Former SU QB Charley Loeb trained Carlos Del Rio-Wilson this summer

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When Carlos Del Rio-Wilson first started practicing with Charley Loeb, there was one key piece of information he didn’t know — Loeb was a quarterback at Syracuse from 2009-13.

When Loeb realized that Del Rio-Wilson had no idea, he decided to mess with SU’s backup quarterback. Loeb gave Del Rio-Wilson a few unfamiliar schemes before showing him an old playbook from when he was Syracuse’s signal caller. Del Rio-Wilson did a double take and said, “Oh, sh*t!”

“As the week progressed, me and him got closer and closer,” Del Rio-Wilson said. “We started having more conversations outside of football and that’s how I found out.”

Del Rio-Wilson made his first collegiate start on Nov. 15 against Pittsburgh in an eventual 19-9 loss. A few weeks earlier, he showed flashes of potential versus Notre Dame in relief of an injured Garrett Shrader on Oct. 29. But, with glimpses of quality play also came two interceptions and a 43% completion rate.

Starting last May, the Florida transfer worked with Loeb on his consistency by going back to basics. Both trainer and trainee said the work has paid off. Del Rio-Wilson threw for three touchdowns and 149 yards in SU’s season-opening win against Colgate.

“I definitely feel like that’s one of the best quarterback coaches that I ever trained with,” Del Rio-Wilson said of Loeb. “He definitely helped me out with my performance on the field.”

During his five seasons at Syracuse, Loeb only threw the ball 12 times. He served as the team’s primary holder on field goals and PATs. Still, Loeb committed to the position that he had always played. He aided SU’s quarterbacks in 2014 as a student assistant before becoming an assistant coach at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Mass.

After stops at Northwestern and Saint Anselm College, Loeb joined QB Country Atlanta, a quarterback training and development company founded by former Ole Miss quarterback David Morris in 2019. Shrader worked with QB Country’s North Carolina division for years.

Loeb said he wanted to work more on the performance side of the game. He found today’s college coaching to have a heavier emphasis on recruiting.

“I didn’t actually know it was a possibility in the coaching world to do something like that,” Loeb said. “And then I just did a bit of research and saw QB Country. These guys are probably the best guys doing it right now.”

Loeb first got in touch with Del Rio-Wilson through the quarterback’s father, Carlos Del Rio. The two worked at Velocity Athlete Development in Atlanta and also frequented big turf fields at the Mud Creek Soccer Complex.

With a quarterback like Del Rio-Wilson, Loeb said the two didn’t need to go deep into film study. The pair immediately went into base drills, mainly focusing from shotgun as many college quarterbacks don’t work from under center anymore.

Loeb had questions during the early stages of working with Del Rio-Wilson. Could he execute specific footwork patterns and reset to a new target with ease? Could he throw while moving in the pocket?

“No matter how good an athlete is, or how well drilled, nobody’s perfect at everything,” Loeb said. “So that’s kind of what we did and kind of figured out what he felt least comfortable with.”

Loeb started to find out what Del Rio-Wilson’s inefficiencies were. Del Rio-Wilson impressed with his arm strength and the amount of torque he created, but Loeb wanted to revisit some of the basics. He said he wanted to make sure Del Rio-Wilson practiced the correct posture and alignment to use his physicality to his advantage.

“And when you do that, there’s less exertion, it’s easier,” Loeb said. “You’re not fighting yourself, you’re not fighting physics.”

Del Rio-Wilson said that Loeb specialized in pinpointing exactly what to fix, drawing up various scenarios on a white board to test Del Rio-Wilson. During spring ball, Del Rio-Wilson struggled with throwing 10-yard out routes. He said Loeb helped relax his footwork to help prepare for the throw.

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By the time Del Rio-Wilson returned to campus, his fellow quarterbacks noticed the difference. By the fourth week of fall camp, Shrader said that Del Rio-Wilson had started to connect on more deep throws to score touchdowns.

When Del Rio-Wilson entered in the third quarter against Colgate, he showed off his improvements under Loeb. With 7:48 left in the quarter at the Raiders’ 5-yard line, he faced a blitz from Michael Slivka. Del Rio-Wilson dodged the opposing linebacker, rolling right. He threw the ball to Isaiah Jones in the back of the endzone to make the score 51-0. It was exactly what he and Loeb worked on: moving in the pocket while making a throw.

The quarterback threw two more touchdowns — a screen pass that Kendall Long took 25 yards and a delivery to Darrell Gill Jr. who ran a curl route for a score. Loeb and teammates like Shrader said that he was excited watching Del Rio-Wilson play and hopes for more.

“It was nice to see them get some runs. I was joking (saying, ‘How come I have to throw the ball 24 times to get these yards. But (Carlos) throws three balls and he has 200 yards of offense,” Shrader said.