threet

I was watching Back to the Future tonight and does anyone else see a resemblence in Threet and Crispin Glover (aka George McFly). This is one of the few pictures of McFly I could find on google image but I think you can see what I am talking about. If you watch the movie there are a lot more resemblences than in this picture.

I find it amazing how the value of Threet is being overstated almost as a badge of wisdom amongst the Michigan writing elite (whoever that is...people like Rivals folks and established bloggers; I know Brian is composing something along these lines at this very moment). It is an obligatory, painful thing to watch. I think it's horseshit. If it's a sign of respect for Threet, then whatever. I am not inclined to go out of my way to be hushed and respectful to people who don't honor their commitments. I won't slam the kid, but I am not going to mute my opinion of his worth as he heads out.

He was not a good QB. Any potential he had was, like sandpaper on skin, painful and at the expense of how RR wanted to conduct football here at Michigan. He was a living, breathing, walking, snapping, throwing example of a square peg. The upside for the square peg fitting into the round hole is never high.

There are many, many, many, many, many reasons why the prospects of these incoming freshman are vastly higher than with Threet.

1. Threet = square peg; Forcier and DRob = roung peg

2. One more year for the other 100 players in RR's system

3. The OLine will be vastly improved. The read option handoff, which was usually into Molk's butt, will likely be viable

4. RB is more settled and the weapons are many

5. More electrons

6. Easier schedule

7. Better defense expected, although this puppy has yet to be fleshed out. One would assume that cohesion on the defensive system and the emergence of some LB talent would make the D better. Can they get worse?

All in all, I'd rather have Threet. Not starting, mind you, just around. I would have been much more concerned if Mouton transferred or Ryan Van Bergen.

Why does everyone hate on Threet? I mean he wasn't the BEST quarterback this season but give the kid some slack. Its Sheridan everyone should hate on.

-Threet got us back in the Utah game
-Threet did good vs ND, but fumbles from others killed it(and that guy named sheridan killed it)
-Threet did good vs PSU until that guy Sheridan ruined it
-After the PSU game, Threet was hurt rest of yr

His stats weren't the best. But, maybe he over threw the ball so much because he was getting pressured by blitz'. Also, our o-line was unexperienced so he didn't have the best experienced o-line. He didn't play in every game, or many 'full' games. Our record would of been alot different if he was our number 1 qb and didn't get hurt. Hes not a spread quarterback either. He got the bad year out of him and now has the experience. Now he actually has a good qb trying to win the spot from him.

This upcoming season I believe Threet will be the number 1 quarterback. With packages coming from Forcier. Each day Forcier will get more experienced and will most likely win the job if hes all hes capable of. Dont say, ahhh, threets the qb we'll suck again. NO, Threets a good qb, hes just not your future heisman qb, hes a good qb in the making.

I started writing this in response to Brian's post, and then decided it was getting long enough to justify a diary entry:

Re: Insane Sherid'oh faction

Sheridan has a good head on his shoulders and is not physically talented enough to play against high-major teams. IMO, he was pretty good against Toledo (both of his int's are just as much on Clemons as they are him), and pretty good against Minnesota; bad against ND and Utah; and !!!!ZOMG=death!!!! against PSU. Therefore, I am confident he will be fine this week. If Threet's not 100% for OSU, though, run for the hills (!!!)

My only worry is that RR seems to have some sort of weird unjustified mancrush on Sheridan (see sticking with him so long against Utah, yanking Threet in arguably his best game, ND), so I hope to goodness RR doesn't take two decent starts (I'm assuming N'western does go decent) from Sheridan as some sort of mandate from the Heavens that the kid should play.

Re: The insane woooo SheriQBcontroversy crowd

How about the performance of one hit wonder J. Siller from Purdue? Anybody notice the beating MSU gave him the next week? Sometimes, when I play basketball with middle school girls, I feel like I'm pretty damn good at basketball.

Re: I hate them both, rawr, rawr, rawr; Forcier = the answer

The only game Threet looked mentally incapable was against MSU. Brian posted about this, but I am starting to think they are the only team that actually planned for us. Threet never seemed "locked in" to receivers in any game except against MSU. Then I thought about it: when is the last time ANYONE who is not MSU covered any of our receivers? The wheel was always open. The seam was always open. Odoms was always open. The pump and go always worked.

The suddenly we run bubble, bubble, and MSU is jumping them all, so pump and go = td, right? Nope, cb from different receiver makes ridiculous jump on perfect pass and nails Clemons (I think?) as he's catching it. Amazing play, touchdown against any other team this year, I think.

As for Threet's accuracy issues, Brian wrote long ago for one of his "worry if" bullets for a game about mid-season 'worry if Threet's accuracy does not improve.' I remember at the time thinking that it was unlikely we see any improvement this year. I don't coach football, but I do coach sports; and I know you don't change a pitcher's delivery mid-season. I think Threet takes a big step forward in mechanics over the off season and resolves those issues (not to mention hopefully being healthy). Mentally, he's been solid in every game (sans State, who might actually just be good, discussed above).

I am excited to see what this kid does with this offense next year.

To prove it is possible, here's a school which brought in a new head coach this season with a totally foreign offense, in this case Navy's triple option.  He made due with leftover QB's, except for Steven Threet, who fell into Michigan's lap. He lost his defensive coordinator, a guy who's now at Notre Dame named John Tenuta.  But he inherited a decent defense - all the D-linemen are considered NFL prospects. He's coaching at a school with high academic standards and a previous head coach who might not be a Crisler but is a Heisman.

Despite a young team which experienced injuries, he's reached # 20 in the rankings with a 7-2 (4-2 in the ACC) record.  The losses were to Va. Tech and Va.  By now you've figured out it's Paul Johnson of Georgia Tech.

Without the benefit of hindsight, who would you have taken back in December?  The choices are Paul Johnson of Navy's boring, smallish offense or Rich Rodriguez of West Va's sexy, cutting edge spread. Not even close. 

The similarities between the two situations are eerie, with Michigan possibly getting the nod for better looking brianiac, liberal arts vs. math and science coeds. With what you've seen so far, who would you take now, being a doormat for at least a year and maybe more but with the vision of dreams to come (us) or the certainty of a winning season and a decent (although sometimes the Humanitarian in Boise) bowl game, but probably never being better than 9-3 (them)? 

I wanted to try to put Steven Threet’s performance thus far
into perspective. Some people think he’s
a stiff who lathers his hands in butter before taking a snap. Others see him as a competent young QB who
can hold his own despite having the deck stacked against him with the depth
chart on offense. He’s probably
somewhere in between….so let’s find out.
One of my motivations has been that I’ve sensed Brian at MGoBlog souring
on him a lot in the past couple of weeks.
Obviously he isn’t Pat White in this offense, but he isn’t Ryan Mallett
either. Let me explain…..

I set out to compare his performance to other Michigan freshman
quarterbacks. It is at this point,
before even looking at a stat, where you can really understand Threet’s
situation. Freshman aren’t supposed to
play at that position. No matter how
good you are in high school, you’re not ready to start at a big-time college
program. Ask Jimmy Clausen. Ask Ryan Mallett. You can argue that Threet is a RED-shirt
freshman and not a TRUE freshman, but since graduating college he’s spent a few
months at Georgia Tech, a few months under Lloyd Carr, and a few months under
Rodriguez. Not exactly a masters course
in preparation for this season.

There are only two circumstances where a freshman QB is likely
to succeed:

1. He’s a
   freakish athlete and can rely on his athleticism to make up for his mental
   and physical deficiencies. Pryor at
   OSU falls into this category. His
   passing stats are very modest and they’re keeping things really
   simple. He uses his legs to
   overcome his passing limitations.
2. He’s
   surrounded by a talented, veteran team.
   This is the Chad Henne category.
   We saw in Henne’s sophomore year that he wasn’t the second coming
   of John Elway that we saw his freshman year. Why?
   Braylon Edwards. Henne knew
   that if he threw it near Braylon, he was likely to have a chance to catch
   it – no matter how mediocre the throw was.
   To some extent this applies to Pryor as well since he is starting
   behind a veteran offensive line with a Heisman quality RB.

Steven Threet has neither luxury. But how does he compare to other freshman
QB’s? If someone can dig up NCAA
statistics from all schools it would be really interesting. I took on just Michigan QB’s. And it wasn’t difficult – they barely play as
freshman. At this point through 7 games
Threet has thrown the second most passes of any freshman QB that I could find
in the recent history of the school.
Let’s look at them:

I was surprised at Navarre’s stats. I remember him being horrible as a redshirt
freshman and single-handedly giving away the UCLA game. But his stats aren’t horrible. Obviously Henne is on a plane all of his own,
though his Y/A were lower than I expected considering the Braylon factor. Ryan Mallett sure was terrible, wasn’t
he?

If I’m not mistaken, Threet is the first one of those
players to be given the job out of necessity rather than due to an injury to a
more experienced player, though I can’t remember Grbac’s situation. I also mentioned the lack of a surrounding
cast. Here’s another chart comparing
those QB’s.

Wow, nostalgia. I’m
starting to wonder if Arrington’s departure hurt this offense more than anyone
else.

I’m going to limit the amount of conclusions I draw from
this information and leave it open to interpretation. Obviously missing from this data are the
number of fumbles and any rushing statistics.

My opinion from this information and from watching the games
is this – Threet is not a very good quarterback right now, but he’s not a bad
one either. Unlike some areas of the
team he is showing progress from week-to-week and compares favorably to other
freshmen at his position. The
quarterback position is a problem for the team, but the problem is mostly due
to a lack of depth and experience – not directly because Steven Threet is
incapable of leading the team to victory.
Threet is raw and inconsistent, but he’s competent and should develop
into a solid QB in time. There is little
in my limited analysis that shows he’s worse than most of those other
guys. What Michigan lacks is a capable experienced QB
(Jason Forcier?) who could hold down the fort this season.

Let’s give Threet time and the benefit of the doubt…….and do
whatever we can to keep Sheridan
off the field.