ESPN stats on Gardner
es.pn/15dmxfS
the article says that Gardner didn't have enough attempts to qualify for their QBR ranking. however, if he had, he would've lead the nation, with a tenth of a point higher than manziel. also talks about the emergence of gallon. nothing we don't already know, but just another way to measure his success last year.
August 22nd, 2013 at 11:53 AM ^
-Herbstreit
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:37 PM ^
Didn't herbie have Michigan as a dark horse national title contender?
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:20 PM ^
Yes, and Luginbill had him as B1G POTY (along with Michigan being Conference Champs). All of this was discussed on ESPNU's B1G Conference Preview show.
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:13 PM ^
Yet, he has Michigan State playing ohia for the B1G Championship.
August 22nd, 2013 at 11:55 AM ^
This is why I'm not overly worried about the loss of Darboh. The receiving core will be better than last year.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:33 PM ^
Core:
Corps:
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:51 PM ^
Well, if Gallon, Dileo and Darboh Chesson have improved from last year, then the core of our receiving corps will be better than last year :-)
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:54 PM ^
And if they all have been doing their pilates, then the core of our core corp will be better than last year.
August 23rd, 2013 at 9:08 AM ^
yo dawg...
March 23rd, 2014 at 12:55 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 11:59 AM ^
This is why we don't look at small sample statistics.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:06 PM ^
You were just a buzzkill in 100% of your comments in this thread. You must be the buzzkillingest of buzzkillingtons.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:14 PM ^
Well here is a picture of a puppy then!
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:20 PM ^
It's clear now that David in Wyoming is rapidly becoming a more optimistic person.
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:43 PM ^
Would you feel differently if Devin had shredded Air Force, UMass, Purdue, and Illinois too? Bigger sample, no?
Alabama, no, he gets frustrated like everyone else they play. Notre Dame, Michigan State, Nebraska... he probably would have done Denard or better against them.
Dude was legit and showed it against reasonable competition. Give him his Dap.
August 22nd, 2013 at 5:20 PM ^
There is a pretty big difference between 'dude was legit' and 'dude was better than the guy that won the heisman'. Extrapolating from a small data set can be really silly at times.
August 22nd, 2013 at 10:59 PM ^
Not saying Gardner was better than Manziel, but if we really want to talk statistical significance, a full season isn't THAT much better than a little less than half a season. Predicting the future based on either is potentially troublesome.
August 23rd, 2013 at 12:57 AM ^
Johnny Manziel had 434 pass attempts. Devin Gardner had 126 last year. That is a large difference.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:02 PM ^
In last season’s loss to the Irish, the Wolverines did not score in six trips to the red zone.
That probably will be the difference this year, Notre Dame's offense looks to be a notch below last year's and if Gardner can continue his red-zone success (as mentioned in the article) you have to like our chances. This article has me brimming with confidence of a victory over Notre Dame.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:25 PM ^
Has anyone ever told you that your avatar looks like a weirdly distorted parking meter with a reflection of a puffin in it?
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:25 PM ^
Notre Dame SUCKED last year. That team was lucky in how many of their wins?
Had to blow out Navy to prove they were solid.
Set to go to OT against PURDUE (6-7 Team)
No need to bring up the 'win' against us.
The game Stanford [should have] won but the officiating ruled in favor of ND for a fumble by Stanford on the goal line in OT which would have been 20-20.
BYU- where had BYU played any defense in the second half they would have won.
MY FAVORITE: Pitt missing a FG; extending OT and let ND win it. In 3 OTs. 'nuff said. (also a 6-7 team)
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:03 PM ^
This is why we can't have nice things.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:08 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:11 PM ^
Can we at least save this post until the season starts? Please?
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:31 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:58 PM ^
Not to mention, we're entering year 3 of the Borges era. It's not like we don't have information about how his play calling has gone.
(Preemptive response to obvious: Yes, Borges had to deal with Denard and a spread-built offense and now can do more Borgesian things. But he has already displayed a frustrating mix of "totally gets it" and "totally doesn't get it" in his play calling, from game to game and sometimes within in the same game.)
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:13 PM ^
But in 2012 I'd say our losses were a general thumping by a far superior team, a close loss due mostly to turnovers, Denard's boo boo, a bafflingly anemic and conservative 2nd half against Ohio, and a major choke job by the secondary.
Among those I'd blame Borges really for only the Ohio loss, which while painful was fairly meaningless in terms of our final standing. Maybe you could fault him as the QB coach for Bellomy, but that's not his play calling.
Outside Ohio I think his Gardner gameplans were pretty good.
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:30 PM ^
I just meant that we have enough data on Borges to have thoughtful discussions about his playcalling abilities. I mostly wanted to head-off a "but we haven't seen him not have to use Denard!" dismissal.
I've gotten in (probably too many) arguments about him this off season to want to get into it again (it's one of those topics that I don't feel really strongly about, but inevitably get way too invested in once I actually start debating it). But yeah, the gist I've come away with is that he's had some good games, is probably response for some losses in there, but generally seems to have done better than I tend to give him credit for.
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:43 PM ^
so he needs to start proving his value as a play caller, and -- after Bellomy and two years of Denard regression -- a QB coach in my book.
That said - in 9 days we shall start to see!
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:30 PM ^
I think "we've seen him in enough games" is probably fair, but then "Borges with Gardner will be very different that Borges with Denard" is probably also fair, if nothing else based on what we saw at the end of last year.
What I will say that I consider a valid criticism of Borges is that, so far, I've yet to see him deploy a really coherent scheme. By that I mean that, over a series of plays or a game, I haven't seen the ability to punish a defense for overreacting to a play or formation with wrinkles and surprises. The plays haven't always fit well together and seem to be telegraphed by personnel and/or formation. The most famous example is the bubble screen conspiracy - a tailor made counter / constraint play that was never really deployed for reasons that were never terribly clear. Another that bothered me was running power play action and never throwing from it, defeating the whole purpose of play action. I don't mind grinding on a few ineffective plays (I-form power runs!) if they open up something else. But we rarely did the "something else".
I'm still in the boat that this season is the Borges make-or-break. I'd say he's net-neutral right now, but this year he's got enough of the sort of pieces he wants in place that we should start to see a coherent offense. The execution might not always be pretty due to inexperience, but I would expect to start to see us with a more complete offensive system rather than a grab bag of a few plays that work and a few that don't work and don't make the good plays any easier.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:13 PM ^
Darboh is out. Season's over.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:31 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:36 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:41 PM ^
Have you never watched Animal House?
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:48 PM ^
unfortunately kids aren't watching animal house these days.
August 22nd, 2013 at 2:23 PM ^
I'm not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America.
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:49 PM ^
I hope everyone has
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:49 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:01 PM ^
He's rolling.
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:04 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:57 PM ^
Haters choose to ignore facts and instead downplay Devin based on the teams he played. The same could be said about Braxton Miller, but Buckeye fans, of course, ignore that.
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:23 PM ^
Isn't it somewhat relevant to take into consideration how he played against certain competition? Minnesota had the 4th ranked passing D in the B10, Iowa was 7th, NW 12th, and OSU 11th. USC was 5th in the SEC. My point is he did not play elite defenses against the pass. Though he put up good numbers against Minn, NW and Iowa, he struggled against OSU- despite their terrible seconday. I am sure he will take a step forward this year but I don't think it is crazy to critique his not-so-good performances against certain competition.
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:12 PM ^
Maybe none of those Ds were "elite" for some arbitrary definition of the term. But what we're comparing that to is the production of say Johnny Manziel for an entire season. You may recall these results held up in the Mathlete's analysis with advanced stats.
And I'd argue that the average ability of the Ds Gardner faced was better than the the average ability of the Ds faced by Johnny Football or whoever, when you consider that a full-year starter in an FBS conference typically has a few early season cupcakes to pad his stats.
So it's a small sample size and not necessarily a guarantee of future performance, but beyond those caveats it's a valid discussion.
August 22nd, 2013 at 4:35 PM ^
He purposely reports that Minnesota was 4th in the B1G and South Carolina was 5th in the SEC. He is trying to make them sound run of the mill. But, what he doesn't mention is the the B1G and the SEC were both excellent in pass defense. The SEC had 4 teams in the top 20 nationally. B1G has 6 teams in the top 20. The ACC only had 1 top 20 team. The PAC 12 only had 1 top twenty team. A 4th or 5th ranked team from those conferences is unimpressive. A 4th or 5th ranked team in the B1G and SEC is still very good.
Minnesota is ranked 12th in the nation and South Carolina is 21st. Elite? Eh, I usually consider top ten elite. But, Gardner played fine against the top 25 pass defenses. He will be fine.
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:14 PM ^
Cool, but one nitpick:
http://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/03/25/“lead”-versus-“led”/
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:25 PM ^
Using the typical passing efficiency metrics, Devin Gardner rated at about a 161 given that he was 75-126 for 1,219 yards with 11 TDs and 5 INTs. Had he qualified based on a sample of five games, that would have put him in the Top 10 in Division I by rating, and the TD percentage of 8.73% might very well have been Top 5 if you sorted the list that way (in a meeting and I don't have my spreadsheet for this stuff - could be wrong). The 9.67 yards per attempt might have been Top 20 or so. Anyway it is sliced, a very impressive performance.
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:41 PM ^
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:26 PM ^