I think you’ve asked a very hard question lol. Don’t mean that in a snide way at all.
I think there’s a couple things to point out to simplify it. Why does a great HS player not succeed or have skills transferable to D1 or to only a D2/3 school? It’s usually a lot of little things that equal a big thing or 1-2 big things. NFL players are physical elite compared to most college players in a way that D1 players are physically elite compared to most HS players. It’s like moving up the “triangle”. The further up you go, you need to be elite in a couple things or almost elite in many things. And the amount of players who meet either of those gets smaller and smaller.
But especially for an NFL QB you need to be able to pass the ball at a level that even good college players can’t do. Tebow had an arm but not an NFL arm and if you look back at the boards. There were always games people were upset Eric missed a deep pass and that’s why they thought Devito was the answer. What made Tebow and Eric great CFB players is because they didn’t play against an all elite defense. They could get away with things against college players every single NFL player would destroy them 8/10 plays.
Essentially, both those players had reached the peak of their abilities on the triangle. Nether had elite anything except for will and desire but that doesn’t get you far in the NFL, by itself. Because every NFL player has that or they wouldn’t have made it that far.
