield through his California-based agency, Rep1 Sports. "We worked for three or four months, and I did pretty well at the combine and had a very good pro day. I think through some of the success I had and how quickly I was able to transform my throwing motion, that opened a lot of people's eyes."

As Whitfield remembers it, he happened to be watching ESPN when draft analyst Todd McShay mentioned how much Cantwell had changed his throwing motion. For Whitfield, it was validation that he had tapped into a useful niche.

"The whole lobby, the secretary, four or five receivers — we had a couple (junior college) guys — you would've thought we were watching the World Cup," Whitfield said. "We cheered just like that. We were all fired up."

The following year, largely due to the success he had with Cantwell, Whitfield got hooked up with Ben Roethlisberger, and his reputation as "The Quarterback Whisperer" took off.

An entire boutique industry took off with it.

David Morris, perhaps best known as Eli Manning's backup at Ole Miss, is a classic example. After college Morris went into real estate, the family business, and got his football fix by tutoring young players in the Mobile, Ala., area.

What started as a hobby gradually evolved into a part-time job. Then five years ago, Morris quit real estate and went into quarterback training full time, starting QB Country, charging upward of $175 for an hour of individual work. He has 15 college quarterbacks working with him this summer, including likely Alabama starter Jacob Coker.

"There's definitely a niche for this," Morris said. "I think what happens is guys excel a little earlier and other people say, 'Man, he really looks the part, so what are the ingredients?' People just see the value in it. You could be sitting on the couch or you could be getting some specific training that is very much related to what you want to do."

A number of college quarterbacks also have found it helpful to work with their own coach simply because NCAA rules prohibit them from getting the kind of specific, detailed technical training on campus in the offseason. Even during the season or in training camp, practice time is so limited that fundamentals often get overlooked.

"You do a short period each day of fundamental stuff, ball placement," said Rudock, the Iowa quarterback who threw for nearly 2,400 yards and 18 touchdowns last season. "But you spend most of your time during the season game-planning."

Mastrole also gets game film of his students and talks with them during the season if he notices something is off in their mechanics. He's careful, however, to make sure what he teaches or communicates remains independent of whatever offensive scheme they're supposed to run.

Mastrole, for instance, modified a drill for Doughty because Western Kentucky coach Jeff Brohm has a specific preference for when he gets rid of the ball on a roll-out.

"It gives them time when coaches can't touch them (per NCAA rules) to really hone in on stuff," Mastrole said. "I don't even look at the ball going to the receiver; I look at the mechanics, isolating technique at a high speed and developing that into being able to incorporate it into the game."

Most of Mastrole's clients, including Rudock and Doughty, are from the talent-rich South Florida area and have worked with him since they were in high school. One of the success stories is O'Korn, who committed to Houston early before many power conference programs began recruiting him. He started as a true freshman and threw for 3,117 yards and 28 touchdowns, crediting Mastrole's breathing exercises for calming his nerves.

"I wouldn't want to work with anybody else," O'Korn said.

Houston coach Tony Levine said he wasn't offended that O'Korn credits so much of his development to someone outside the Cougars' staff.

"If you go to a coaching clinic and learn one thing, you got better," Levine said. "If a young man can go to a different coach that specializes in his position and he comes away with one new drill, one new technique or something that helped him improve he got better and it was worth it."

Not every head coach, however, is as open-minded — particularly those who are heavily involved in coaching the quarterbacks themselves.

That attitude came to the forefront this spring when Auburn's Gus Malzahn told AL.com he would not allow starting quarterback Nick Marshall to work with Whitfield after Marshall's family had expressed some interest in sending him to California.

"You'd think there's got to be so much more going on at a national championship program that you wouldn't have to worry about what's going on or what could happen over 3,000 miles away," Whitfield said.

It's not the first time Whitfield has gotten backlash from a college coaching staff, but Auburn is one of the few programs where it's publicly caused friction.

Arizona's Rich Rodriguez said he wouldn't prohibit it but prefers his quarterbacks working with the coaches on campus until they graduate. Louisville's Bobby Petrino acknowledged that specialists can be helpful for kids or high school students but said he would not give his blessing to a quarterback in his program who wanted to work with a guru.

"We have our own philosophy on how we want them to do things, and we're going to work on our own techniques and fundamentals," Petrino said. "The guys that play for us, we feel like we're going to do the coaching with them. (Offensive coordinator) Garrick McGee and myself have been at it for a long time with quarterbacks, so we like to have our own touch on them."

Terry Shea, a longtime college and NFL coach who trains quarterbacks out of Phoenix and Kansas City, said he understands why some college coaches might be concerned about relinquishing some control.

"Whenever I take on a quarterback, I always ask them, have you discussed this with your offensive coordinator or head coach?" said Shea, who worked with Kansas State's Collin Klein, San Jose State's David Fales and Notre Dame's Tommy Rees while they were in college. "I always try to be very up front with that question."

The amount of communication between college coaches and quarterback gurus can vary from staff to staff.

Kansas State's Bill Snyder sent Shea game tapes of Klein. Clemson's Dabo Swinney said he's never met or even had a conversation with Whitfield despite the fact his former three-year starter, Tajh Boyd, traveled to California to work with him.

When Utah State's star quarterback Chuckie Keeton told Wells he wanted to work with renowned quarterback coach Steve Clarkson this summer, Wells felt it was necessary to be part of the process and set some parameters, particularly with Keeton coming off an ACL injury.

"Kind of like your first child, I feel like he's mine because I've been with him since the second day (predecessor Gary Andersen) hired me. You feel protective," Wells said. "I don't want the guy to mess with him from (the neck) up. But all the lower body stuff, footwork, drops and rhythm, he can probably teach you something I don't know."

In many ways, nobody connects the three major sources of money flowing through college football more than quarterback gurus. Because some work with and have access to high school quarterbacks, they operate on the fringe of the recruiting world. Then on the other end of a college player's career, the private coaches are used to train quarterbacks for NFL combine and pro day drills, a process that obviously involves agents. In the middle are the players themselves, who have to shell out as much as $5,000 in travel, housing, food and training to work with someone such as Shea and still be compliant with NCAA rules.

And the amount of money to be made has, naturally, given rise to some who aggressively pursue clients, embellish credentials or simply don't know what they're doing.

"There are so many guys doing this now. They're popping up all over, guys with cones and workouts," Mastrole said. "And I'm not saying I know everything, but I've seen a lot of bad stuff out there. Guys are coming up with their stuff off YouTube videos."

Though nobody would question Shea's résumé, he said he still avoids marketing himself and only takes on quarterbacks willing to spend five intense, 12-hour days with him working both on the field and in the classroom.

"I do hear more and more of the self-promotion to try to lure these college quarterbacks for a weekend, particularly in May and June, and consequently a lot of the intent of some of these guys is to try to take it even further and get them locked up in preparation for the draft," Shea said. "I don't think you can do a whole bunch in a weekend. You've got to be with a quarterback for more than a couple sessions to understand what's going to help him get better."

But for all the different opinions on the value of quarterback specialists and what role they should play in college football, they're here to stay.

"Coaching quarterbacks is a lot like religion," said Cantwell, who coaches quarterbacks himself at an NAIA school in Kentucky. "There's a bunch of philosophies out there, and people can get pretty touchy when you start messing with a philosophy you have for that position."​

Contributing: Paul Myerberg