Your Crimson Tide All-American QB

I hesitate to even post this, because it feels like shooting fish in a barrel.

I was listening to sports talk radio yesterday. This is something I occasionally do, when I get a little tired of listening to R.E.M., Pavement, or some other band I'm spending way too much time listening to. Anyway, I paraphrase what a caller to this program said:

I think John Parker Wilson is going to be an All-American this year.

The host of the show politely but firmly disagreed.

Looking at the formula and analysis I generated earlier, which I submit is the best way to analyze the productivity of a quarterback with the statistics we can easily gather, John Parker Wilson generated an average of 6.14 "yards" per play. This was pretty much dead-center within the SEC. Well behind the likes of Jamarcus Russell, but well ahead of the likes of Brent Schaeffer. His 6.14 rating came in right behind Brandon Cox's 6.37 and right ahead of Omarr Conner's 6.13. Wilson was, therefore, a pretty average SEC quarterback, in terms of production on the field.*

"But," you ask, "He set an Alabama record for passing yards in a season." Yes, he certainly did. He threw for 2707 yards last season, an Alabama single-season record. It was, however, fifth in the SEC last year. You heard that right, four other quarterbacks in the SEC put up numbers that would have been record-setting had they been playing for Alabama. Plus, if you combine Syvelle Newton's and Blake Mitchell's yardage splitting time for South Carolina, they would have had almost 400 yards more than Wilson had. So, a total of five teams in the SEC got more passing yardage last year than Alabama.

The numbers bear out if you look even further, also. Wilson was fifth in the league in touchdown passes. Sixth, if you combine Mitchell's and Newton's touchdowns. Only three SEC quarterbacks threw more interceptions than Wilson did (Mitchell and Newton, combined, threw more as well). He was the only full-time starter not to get a rushing touchdown. Putting this in perspective, Brandon Cox had a rushing touchdown, and I think I read somewhere that he had his feet amputated in the middle of the season.

I'm not trying to dump on the guy. Like I said, he was an average SEC quarterback last year. That means he went into the toughest football conference in the country and held his own as a true sophomore. He didn't stand out, but he didn't look out of place either. What's more, there's a little room for improvement. He'll be entering his second year as starter, and it's reasonable to expect he'll be more comfortable. He'll also have all of his receivers returning from last year, including playmakers Keith Brown and DJ Hall.

However, the guy has done absolutely nothing to suggest he's All-American material. He wasn't particularly close to being All-SEC material last year. To get there, he's going to have to pass up Erik Ainge, Andre Woodson, and Blake Mitchell, while watching out for a healthy Brandon Cox, an emerging Matthew Stafford, Tim Tebow, Chris Nickson, and Matt Flynn. It's a tough conference out there, with lots of QBs who think they're going to be great.

* I'm being careful not to say that my formula reveals who is "best". It doesn't do that, and I don't think there's any way of statistically analyzing which player is the best quarterback. I measure "productivity". Productivity for a quarterback, like every other position, is highly dependent on players other than the quarterback. I think it's a pretty obvious point when you think about it. No QB will produce much without a decent offensive line. Good receivers help a lot too (otherwise, why would you need them?). Don't overlook hos a good rushing attack will help a team be very efficient in the passing offense as well. I think you can ask Andre Woodson about that.

Recruiting 101 Part 4 - Transferring Out?

Sometimes, the best way for a player to help a team is to leave it. When a player does not develop as hoped, and finds himself in a situation where he will never be a solid contributor at LSU, he can help both himself and the team by going to another program, one where he will play and be a key contributor.

I'm thinking in particular here about football, where people sometimes bemoan the fact that players leave the team when they don't get the playing time they expect. For example, in the past year, both Tim Washington and Antonio Robinson announced that they would be leaving the team. Washington is a defensive end who found himself behind the likes of Tyson Jackson, Rahim Alem, Tremaine Johnson, and Ricky Jean-Francois on the depth charts. He also saw the incoming freshman class and realized that he was never going to break through the depth chart and into the lineup. He is currently shopping around for a new school. Robinson is a running back who saw himself fall to seventh on the depth chart in Fall camp last year after redshirting the previous year, behind 3 other freshmen. He decided to pull up stakes and go to Northwestern State.

Both of these players are doing LSU a favor. How is it helpful to lose athletes, even ones who are far down the depth chart? I touched on it once before. It's called the "85/25" rule. As I explained,

It's not just a rule of recruiting. It is probably the single most important rule in all of college football, save perhaps for the rule that you can't pay your players. Put simply, a football team may add no more than 25 new scholarship players in any one calendar year, and may have no more than 85 players on scholarship at any one time.

Think about that. You can add as many as 25 new scholarships in any one year, but can have no more than 85 players on scholarship at one time.

Let's do some Math. Let's say that you want to sign 25 people every year. Year 1, you have 25 people on scholarship. Year 2, you have 50. Year 3, you have 75. Year 4, you have 100. Uh oh. In year 4, you can't sign 25 people because it will put you over the 85 person limit. After all, those 25 people you recruited in year 1 will be entering their senior years. Every four years, you have to recruit a smaller class. Much smaller. With recruiting being uncertain at best, you're probably going to have to pass up a lot of good players you'd otherwise want to take.

And don't even get into the problems that could be caused by redshirting, which adds a 5th year of eligibility, and a fifth year of occupying a scholarship. Let's just say that if you sign the most you can sign, and if you redshirt half the people you sign, and if everyone stays as long as they can, in your 5th year you will not be doing any recruiting at all. Over a two year period, you will add ten players to your team. You can't start recruiting again until those big classes you signed in years 1, 2, and 3 start graduating... or leaving for other reasons.

Aha! "Leaving for other reasons"? See what I mean now? There are a few ways someone can leave a program with eligibility remaining. He can a) be really really good and declare himself professional after 3 years, or b) he can simply give up his scholarship and leave.

You would prefer not to have a) happen if you avoid it, but b) sounds really promising doesn't it? The key is to get the right players to leave. Fortunately, most of the time it works out very logically. People who don't play want to leave to go somewhere they will play. Occasionally, I suppose, a solid contributor will leave a program because he doesn't like the coaches, or because of personal problems, or some other non-performance reason. Most of the time, however, a key contributor will be happy and will stick with the program while a guy riding the pine will be unhappy.

But, you ask, why recruit a guy who won't contribute, only for the sake of getting him to leave later? Well, they don't recruit guys knowing they won't contribute. Recruiting is way more uncertain than that. A team instead will recruit, say, 4 running backs over a two year period, all of whom have the potential to be good. Let's call them RB-A, RB-B, RB-C, and RB-D. They will expect, however, that one or two of them will fail to reach their potential (or that the coaches will have misjudged the players' potential) and will not really emerge as solid players. However, from the outset, the coaches will not have any idea which of the 4 will make it and which will not. Each one is a risk, and they recruit enough quantity that they expect they will get enough quality after the players develop.

Let's say that RB-A and RB-D emerge as really good running backs. RB-C ends up OK, but clearly behind A and D, and RB-B proves to be lazy, constantly out of shape, and/or an attitude problem. RB-A and RB-D put together a lot of highlights. RB-C plays in spot situations at the end of blowouts, and RB-B never sees the field.

Hopefully, RB-B transfers out of the program quickly. Also, hopefully, RB-C will see the handwriting on the wall and realize he will never pass up A or D and will leave after a couple years of trying to break through. This will open up two scholarship slots for two other running backs to come in (RB-E and RB-F), with a full four years of eligibility, who will be there when those other running backs graduate. If those other guys had stayed, you wouldn't have been able to recruit E and F.

RB-E and RB-F will then compete against each other and whoever else is recruited the following years to see who will be the best running backs on later teams.

And it is like this at EVERY POSITION. Every coach recruits more than he needs, expecting some not to meet their potential, but not knowing who will and who won't beforehand. Every year, some players see the handwriting on the wall and leave. As a result, LSU does not have to have years with only 5 or 10 recruits.

Even with this mechanism in place, however, every program will have the occasional year where they simply can't add 25 new players. Rumor has it that LSU is entering one of those years in 2008. If you listen to the talk about this, LSU will only be able to sign about 20 people this year. I don't buy it. I think more people are going to end up leaving, as they see the incoming freshmen pass them on the depth charts, and we will be recruiting the standard 25 again in 2008.

Let's look at Alabama

Granted, I criticized overly optimistic Bama fans here. Actually, I think it was more like I simply disagreed with them and carefully explained my reasoning. The word "crazy" was not used, and don't check on that. Just believe me. I didn't use it. I live in Tuscaloosa and do business here. I'm not about to be overly critical of Bama football. As I said in my introduction I am always going to be fair, objective, and non-sensationalist in evaluating other teams.

I said that I thought it was foolish to think that Bama would win or even compete for the National Championship next year or the year following, but I really do think Bama looks like they will be better next year than last year, and I'd think that with or without Saban at the helm.

One rule of thumb is that a team that loses a lot of close games has a very short road to improvement. If you're getting blown out a lot, it takes a lot to make up that difference, but if you're staying in games, it doesn't take much. Last year, they lost a lot of close games, and had a terrible red zone offense. A modest improvement to the red zone offense could be the difference in 2 to 3 games.

Also, keep in mind that Bama will finally have a veteran offensive line next year. For the past two years, Bama ended the season without a single senior starting on the offensive line. Also, last year, the two best offensive linemen were a sophomore and a true freshman. Those guys will have one additional year of experience, as will the guys around them.

Bama does not lose a single key player from its offense. By "key player" I mean one who was productive and not relatively easily replaced. Ken Darby graduated following a very good career, but his senior year was terribly unproductive. Graduations of Tim Castille and McClain leave the fullback spot open, but again it's usually not that difficult to find a good fullback. Their best tailback from last year, Jimmy Johns, returns. They lack, at this point, a real game breaking tailback, but Johns is a very serviceable power back.

Their entire passing game returns. They return their QB, every tight end, and all of their top 5 wide receivers from an offense last year that saw JP Wilson set a single season Bama record for passing yardage, though as my earlier post shows, he was only mid-pack in the SEC as far as production per play. If you're a Bama fan, you hope he's poised for improvement in his second year as starter. DJ Hall and Keith Brown are both playmakers at the wide receiver position.

In short, then, the Bama offense returns virtually entirely intact, but one year better and more experienced.

On defense, they have to replace their defensive tackles, their best safety, their best linebacker, and their second best corner. I'm not discounting those losses, but they return playmakers Simeone Castille, Prince Hall, and Wallace Gilberry. They lose some, but they don't lose nearly as much as they lost the year before, and the defense was pretty good last year. They'll have to find a couple more playmakers, but every team has to do that.

So, I think Bama has an offense that is due to improve greatly, and a defense that looks like it will probably stay close to the same. That makes for an improved team. As long the coaching change doesn't cause too many disruptions, they are very likely to be an improved team.

Sorry

I apologize for the lack of a post yesterday. Baby is cutting into blogging time, somethin' fierce.

Congratulations to the Lady Tigers for their stunning upset of UConn to get to their 4th consecutive Final Four. "Stunning Upset" doesn't do it justice however. It was a thorough beat-down. The team seems possessed right now. I honestly don't think anything can stop them. In their previous Final Fours, they didn't get it done, but I think this is the year they win it all.

It will take the sting off of what has been a bad year for the men's program, and will be a bad year for the baseball program.

I have been meaning to start something on this, and today seems like a good day for it.

Prepare yourself for the start of tradition Wednesday of Bogging Whimsy. Here is today's whimsy. A ten minute clip of an early Space Ghost: Coast to Coast episode, with a special appearance by the Beat..., uh, Pavement.

Round 4

It's over.

Richard: 603 points, 0 players remaining
Scott: 598 points, Corey Brewer remaining
Poseur: 517 points, Jeff Green remaining
Jason: 502 points, Jeff Green remaining, mathematically eliminated
Daniel: 418 points, Jeff Green remaining, mathematically eliminated

Poseur's still mathematically in it, but not really. He has to hope Green scores 86 points in the next two games to have any chance at all. That's virtually impossible, and even if he did it, he would still probably lose. Even if Green scored 106 points, he'd still probably lose.

I'm still mathematically in it, but I have virtually no chance. I have to hope that Corey Brewer is completely shut down, because Scott is only 5 points away from me, and I have no players remaining. If Brewer scores 6 points, I'm toast.

So, it's all Scott. Hell, I doubt I'm even going to watch the rest of it. I've only watched it in spots lately anyway. It just hasn't been that fun. I guess Georgetown has the best opportunity to actually make this interesting.

Good luck to the Lady Tigers, currently leading #1 seed UConn by 10 in the first half.

LSU Quarterback Situation

On Friday, one or two people on TigerDroppings accused me of idiocy because I

a. Said that Blake Mitchell was a pretty good quarterback, and
b. Said that at this point I would probably take Blake Mitchell over Matt Flynn.

Then on Saturday, eyewitness reports from the LSU Spring Game said that Flynn looked pretty average and that Perrilloux looked below average. Suddenly, LSU Nation had a bona fide quarterbacking crisis. I wonder if my statement that I would prefer Blake Mitchell at this point would be more popular. I didn't read all the "woe are us" threads, but I doubt anyone made any mention of my day-old statements. On such a high-traffic, high-content site like TigerDroppings, memories usually fade pretty quickly.

Believe me, I was as surprised as anyone could be to find out, through a look at actual statistics, that Mitchell was the second most productive QB in the conference last year, measured on a "per play" basis. I would have guessed he'd have come out behind Leak, Ainge, and Woodson at least. But no; he was ahead of all of them, and behind only Jamarcus Russell. People scoffed. People mocked. People pointed out that Mitchell was benched halfway through the year.

People also pointed out that Mitchell had Sidney Rice to throw to. I don't buy that this made that much of a difference. After all, Leak had Baker, Harvin, and Caldwell. Ainge had Meachem. Woodson had... umm.. well, I'm not sure he had anybody at all. Mitchell was ahead of all of them. Also, Syvelle Newton also had Sidney Rice to throw to, and he ended up behind Mitchell too.

Anyway, enough about Mitchell. This post is supposed to be about Matt Flynn. Reports out off pre-Spring Game practices were that he was doing well. Reports from the game itself differ. I haven't watched one second of practice, so I don't really know. However, I know one thing that troubles me terribly: No SEC team will be starting a QB who took fewer meaningful snaps in 2006 than did Matt Flynn. If that's not a potential team weakness, I don't know what is.

Only one other team will be replacing their full-time starting QB, and that is Florida. Florida at least has the benefit of having gotten Tim Tebow significant meaningful playing time in 2006. Don't get me wrong; Tebow still has to prove he can perform every down and deal with the inevitable adversity that comes with being a starter. For a sophomore, however, he has quite a bit of competitive experience.

Flynn, as a 5th year senior, has significant practice experience going against some of the best defenses in the country. He has a lot of mop-up duty experience. He had a very good game against Miami in the Peach Bowl two years ago. He had some other less than spectacular appearances in his career as well. I ultimately think Flynn will be a very good QB, but we can't overlook the fact that his level of responsibility has never been what it will be next year, and he is NOT the quarterback that Jamarcus Russell was. Russell was special, and could do things that a defense had never seen before. Flynn is a more conventional talent. There are bound to be some growing pains as he improves.

The good news is that he will have what may be an exceptionally good running attack to lean on while he gets accustomed to being The Man. And he will have an exceptionally good defense erasing any errors.

Round 3

After 3 rounds of basketball, here is the scoring:

Richard: 585 points, Brandon Rush remaining
Scott: 584 points, Corey Brewer remaining
Poseur: 487 points, Julian Wright and Jeff Green remaining
Jason: 472 points, Mario Chalmers and Jeff Green remaining
Daniel: 394 points, Mario Chalmers and Jeff Green remaining

I think it's probably a 2-man race at this point, even though Poseur and Jason have an extra player. Scott and I simply have too much of a head start. Poseur got hosed by UNLV's Wendell White and Kansas's Julian Wright only getting 7 points each. He lost ground in a round where he could have gained ground.

Poseur and Jason will close the gap in the next round, but they really need for Jeff Green to go off for 30 points or so if they want to start catching up. Poseur needs Julian Wright to start putting up more points than Brewer and Rush as well.

Focusing on the top 2, Scott and I are separated by a razor thin margin, and I think it's obvious that the winner will come down to whichever of Kansas or Florida advances the farthest. If they both play the same number of games, there's no way to predict who will win it.