New Rivals Top 100
Rivals just released a new top 100. Gardner has dropped out, and CC is now 99.
http://rivals100.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?SID=880&Year=2010&ra_key=2369
January 13th, 2010 at 5:11 PM ^
There are no QBs in the top 50 and only two in the top 100.
January 13th, 2010 at 6:41 PM ^
Will favor the heavy run teams about 2-3 years from now.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:05 PM ^
Of the 2 QB's in the top 100. Heaps was pretty good in the AAA game. But Sims was ten times worse than Gardner or anybody that they put out there, yet he is at 60 something?
January 13th, 2010 at 10:15 PM ^
It also includes how the players performed during practice, and Sims has an absolute cannon for an arm. I think he was voted to have the strongest arm of the quarterbacks, and you could see it on a few plays in the game.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:32 PM ^
Yeah but that is one thing. It doesn't mean much if he can't throw it very accurately. IMO(and many others) arm strength is the most over rated factor for a good QB.
January 14th, 2010 at 6:20 AM ^
Yes, but it's kind of like how people always say, "You can't teach speed." Speed by itself doesn't do a whole lot of good if you can't catch the ball, but you can work with it. It's hard to take a noodle-armed QB and turn him into Brett Favre, but if he's got the arm strength, all he's got to work on is honing his delivery.
Sims has to work on his mechanics, but he's got a cannon for an arm. Gardner has to work on his mechanics, and his arm isn't as strong as Sims'. So it's not hard to see why Gardner might be ranked lower.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:42 AM ^
"You can't teach speed" is a common misconception. People have a preset potential based on muscle fiber composition between slow/fast. But you can teach mechanics of strides and improve muscle explosiveness. There's a reason power cleans correlate positively with vertical jump and sprinting speed.
It just takes a long time to improve speed, typically longer than mechanics because one is muscle memory and one is muscle development.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:35 AM ^
I know you can improve speed, but only by a finite amount. For example, no matter how hard Mike Hart trains, he'll never be Chris Johnson.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:39 AM ^
"People have a preset potential based on muscle fiber composition between slow/fast. "
January 14th, 2010 at 9:48 AM ^
I know. I read what you said the first time. You're basically just reinforcing what I said in the first place - you can't teach speed. You either have it or you don't.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:49 AM ^
I'm not going to argue semantics. I was just saying that people use "you can't teach speed" to state preference for teaching something else like mechanics. If mechanics were as easily taught as people think, then why doesn't every pitcher use Tim Lincecum's delivery, or every football QB throw like Manning?
January 14th, 2010 at 12:01 PM ^
I don't get your point. You basically seem to be saying that speed can only be improved to a certain point...but mechanics can't be taught, either. So why do we teach anything?
The average person can be taught throwing mechanics much more easily - and successfully - than to run fast. But Tim Lincecum's delivery won't work for everyone, because he's particularly flexible in ways that other pitchers aren't. There's not one set way of throwing a football. The key is to find mechanisms that work for each individual QB, not necessarily applying one particular method to every QB.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:07 PM ^
Yeah, that's not at all what I'm saying.
You can IMPROVE speed by teaching stride/sprint mechanics.
You can IMPROVE throwing velocity by teaching mechanics.
In either case, your potential is limited by physiological factors.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:38 PM ^
I didn't really read the replies to the original post, but there is one obvious and compelling explanation for the Gardner downgrade and all the rest of this: Rivals is part of a vast conspiracy to ensure that EVERY player that ends up signing with Michigan this year is a 3 star.
You heard it here first. 100% three stars.