Comparing Forcier to other QBs

Okay, first of all, full disclosure: I am a Buckeyes fan. I always root for Blue in Bowls and have a ton of respect for your program and your school. (I must say, I've endured the ignorance of some of your fans, and have a real scar to show for it from a beer bottle, but I know all teams have ignorant drunks, just as you notice the worst of ours.) Tate is a great athlete. I watched the first game and said to friend who's a UM fan, “you guys are finally gonna beat us this year.” The offense was crisp and fast and I saw the promise. I really think the difference between Tate and Terrelle is not necessarily athleticism but a different approach in coaching. Tressel coaches with an emphasis on eliminating mistakes and an emphasis on game management, getting coached on schemes, reads, etc. and relying on the whole team, not just his “athleticism”. He reins him in to build toward unleashing him. I think your coach likes to unleash athleticism (which Tressel has not done with TP or with Troy Smith, another comparable athlete, until he let Troy get bulked up on Heisman Prime Rib and added 22 pounds before the Florida game! That is bad coaching.) Pryor has gotten so much more mature with each game, even while his instincts to make every play were kept in check. The really Vince Young comparisons will emerge next year and if he stays around for senior year. JT develops quarterbacks. I really wish Rich Rod would focus on eliminating mistakes. If he would have coached Pryor last year maybe he would have thrown four picks against you last year too. Your other QB should maybe be a wide receiver. All year I've not seem him improve as a passer. So easy to read. I hear you've got a great kid coming in next year so let's hope he pans out so we can get this rivalry back to where it belongs -- the whole country on the eidge of their seats with national title implications. OSU can't get respect without UM being good, and Penn State and MSU being good, and hey, Iowa too. I want improvement in the whole conference. By the way, the one other thing I noticed, and so did national commentators, was the way the UM players “went rogue”. Shaw's elbow smash on an OSU trainer was a little uncalled for. I think Brandon Graham (a great player) really gave us bulletin board material (or Twitter these days) with his comments. Boren said nothing. And Tate talking to the press after the game directly and making all these brash promises. While at times our fan base goes nuts over the Senator's conservative approach, he sure does manage the young men on the team to avoid shooting themselves in the foot. I think Rich could be a good coach, but one final observation: the smaller, faster players he recruits were okay in the first half of the season, but they sure seemed beat up once they got into the heavier, stronger smashmouth of the Big Ten. Hurry up and get back to where the Maize and Blue belong, just behind the Buckeyes :). Oh, and you played a hell of game today. The horrible part is your defense played the best I've seen them this season and, the agony of it is, you still lost. Trust me, I've felt that too. Go Blue, recruit like hell!

Due to his lack of height, he has trouble seeing the second level of receivers. That plus the fact that he is not particularly fast (averaged 2.1 yards per carry) and does not possess a strong arm.... it all means that he has to really make up for these serious limitations in other areas. And right now he is not.... his decision making is very poor. He plays the game as if he were playing in high school.... carrying the ball like a loaf of bread, throwing into double coverage, throwing across the field on a short field.... bad habits that are going to be hard for him to break because that is the way he has ALWAYS played the game. But at a point, the game catches up with you when you are dealing with superior athletes, and Tate has to play more conservative.... be smarter. Cut back a little on the undisciplined, cavalier style of play. But a more conservative style sort of cuts against who he is as a player so, unfortunately, this is a QB that is bound to make many of these same mistakes for years to come.

Sorry if that wasn't clear, but I think Tressel's conservative approach in developing Pryor is very similar to the way (his friend) Mack Brown developed Vince Young. First eliminate all the freshman and sophomore errors then let him go, as Tressel did with Troy Smith. Obviously neither Smith nor Pryor are NFL quarterbacks, but this is college football. You're right, Tate probably won't be either. Coach Rod also declined to name his as the starter for next year, which is understandable I guess since you guys seem to have a phenom from Inkster coming in. If you don't understand that I am a fan of Tate, despite his size and his freshman inexperience, you are misreading my post. I think he tries to do too much, which is the opposite of what Tressel has let Pryor do -- and many of our fans say “too little”. I have no idea where you got the idea that I said a small fast athlete can't be successful. I did point out that a lot of the smaller players (Tate, Vince Smith) were hurt against the bigger players in the Big Ten. Pryor, who is much bigger, also was playing with a leg injury (and OSU does not disclose a lot about injuries.) I also understand how you guys might feel about Boren. My point was, don't bring that out before game day. You made your point in the pre-season. I'm sure I'd feel the same way if we had one of our key guys defect. I wish Minor had been in the game too. Must be tough as a senior to miss out on this one. He's been underrated. As for Pryor being an “all world athlete” you are wrong. He has “all world potential.” Compare Pryor's sophomore season to Vince Young. Fine for Tate to have better stats in a pass-happy spread offense, but neither Pryor nor Vince threw four picks to lose a huge game. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but while Tressel is putting a lid on Pryor's youthful penchant for mistakes and “I can make this play -- I did it in high school” false confidence, I wish I could have seen Forcier get better in the last game. It's not about yards or stats, it's about game management. There are ten other guys on the field and Pryor used them and, other than Roundtree, I don't think Tate did. Like I said, after your opening game, I fully expected him to be what you expected Pryor to be. I was sure that by The Game, he'd be even better. The real difference was that he didn't get better. Sure he had injuries. He's small and quick and talented and there are some big guys pounding on him. If you want to call my comments “stupid' then I suggest you explain why your team has a freshman QB give us five turnovers. I suggest something behind that game plan might also share that term. I wouldn't say that, it's just a coaching gamble because you didn't have many other options. Draft some defense. Get back in The Game. That's all I want. I'm not out dissing you, just sharing the view from the other side.

If Michigan would have pulled ahead in the game today Pryor would have made a couple of the same mistakes Tate made. Michigan just wasn't able to accomplish this. Cutting it to a 1 possession game with a little over 8 min. to go would have put some pressure on him. His throws were all over the place.

Second, you left off at least one great example of a true freshman who did play a lot and developed into a very good big ten quarterback. Kurt Kittner. Kittner was 72 of 162 passes (44.4%) for 782 yards with one touchdown and seven interceptions. By his second season, he threw 24 TDS and had 5 INTs. Was honorable mention all big ten and MVP of his bowl game.