Armstrong Leading the QB Race

zoogies said:
NUpolo8 said:
QB's with no game experience mop up or otherwise, do not come in and press the incumbent, healthy, starter, let alone overtake him, unless he's a natural transcendent star.
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I have to completely disagree with this. The incumbent has to be really good. At any major program, guys who could be better are coming in almost on a yearly basis. The distance between TA and the pack speaks either to TA's ability to separate himself, or Stanton lagging way behind on his promise. Or a little of both.
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Im not comparing talents here, but look at USC's QB queue during their run.

Palmer to Leinart to Booty to Sanchez......

I'm no Carroll fan, but one of the smartest things he did was keep an incumbent going as long as he could have. Leinart was arguably better than Palmer. I'm pretty confident in college Sanchez was better than Booty. But he kept the machine going, kept continuity, and they never really missed a beat in that dept. Only when Sanchez bolted, too early in Carroll's mind, did they have to go with Barkley as a freshman, and lo and behold, the wheels came undone a little.

Sure they had more weapons, but I'd be willing to wager with Nebraska's current crop of runners, and a capable WR corp, they could pull off something similar.

 
NUpolo8 said:
Mavric said:
NUpolo8 said:
Am I to believe a lot of people honestly thought Stanton was going to be the Nebraska Jameis Winston here?

Wow.
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I guess you can believe that if you want but I've seen no one say that.
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The semantics game is fun isn't it?

Yes I'm sure no one here actually said verbatim what I said-- but you know just as well as I do that a lot of people here just got hit right in the feels because Stanton didn't just come in and miraculously out perform a more experienced player who's plenty talented in his own right.
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Don't think I've seen anyone say that either.

Count me as one who is surprised it doesn't seem to be a little closer. I'm by no means anti-TA. If he's the best man for the job, he has my full support. But I'm not sold on him. He runs the ball pretty well and has a very strong arm (no pun intended). But his mechanics worry me. He doesn't seem to be particularly accurate on his sort throws. From watching him last year and the little I've seen in video and pictures this spring, he doesn't step into his throws very well. Perhaps he's trusting his arm strength to get it there but I'm not sure that will last. Throwing a nice long ball is great but a quarterback can't make a living that way and we don't seem to throw deep very often anyway. You have to be quick and accurate with your short passes. And that's tough to do without good mechanics with your feet. Without them, you're bound to miss throws to open receivers and more likely throw INTs.

From when he was in high school, practice reports last year and so far this spring, Stanton is a pretty accurate thrower. Sounds like his biggest problem right now is working through his read progression. That's no small thing either but can be expected to improve over time, especially getting to run our offense more than the scout team offense. I don't expect Stanton to suddenly put us in the National Championship game but I think short, quick throws - getting the ball to play-makers and letting them run - is where we can give ourselves a better chance for success. Perhaps TA is a great leader and can make enough plays to overcome that but I hope he can improve in that area. It's just tough to break those kinds of habits.

 
Mavric said:
NUpolo8 said:
Mavric said:
NUpolo8 said:
Am I to believe a lot of people honestly thought Stanton was going to be the Nebraska Jameis Winston here?

Wow.
Click to expand...
I guess you can believe that if you want but I've seen no one say that.
Click to expand...
The semantics game is fun isn't it?

Yes I'm sure no one here actually said verbatim what I said-- but you know just as well as I do that a lot of people here just got hit right in the feels because Stanton didn't just come in and miraculously out perform a more experienced player who's plenty talented in his own right.
Click to expand...
Don't think I've seen anyone say that either.

Count me as one who is surprised it doesn't seem to be a little closer. I'm by no means anti-TA. If he's the best man for the job, he has my full support. But I'm not sold on him. He runs the ball pretty well and has a very strong arm (no pun intended). But his mechanics worry me. He doesn't seem to be particularly accurate on his sort throws. From watching him last year and the little I've seen in video and pictures this spring, he doesn't step into his throws very well. Perhaps he's trusting his arm strength to get it there but I'm not sure that will last. Throwing a nice long ball is great but a quarterback can't make a living that way and we don't seem to throw deep very often anyway. You have to be quick and accurate with your short passes. And that's tough to do without good mechanics with your feet. Without them, you're bound to miss throws to open receivers and more likely throw INTs.

From when he was in high school, practice reports last year and so far this spring, Stanton is a pretty accurate thrower. Sounds like his biggest problem right now is working through his read progression. That's no small thing either but can be expected to improve over time, especially getting to run our offense more than the scout team offense. I don't expect Stanton to suddenly put us in the National Championship game but I think short, quick throws - getting the ball to play-makers and letting them run - is where we can give ourselves a better chance for success. Perhaps TA is a great leader and can make enough plays to overcome that but I hope he can improve in that area. It's just tough to break those kinds of habits.
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Maybe there actually needs to be a real QB coach on staff?

 
I just hope we have a starting QB by our first game in the fall. We'll look pretty silly if we only send 10 guys out on offense and there's nobody behind center.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that TA is leading the depth chart at QB at this point.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that fans would love to see the QB play improve immensely this coming season, whether that comes from TA or somebody else probably doesn't matter much to most fans. I'm not knocking TA but it's pretty natural to always be hoping for that break-out kid that knocks your socks off.

 
NUpolo8 said:
Yes, and I'm of the belief a lot of the anti Taylor guys will miss what we had and really took him for granted for most of his time here.

Also, Zac Lee was incredibly injured.
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I think some people just wanted there to be more of a QB battle, even if there wasn't a lot of evidence to suggest there would be one outside of a) Stanton's high school tape and b) what people that know him say about him.

I'm with you, though. Freshman quarterbacks coming in and impressing right away can certainly be done, there's no denying that. But, it's still fairly uncommon I would argue that they beat out incumbents, or, at least a player that saw significant PT the year before.

Of course, I hope TA gets better. You compare his numbers to TM's frosh year and they're comparable in some ways, not so much in others. But, TM turned into a decent passer and that was someone that started with pretty awful mechanics. TA's foundation is a lot stronger at this point in his career so I think his path to success might be a bit easier from a fundamental standpoint. An entire off season of working with receivers, studying the playbook, and working with the coaches in the spring/fall should lead to decent improvement. I think this off season will be even more crucial for TA to get that work in with his WR's.

 
NUpolo8 said:
zoogies said:
NUpolo8 said:
QB's with no game experience mop up or otherwise, do not come in and press the incumbent, healthy, starter, let alone overtake him, unless he's a natural transcendent star.
Click to expand...
I have to completely disagree with this. The incumbent has to be really good. At any major program, guys who could be better are coming in almost on a yearly basis. The distance between TA and the pack speaks either to TA's ability to separate himself, or Stanton lagging way behind on his promise. Or a little of both.
Click to expand...
Im not comparing talents here, but look at USC's QB queue during their run.

Palmer to Leinart to Booty to Sanchez......

I'm no Carroll fan, but one of the smartest things he did was keep an incumbent going as long as he could have. Leinart was arguably better than Palmer. I'm pretty confident in college Sanchez was better than Booty. But he kept the machine going, kept continuity, and they never really missed a beat in that dept. Only when Sanchez bolted, too early in Carroll's mind, did they have to go with Barkley as a freshman, and lo and behold, the wheels came undone a little.

Sure they had more weapons, but I'd be willing to wager with Nebraska's current crop of runners, and a capable WR corp, they could pull off something similar.
Click to expand...


Carson Palmer won the Heisman trophy his senior season numbers are literally almost identical to Matt Leinhart's sophomore season numbers the next year. Matt Leinhart was a freshman when Carson Palmer, as a senior, won the Heisman.

John David Booty was a good quarterback but clearly nowhere close to the talent that Matt Leinhart was.

Mark Sanchez following Booty is the only place in that line that you can maybe argue the possibility that the incumbent wasn't a clearly better option than the up-and-comer behind him.

Oh and Zac Lee got surgery and was 100% healthy and ready to go going into the 2010 offseason.

 
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I would also like to point out that many of the teams we've been discussing (some of the really good USC ones, even Winston/Manziel) have a lot better talent across the entire team. We can still compare and discuss but I think that's something important to keep in mind. A guy like Mike Evans really helped Manziel put up the numbers he did, for example. I also still maintain we've had an average to slightly above average offensive line through the last several years.

 
BigRedBuster said:
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
Take it however you want, but taking it as "people are already writing him off and wishing someone else was the QB" doesn't seem like a logical conclusion at all. We've had the same record the last 6 years despite all kinds of different quarterbacks.
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Why? The thread is about Armstrong being our starting QB. The very first post does nothing other than say "9-4" and other seem to agree. It is completely logical to take that as..."unimpressed and same ol' same ol'". Meaning, not impressed with our starting QB for which this thread is about.
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Your translation is spot on.

 
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Florida State, USC, Virginia, Michigan State, Oklahoma State, Tennessee, and Purdue are just a few schools(not-exhaustive by any means) that I turned up after 5 minutes of googling that had a freshman or new/inexperienced quarterback start over or split time with the experienced returner.

At least 7 miracles in college football in just the last year hallelujah

 
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