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***Severe tl/dr warning, but that's the risk you take with most of my OPs, and this sums up basically my whole thinking on our football team***
Others have pointed this out in varying ways, so I don't want to pretend as though this is an entirely unique insight. However, the more I think about it, I can't help but draw comparisons to Callahan with Cosgrove and the oft-repeated discussion about whether his loyalty to the defensive coordinator was the anchor that ultimately sunk him here. Honestly, though, it's even more specific than that and thus more devastating for Frost. Cosgrove accounted for an entire phase of football. Here, what we're talking about is one position, albeit clearly the most important. It really does hinge on something so focused.
To first recapitulate what I and others have been saying certainly since yesterday and, in many cases, longer: With competent quarterback play, we win yesterday and win several other games during the three-year Frost tenure. There were at least two plays to Wan'Dale and one play to Oliver Martin where decent throws produce big plays and likely touchdowns that completely change the complexion of the game. The examples throughout 2019 and 2020 are legion.
While Frost and his staff clearly inherited a team that was short on talent, they have done a decent enough job utilizing players from the previous regime and recruiting early on to make this a decent squad in enough ways. No, the team is certainly not perfect, and they are young in some spots. That being said, this team is more than talented and experienced enough to be a middle-of-the-pack or slightly better B1G team. It is being dragged to the bottom by the quarterbacks.
Neither Martinez nor McCaffrey provide any vertical passing threat, and that simply destroys any chance for this offense to thrive. Moreover, both have accuracy and timing issues on the shorter, often horizontal passing plays (see the first plays against Illinois and yesterday). Because of that, we're stuck with a hybrid late-Solich run-the-QB offense with some sprinkling of dink-and-dunk passing. It's awful, both to watch and in terms of producing results.
People want to place the blame broadly: wide receivers being too slow or White, offensive line not providing adequate protection, playcalling and game management, the defense, etc. There have been issues with each of those, but I don't think even combined they come close to the quarterback problem:
a) Wide Receivers-As I mentioned above, our wide receivers were getting open yesterday. They've gotten open throughout the past couple seasons. And this season, that most definitely includes the much maligned corps that includes multiple walk-on crackers. It is odd that the scholarship guys other than Betts can't find the field, but it really doesn't matter. The ball would not get to them. Oliver Martin gets open. Too scholarshippy due to his four-star recruit status, you say? Fine, there have been several instances of guys like Falck and Liewer getting open to no avail.
b) Offensive Line-Here there definitely have been some protection lapses. It's easy to think about Benhart on a couple occasions yesterday, Farniok's crucial whiff against Cockeye, etc. Yes, the line hasn't always been stellar. But they've done the job more than sufficiently in enough cases where pressure hasn't been the issue in balls not getting delivered down the field. If you went back and looked at each of the bad incompletions this year, you'd find several didn't involve pressure on the quarterback and instead were just a function of the ball being delivered without accuracy. Bottom line: This offensive line is good enough to get the job done for now.
c) Playcalling and Game Management-Again, there's at least something here to criticize. Unless Mills really is in much worse shape than we know, it is odd that they didn't run him up the middle more against a statistically poor Minnesota run defense. There have also been plenty of poor game management moments that are inexcusable: having to take timeouts after kickoffs, putting McCaffrey into a game last year for one play, etc. However, at root, a lot of the playcalling criticism seems to stem from Frost calling plays that are required for his offense to run effectively but not adequately taking account of how shitty his quarterbacks are. I can somewhat sympathize with this argument, but I have to think if he doesn't even try with some of these calls, the few things that do work with any consistency would become that much harder to pull off with regularity. In any event, as we've now noted several times: these plays oftentimes are there! The protection is enough, the wide receivers are open, but the quarterback just can't get it done. Playcalling starts to fade into the background with competent play at the position, I believe.
d) Defense-I'll be quick here for once: The defense has been good enough this year outside of Illinois and Ohio State. They're not the problem in the sense of us being at the bottom of the conference.
So how did we get here? Again, I don't think most of this is all that new or insightful, but it helped me, at least, to put it all together. Frost and Verduzco were in love with Martinez as a recruit and once he got on campus. His 2018 season cemented that impression and they felt secure in at least the next two years at the position such that they'd only need to even think about another starting quarterback for 2021. That famously influenced their decision with respect to guys like Burrow. Less obvious, but I think even more important, it probably made them feel comfortable taking a huge project with significant athleticism in McCaffrey for their second recruit at the position. He was never meant to be a starter until, at minimum, next year.
With those two on board, the staff goes out and gets Smothers, who seems like he has more potential at the position than McCaffrey, but that's a fairly low bar now that we've seen McCaffrey start a few games. The problem, of course, is that Smothers is a true freshman who didn't get a real spring ball, and we have no idea how he'd fare now or even next year. What's more, we struck out on the national QB recruits this class (Costelli being most prominent--probably in no small part to his mom thinking Nash Hutmacher is a monster, according to @TraditionCoalition , at least). Instead, we're bringing in Haarberg, who is another huge project. At least, unlike McCaffrey, he has the size and the arm to perhaps one day be developed. However, how many of us have much confidence left in Verduzco to do that?
Combine all of the above with the almost mocking dismissal--conveyed to the fans by nodding-head journalists like @Sean Callahan --of pursuing a transfer quarterback, even one with the history of performance with this very staff like Milton, and there is no help on the horizon for next year and maybe even beyond. Martinez is who he is: A pretty good runner who is injury-prone and inexplicably can't throw anything beyond ten yards with consistency. McCaffrey is nowhere near being at the passing level of even Martinez, which is all that needs to be said there, and he's slightly-built enough that his myriad rushing attempts will almost certainly injure him over the course of a full season. Smothers is so young we have no idea there. Haarberg is a huge project. There is no reason to think this gets better in 2021 given that and how difficult the schedule is. That's four years of the Frost era where we likely have losing records, no bowl game, and nothing indicating it's going to improve. Pretty hard to climb out of that, in my opinion.
And all of this would be drastically different but for a series of decisions made on the basis of essentially one position and, really, one person: quarterback and Adrian Martinez.
I appreciate anyone who takes the time to go through all of this, and I welcome any and all thoughts about it, because like most of you, I've tried to make as much sense of this as I can, and that's the best I can do for now.
Others have pointed this out in varying ways, so I don't want to pretend as though this is an entirely unique insight. However, the more I think about it, I can't help but draw comparisons to Callahan with Cosgrove and the oft-repeated discussion about whether his loyalty to the defensive coordinator was the anchor that ultimately sunk him here. Honestly, though, it's even more specific than that and thus more devastating for Frost. Cosgrove accounted for an entire phase of football. Here, what we're talking about is one position, albeit clearly the most important. It really does hinge on something so focused.
To first recapitulate what I and others have been saying certainly since yesterday and, in many cases, longer: With competent quarterback play, we win yesterday and win several other games during the three-year Frost tenure. There were at least two plays to Wan'Dale and one play to Oliver Martin where decent throws produce big plays and likely touchdowns that completely change the complexion of the game. The examples throughout 2019 and 2020 are legion.
While Frost and his staff clearly inherited a team that was short on talent, they have done a decent enough job utilizing players from the previous regime and recruiting early on to make this a decent squad in enough ways. No, the team is certainly not perfect, and they are young in some spots. That being said, this team is more than talented and experienced enough to be a middle-of-the-pack or slightly better B1G team. It is being dragged to the bottom by the quarterbacks.
Neither Martinez nor McCaffrey provide any vertical passing threat, and that simply destroys any chance for this offense to thrive. Moreover, both have accuracy and timing issues on the shorter, often horizontal passing plays (see the first plays against Illinois and yesterday). Because of that, we're stuck with a hybrid late-Solich run-the-QB offense with some sprinkling of dink-and-dunk passing. It's awful, both to watch and in terms of producing results.
People want to place the blame broadly: wide receivers being too slow or White, offensive line not providing adequate protection, playcalling and game management, the defense, etc. There have been issues with each of those, but I don't think even combined they come close to the quarterback problem:
a) Wide Receivers-As I mentioned above, our wide receivers were getting open yesterday. They've gotten open throughout the past couple seasons. And this season, that most definitely includes the much maligned corps that includes multiple walk-on crackers. It is odd that the scholarship guys other than Betts can't find the field, but it really doesn't matter. The ball would not get to them. Oliver Martin gets open. Too scholarshippy due to his four-star recruit status, you say? Fine, there have been several instances of guys like Falck and Liewer getting open to no avail.
b) Offensive Line-Here there definitely have been some protection lapses. It's easy to think about Benhart on a couple occasions yesterday, Farniok's crucial whiff against Cockeye, etc. Yes, the line hasn't always been stellar. But they've done the job more than sufficiently in enough cases where pressure hasn't been the issue in balls not getting delivered down the field. If you went back and looked at each of the bad incompletions this year, you'd find several didn't involve pressure on the quarterback and instead were just a function of the ball being delivered without accuracy. Bottom line: This offensive line is good enough to get the job done for now.
c) Playcalling and Game Management-Again, there's at least something here to criticize. Unless Mills really is in much worse shape than we know, it is odd that they didn't run him up the middle more against a statistically poor Minnesota run defense. There have also been plenty of poor game management moments that are inexcusable: having to take timeouts after kickoffs, putting McCaffrey into a game last year for one play, etc. However, at root, a lot of the playcalling criticism seems to stem from Frost calling plays that are required for his offense to run effectively but not adequately taking account of how shitty his quarterbacks are. I can somewhat sympathize with this argument, but I have to think if he doesn't even try with some of these calls, the few things that do work with any consistency would become that much harder to pull off with regularity. In any event, as we've now noted several times: these plays oftentimes are there! The protection is enough, the wide receivers are open, but the quarterback just can't get it done. Playcalling starts to fade into the background with competent play at the position, I believe.
d) Defense-I'll be quick here for once: The defense has been good enough this year outside of Illinois and Ohio State. They're not the problem in the sense of us being at the bottom of the conference.
So how did we get here? Again, I don't think most of this is all that new or insightful, but it helped me, at least, to put it all together. Frost and Verduzco were in love with Martinez as a recruit and once he got on campus. His 2018 season cemented that impression and they felt secure in at least the next two years at the position such that they'd only need to even think about another starting quarterback for 2021. That famously influenced their decision with respect to guys like Burrow. Less obvious, but I think even more important, it probably made them feel comfortable taking a huge project with significant athleticism in McCaffrey for their second recruit at the position. He was never meant to be a starter until, at minimum, next year.
With those two on board, the staff goes out and gets Smothers, who seems like he has more potential at the position than McCaffrey, but that's a fairly low bar now that we've seen McCaffrey start a few games. The problem, of course, is that Smothers is a true freshman who didn't get a real spring ball, and we have no idea how he'd fare now or even next year. What's more, we struck out on the national QB recruits this class (Costelli being most prominent--probably in no small part to his mom thinking Nash Hutmacher is a monster, according to @TraditionCoalition , at least). Instead, we're bringing in Haarberg, who is another huge project. At least, unlike McCaffrey, he has the size and the arm to perhaps one day be developed. However, how many of us have much confidence left in Verduzco to do that?
Combine all of the above with the almost mocking dismissal--conveyed to the fans by nodding-head journalists like @Sean Callahan --of pursuing a transfer quarterback, even one with the history of performance with this very staff like Milton, and there is no help on the horizon for next year and maybe even beyond. Martinez is who he is: A pretty good runner who is injury-prone and inexplicably can't throw anything beyond ten yards with consistency. McCaffrey is nowhere near being at the passing level of even Martinez, which is all that needs to be said there, and he's slightly-built enough that his myriad rushing attempts will almost certainly injure him over the course of a full season. Smothers is so young we have no idea there. Haarberg is a huge project. There is no reason to think this gets better in 2021 given that and how difficult the schedule is. That's four years of the Frost era where we likely have losing records, no bowl game, and nothing indicating it's going to improve. Pretty hard to climb out of that, in my opinion.
And all of this would be drastically different but for a series of decisions made on the basis of essentially one position and, really, one person: quarterback and Adrian Martinez.
I appreciate anyone who takes the time to go through all of this, and I welcome any and all thoughts about it, because like most of you, I've tried to make as much sense of this as I can, and that's the best I can do for now.
