QB’s No Longer Separate Teams From the Pack

5 comments so far September 2, 2008 by Steve Hanway

There was a time in college football when a good quarterback was a rare commodity. I’m not talking about a good locker room leader or a capable field general, but rather someone you could ask to throw 30 or more passes in a game and be confident that they would complete more passes than they’d miss on and they would throw more touchdowns than interceptions. Nowadays, four-star quarterback prospects are passed around like NU basketball tickets – hardly a scarce commodity.

San Jose State’s Kyle Reed is a perfect example. Reed was a top prospect for Cal in 2005. But he didn’t win the starting job with the Golden Bears and instead went shopping for a starting spot elsewhere. He ended up at San Jose State where he came in late to save the Spartans’ bacon against lowly UC Davis.

Shouldn’t a quarterback of that caliber have had better options when things didn’t work out at Cal? You would think so, but the reality is that there are a lot of good quarterbacks to go around. The Big 12 alone is loaded with quality quarterbacks, Sam Bradford, Graham Harrell, Chase Daniel, Todd Reesing, Josh Freeman, Colt McCoy, Joe Ganz, and Cody Hawkins are all likely to have efficient seasons from the quarterback spots. Heck, even Baylor has two four-star quarterbacks on its roster.

Why so many good quarterbacks these days? There are more obsessive Dad’s than ever, more obsessive coaches, and more obsessed kids. School age boys are falling behind girls academically and that’s been largely attributed to an overemphasis on athletics over academics among boys. With the camps and the videos, and the weights and the ahem, nutritional enhancements, it’s no wonder that high schools are churning out an army of good quarterbacks each year.

But a good quarterback is no longer a differentiator in college football – it’s table stakes. You absolutely need one, but just having one won’t carry your team to glory. Gone are the days when a Doug Flutie or Ty Detmer could single-handedly upset a juggernaut. It’s now about what you put around that quarterback. Who’s got the big receiver (Jeremy Maclin comes to mind)? Who’s got the pass-rushers to rattle the cages of these hotshots (any surprise OU keeps winning the Big 12 or that the SEC keeps winning national championships)?

Yes, a truly transcendent player like Vince Young or Michael Vick can still elevate a team and create an advantage. But who’s that player in 2008? Maybe West Virginia's Pat White? Is there another? Not that I see (and Missouri fans, spare me the Daniel talk, he’s a nice player but he’s no Vince Young).

Reed will give San Jose State a chance on Saturday, but only a small one. Joe Ganz all but neutralizes the advantage he would provide. The Spartans need their defense to perform like they did against UC Davis – only against much better competition. The Spartans don’t have a Marlon Lucky. They don’t have an offensive line like the one NU can march out there. They’d probably be happy to take NU’s second-team O-line.

That’s why this game against NU probably won’t be close, even though San Jose State has a quarterback that puts up the kind of numbers that would have made him a star a generation ago.

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