Preview 2010: Quarterbacks Comment Count

Brian

Previously: The story, the secondary, the linebackers, the defensive line, the running backs, the receivers, the offensive line, special teams, and the conference.  

Rating: 3.

devin-tate-denard threet-sheridan

You are feeling a sudden sense of well-being relative to two years ago.

QB Yr.
Denard Robinson So.
Tate Forcier So.
Devin Gardner Fr.

If I had to summarize the thousands of words poured out into this space previewing the 2009 Michigan quarterbacks in a single sentence, it would be "they are going to be much better but probably still suck":

The upshot: freshman quarterbacks suck, but on average they suck far less than Michigan's two-headed monster of yesteryear. An average-for-a-freshman performance from Forcier will be a huge step forward for the offense.

And lo: Michigan's quarterbacks combined to throw 14 interceptions against just 15 touchdowns, fumbled probably a dozen more times, averaged a meh 7.2 yards per attempt, and singlehandedly sabotaged a surprisingly winnable 2009 edition of The Game. This was vast, vast improvement—the 2008 QBs combined to average 5.1(!!!) yards per attempt—and also pretty much sucked.

But, hey, that's what you get when you start true freshmen. We can now slot Tate Forcier in Doctor Saturday's list of recent true freshman starters at BCS schools:

Quarterback Team Year Comp. % Yards/Pass TD % INT % Efficiency Record*
Terrelle Pryor Ohio State 2008 60.2 7.9 7.2 2.4 145.6 10-3
Robert Griffin Baylor 2008 59.9 7.8 5.6 1.1 142.0 4-8
Willie Tuitama Arizona 2005 57.7 7.8 7.5 0.9 137.0 3-8
Erik Ainge Tennessee 2004 55.1 7.3 8.6 4.5 135.9 10-3
Chris Leak Florida 2003 59.4 7.6 5.0 3.4 132.9 8-5
Chad Henne Michigan 2004 60.2 6.9 6.3 3.0 132.6 9-3
Matt Barkley USC 2009 59.9 7.8 4.3 4.0 131.3 9-3
Tate Forcier Michigan 2009 58.7 7.3 4.6 3.6 128.2 5-7
Mitch Mustain Arkansas 2006 52.3 6.8 7.6 6.8 120.5 10-4
Tyrod Taylor Virginia Tech 2007 53.7 6.9 3.7 2.2 119.7 11-3
Matt Stafford Georgia 2006 52.7 6.8 2.7 5.1 109.0 9-4
Thaddeus Lewis Duke 2006 52.9 6.3 3.2 4.7 106.9 0-12
Jimmy Clausen Notre Dame 2007 56.3 5.1 2.9 2.5 103.9 3-9
Josh Freeman Kansas State 2006 51.9 6.6 2.2 5.6 103.5 7-6
Reggie Ball Georgia Tech 2003 51.7 5.7 2.9 3.1 102.8 7-6
Kris Heavner Arizona 2003 51.1 6.3 3.4 6.3 102.7 2-10
Brady Quinn Notre Dame 2003 47.2 5.5 2.7 4.5 93.5 5-7
Juice Williams Illinois 2006 39.5 5.7 3.5 3.5 91.8 2-10

A tick behind Chad Henne isn't bad. And since Henne's receivers were current NFLers Braylon Edwards, Jason Avant, and Steve Breaston while Forcier's top target was a redshirt freshman who only started playing extensively at the tail end of the year—the senior "star" went undrafted—you could plausibly argue that the main difference between the freshman years of NFL starter Chad Henne and current sophomore Tate Forcier was the quality on the other end of the pass, especially since Forcier's YPA was superior. (Save your Baby Seal U protests: Forcier threw two passes in that game.)

To put the suck of '08 in perspective: '09 sucked but only because of the turnovers. The YPA average in I-A last year was 7.2, exactly what Michigan managed. A standard deviation was a yard. Michigan improved two standard deviations with a true freshman under center.

So of course everyone expects the guy who threw four interceptions in 31 attempts last year to start. This is Michigan, where things don't seem weird until the melting clocks drip PCP-tripping Gary Busey homunculi into swimming pools full of ham. We've seen stranger. Have you heard the one about the field goal that one of Michigan's players unblocked?

The Starter Right This Instant

denard-robinson-eastern Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson tries to fire a pass to wide receiver Roy Roundtree, but it was picked off by Penn State's Navorro Bowman, one of four Michigan turnovers that helped the Nittany Lions hand Michigan a 35-10 pasting, Saturday, October 24th at Michigan Stadium.<br />
Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com

Yeah: Denard Robinson. This is the part of the preview where I ignore the the guy with 281 attempts and 118 rushes in favor of the guy with the 31 attempts and 69 rushes because of an impressive spring performance, a bunch of practice reports, and some inflammatory comments from Troy Woolfolk. For the record, here they are again:

"Denard has been out there through the thick and thin and been out there all the time regardless if he's hurting," Woolfolk said. "And Tate, he tries to come out, but he's not as consistent as Denard is. And that's allowed Denard to jump a little bit ahead of Tate and I think that Tate's going to have to do a lot of work to catch back up to Denard in camp this year."

With Rodriguez and Steve Schilling essentially backing those up a couple days later and the general tenor coming out of spring practice, it seems clear that Forcier did not think his job was under threat, slacked off a bit, and has paid for it with his starting job. (Forcier:  "I felt like I was working with the team, just not as much as I should have. Part of that is maturity." Rod Smith: "He didn’t come back in shape, and he’s competed as hard as any of the other guys.")

By now (and for now) this is assured. When Bruce Feldman was attempting to justify($) his out-there pick of Michigan as #25 on his preseason ballot, he deployed this conversation he'd had with Rodriguez:

Rodriguez is so fired up by the development of QB Denard Robinson, who is so dynamic he evokes memories of WVU great Pat White. Rodriguez says Robinson's presence and personality are similar to White's, and that Robinson is actually bigger than White was at the same stage. He doesn't quite play as fast as White did, but he will.

"Pat was so decisive," Rodriguez said. "He knew what he was doing. Pat was a fast player who played fast. Denard is a fast player who didn't play fast all the time, but I know he will play faster this year. He'll play faster and faster. He'll become more relaxed and calm executing the offense. There is a lot to learn, but at the same time, he is eager to learn it. And as he plays faster and his teammates play faster, we'll get a lot better."

Rodriguez added that the other two QBs Tate Forcier and Devin Gardner are very gifted too and will push Robinson, and if they overtake him, well, then the Wolverines offense should be in good shape.

We were at the point where the other two quarterbacks are "pushing" Robinson even before the fall scrimmage reports ("clear starter," "will absolutely start," "will be the starter") started rolling in. Perhaps more telling even than those rapturous reports was the substitution pattern: like David Molk, Mike Martin, and select other players too important to risk, Robinson saw his snaps limited. His time wasn't nearly as limited as that of the aforementioned duo—he had time to establish himself obviously the man before Forcier and Gardner mopped up during the last bit of the scrimmage—but the sign was clear. The competition is chasing.

I guess this is plausible. I mean, there's this:

 

Since that was done against the 1972 Pittsburgh Steelers it's pretty impressive. Yes, they had a 5'7" defensive tackle too.

So what does Michigan have in this guy? Anyone who attempts to tell you is having a moment of foolish arrogance. The guy who did this…

 

…also did this…

 

DENARD ROBINSON

RUNNIN'
has a lane
darts through this gap
easy QB draw
another one for TD
ISQBZoneStretch
ISQBZS #2
squeezes in for Iowa TD
RIDICUROUS
a precious thing forever.
shoots into the secondary
six exciting yards
ACCURACY… MEH
Iowa doom INT
underthrown DSU TD #1
fired it hard and high
QB LIKE
okay Koger seam
zings one on the money

…and was such an incredible neophyte that he never once ran the zone read despite its status as Rich Rodriguez's calling card and Robinson's ability to do that first thing above. Any program not digging out from a 100-year flood would have taken one look at the kid in fall practice and put so many redshirts on him that he'd be peeling the last one off right now. Michigan couldn't because its other quarterbacks were walk-ons or injury-prone freshmen.

The results were occasionally brilliant, sometimes promising, and frequently facepalm-worthy. In lieu of a full UFR passing chart here are all of Robinson's infrequent attempts rolled into one pretend game with around 30 attempts:

Opponent DO CA MA IN BR TA BA PR
Season 1 7 6 (2) 3 (1) 4 4 - -

That's three inaccurate screens and an 8/18 downfield success rate, which rivals Mallett's insane freshman performances, without even considering that four of those passes were terrible interceptions. This will not be news to anyone who saw Robinson play last year: he was in vastly over his head.

A guy that raw with that much speed has the ability to make a stunning improvement in a single offseason. And the above-linked spring highlights at least suggest that Robinson's improvement has indeed been stunning, especially since he followed that up with a similarly impressive performance in fall. He's added a non-insubstantial eight pounds to reach 193, and the offseason has come with a heavy focus on ending all the fumbling. Rodriguez:

“He looks to me physically bigger, and maturing physically,” said Rodriguez. “Mentally, he understands some of the concepts a lot better, which he should. I see his confidence continuing to grow. And he’s so eager to please and do well that he’s taking steps every day."

“There were a couple times today with ball security … even though they didn’t fumble, it wasn’t as good as we’d like,” Rodriguez said. “But you could see they were making a conscious effort to take care of the ball. Decision making, the same thing… they’re not just trying to force something in there."

This is the bit where I evaluate the player's strengths and weaknesses and offer up a projection for season stats and the like, but here the former is obvious and the latter a mystery. Robinson's radical improvement has come against Michigan's second and third strings, which are so thin as to hardly exist. How will he react when those seams are covered? How will he react when he gets pressure? Can he hold onto the ball when he's not playing two-hand touch? Run around, run around, don't know.

Let's take a wild-ass guess and ballpark it as Pat White, freshman edition. White was a redshirt freshman who split time with a pocket passer—Robinson is essentially the same thing. In 2005, White rushed for 952 yards at 7.3 a pop and completed 57% of his passes for 7.3 YPA, 8 TD, and 5 INT. Downgrade those YPA numbers 10-20% to take into account Michigan's presence in the Big Ten and that's your random guess.

Extremely Nominal Backup

Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier scrambles away from Michigan State's Blake Treadwell during fourth quarter action of the Spartans a 26-20 win, Saturday afternoon, October 3rd at Spartan Stadium.<br />
Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com

TATE FORCIER

SHIFTY
WOOPs Brian Smith
WOOP gone vs ND
spins by safety
zips by DE
juke, spin, head down: RB?!
BUT NOT DENARD
tries to cut it outside
just kind of falls over
more falling over
scraping OLB gets out on Forcier
GUNNIN'
nailing Mathews in the numbers
brilliant adjustment
zips it in there
steps up to nail Hemingway
seriously tight window
THEY SEE ME ROLLIN'
tough rollout Koger TD
tying MSU game
zings deep corner route
ridiculous sideline toss
dart hits Mathews in the numbers
points Roundtree somewhere
FROSH BLARG
MSU OT INT DOOM
should never have thrown this
insane but Odoms reels it in
PUNTIN'
Forcier's 50-yard punt.

Until about a week ago, virtually every scrap of talk about Tate Forcier this offseason had been negative. A quick scan of any Michigan message board will turn up a thread or four that someone in the Forcier family will screenshot and throw into the section of their personal site once embarrassingly named the "Hall of Shame" and subsequently nerfed to something less ambiguously bitchy and more clearly intended as motivation. The charges:  Forcier is a douchebag. He's going to transfer. He's not going to get any better. He hasn't been going to workouts. He will pout when and if he doesn't play, destroying team chemistry. Etc. I've unpublished a couple around here.

How we got here from "Weapon of Choice" and Moxie Death Star is a matter of:

  • lots of losses,
  • Forcier's waning effectiveness as teams figured out they had to keep him in the pocket,
  • Forcier's waning effectiveness after his shoulder was bruised/dislocated/LABRUM'D,
  • five turnovers, many of them blithering, against Ohio State, and
  • Let's Get Denarded in spring.

Still, the numbers on the above chart are just off future star status, especially when you knock Pryor and Griffin out for being athletic freakshows whose stats were inflated by the rarity of their throws.

Forcier didn't get a ton of help from his offensive line or receivers, either, which made a couple of his performances better than they looked. Michigan State provides a typical example:

You wouldn't know it because of all the pressure and the drops killing his stats, but Forcier had a spectacular day. His downfield success rate* was 71%, which is up there with Chad Henne's best game. Chad Henne's best games didn't come with game-killing overtime interceptions, sure. He made three and a half terrible decisions throwing the ball (with the half being the bomb to Koger) and some additional ones in the ground game.

But does anyone remember the "Sheridan Might Start!" meme? Will anyone own up to actually advancing that point of view? No? No.

After the great start (post ND: "two games in it looks like Tate Forcier has 99th percentile skill in accuracy on the run, pocket awareness, and (yep) moxie"), Forcier had a mid-season swoon with an implosion against Iowa in which his DSR fell to a bleah 50% that didn't take into account how "disastrous" some of the bad reads; the following week Forcier duplicated the 50% DSR performance against Penn State. He picked it up afterwards with a "decent" Illinois game and had "one of his best games" against Purdue before turning in a "good day" against a very good Wisconsin defense; though Ohio State didn't get charted I can tell you that his performance in that game was plain great except for the four awful interceptions, which is a weird thing to say but there it is.

So. By the numbers, both official and blogger-generated, his freshman season was promising. Unfortunately, the numbers aren't everything. Forcier made a ton of bad reads on the zone read and Michigan's rare option plays, one of which Burgeoning Wolverine Star documented in detail. Part of the reason he looked so ineffective on the zone last year was because he pulled the ball out too much.

((CAPTION)) Tate Forcier(5) drops the football in a dowpour at the end of the game as Michigan State beats Michigan, 26-20, in overtime at Spartan Stadium Saturday afternoon. (Dale G. Young / The Detroit News)2009.

Worse, the numbers capture Forcier's interceptions but not his massive fumble issues. Everyone remembers Tate gifting Ohio State the first touchdown of last year's game with a  basically unforced fumble, and that was a problem all year. Illinois

The fumbling issue remains a problem, though: Forcier was irresponsible with the ball and coughed it up twice, once on a QB draw he made a poor read on. Michigan lost one, causing everyone to turn the TV off. Hopefully this is a major point of emphasis in the offseason; Forcier can't be as careless with the ball going forward or the offense is never going to get off the ground.

Purdue:

The big downer was the fumble, which was a huge error on Forcier's part but also an understandable one since Purdue blitzed right into the option and Forcier was not prepared to deal with the corner there. He should have eaten the ball and taken the loss.

Robinson chipped in his share of mind-bending fumbles but Forcier, more than anyone else, was responsible for Michigan's crippling 13 fumbles lost.

But as training camp progressed, the Forcier vibe got better. Rodriguez:

“I’ve had quite a few talks with Tate and some of the other guys and said if you’re a true competitor, you’ll respond to it,” Rodriguez said. “So far he has. He’s responded … he’s not sulking and laying back. He’s working his way back and trying to prove himself.”

Schilling:

"Obviously he went through some adversity there with Troy's comments and the wings and all that stuff you guys know about." He's worked hard to prove himself, and show that he wants to be the team's quarterback. "I'm definitely gaining a lot of respect back for Tate," as are a lot of others.

With transfer and ineligibility rumors quashed and fitness levels approaching something the coaches consider reasonable, Forcier has bounced back and finds himself in position to play. Rivals has taken to using its insiders to talk him up like whoah, and while I don't share the point of view on offer there*, especially the lack of confidence in Robinson, it seems like his time with the third team is at an end. As I've asserted a thousand times before, the two sophomores are so different that Michigan has reason to play both, and can reasonably hope the platoon is greater than the sum of its parts.

What can we expect from Forcier's sophomore year? Beware linear projections. Way back in December, Ace took a look at a subset of those true freshman starters in the chart above and compared their sophomore performance to their freshman years. He found that sophomores improved their average yards per attempt by a full yard, completion percentage 5.5 points, and touchdowns by five. If you take those improvements and apply them to Forcier's freshman year you get ridiculous results: 65% completions, 8.5 yards per attempt, 20 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and the #12 passer efficiency rating in the country.

That's totally not going to happen. Ace took a bunch of really terrible QBs who became decent to good and applied that transition to a decent quarterback, resulting in a projection that says Forcier will be the greatest sophomore QB of the past ten years, and by some margin: only Chris Leak's sophomore year rating of 145 is anywhere close to Forcier's projected 151. More realistically, the hope is for Forcier to cut down on the crippling turnovers by a third, add some more touchdowns, merely maintain his YPA—only Chris Leak significantly exceeded Forcier's freshman YPA as a sophomore—and add a point or two to completion percentage. Forcier doesn't have a long way to go to be a good quarterback, but that means his improvement in all things other than holding on to the damn ball will be incremental.

*(Chances there's some serious fuddy-duddy-ism going on there: high.)

Wildcard

devin-gardner devin-gardner-paul

And then after all that there's Devin Gardner. Gardner just came in for an extensive recruiting profile last week, so I won't rehash that when virtually nothing has changed in the interim. The executive summary: massive upside, raw, needs serious work on his throwing motion. I've also made my opinion on the redshirt issue clear:

Should have the luxury of redshirting with Denard's emergence into a viable option. Given Rodriguez's statements on the matter

There is also freshman Devin Gardner, but Rodriguez said he wouldn't burn Gardner's redshirt if it was for a couple of plays a game.

…you'll probably see him on the bench unless both sophomores struggle. After that it's kind of hard to see him unseating an established junior,  but they'll mix him in when given the opportunity; a lot of people have claimed he's going to be the starter as early as 2011, but I think he'll have to wait until he's a redshirt junior, at which point he should be Awesome Devin through and through.

Rich Rodriguez is not of a similar mind. He told the media Monday that Gardner was on the depth chart and would play. I'm still hoping that the two sophomores play well enough to keep him on the bench, if not immediately then by the time the Big Ten season rolls around, at which point Gardner can come down with a strained whatever and get that year of eligibility back.

Comments

champswest

September 3rd, 2010 at 1:06 PM ^

I hope that he plays well enough (and I think that he will) to stay #1 all year.  He just has so much more up side than Tate.  I hope that Tate accepts the role of #2 and is there to bail us out in those games when we need him to.  Devin may not play against UCONN, but he will play this year and gain valuable experience (that will come in handy later in the year when one of the guys ahead of him goes down).

Can you see Denard Robinson in the conversation for Big Ten offensive player of the year? 

bronxblue

September 3rd, 2010 at 1:22 PM ^

Great recap Brian!  Man, I might be fired from work for reading all of them, but I feel immensely prepared for tomorrow.

With regards to DR vs. Tate, Brian summed up the issue perfectly - on one hand you have the new hotness, the guy who has taken immense strides but is still utterly and profoundly raw.  On the other hand you have the known-ish quantity with a lower ceiling but far more history, both good and bad.  You won't go wrong with either option, but you need to pick one and give it a shot.

Personally, I think Tate will be the "better" QB this year but DR will continue to make strides and will be an integral part of the offense both running and passing.  I watched the spring game tape and while DR looks infinitely better in the pocket and on the run than a year ago, he still shows the tendencies (locking onto WRs, limited progression reading, etc.) that you kind of expect from a young player.  Yes, Tate displays some of these tendencies as well, but he also has a year of experience showing that he can be effective.  With DR, we are taking him on faith that he will be better, and right now I'm not sure how much better he'll be than Tate, though as a running threat he is light-years ahead of anything Tate can do.

At this point, I think most fans just want to see UM win, so I don't care who is under center as long as that translates into wins.  But I would be surprised if DR plays the whole year as the presumptive starter, and at the end of close games it will be interesting to see if RR puts as much faith in him as he seems to be right now.

TheOracle6

September 3rd, 2010 at 1:43 PM ^

I'm really excited for all three of these guys.  Each one brings a burning desire to win and to restore the Michigan program back in the uper echelon of college football.  Denard is also the clear starter in my mind because he can beat you in so many ways.  His improvements in the passing game are nothing short of amazing from where he was a year ago.  Every play has the potential to go for a big time gain, and there's not many quarterbacks in the country that I'd say that about.  Should Denard struggle, Tate is a very sound back-up and is capable of great things in the passing game.  DG was a man amongst boys in high school.  When he runs it is like he's gliding through the air, he throws an effortless deep ball, and I don't remember which of the receivers said it but it was mentioned that DG through the hardest ball.  Couple that with accuracy down the line and this team is set for QB for years to come.  My excitement is over the top.  With a day left to wait I can't stop thinking about this teams incredible athleticism and hunger to prove all the critics wrong.  Great post Brian.