The Big 12: It's like witness protection for prospective pro quarterbacks

3 comments so far April 28, 2009 by Brandon Vogel

In case you missed it last fall, 2008 was known as the "year of the quarterback" in the Big 12. From the halls of Columbia, Missouri and Manhattan, Kansas to somewhere in the vicinity of the shores of the Red, Rio Grande and Missouri Rivers, never before had so much signal-calling talent assembled in one conference.

In case you missed it last weekend, the NFL doesn't care. Sure, eight of the top 12 rated passers in the Big 12 last year will be back on campus this fall (including the top two QBs in the conference in Bradford and McCoy), but three of the top six rated passers from 2008 were there for the taking and nobody bit. Joe Ganz, Chase Daniel, and Graham Harrell all piled up huge numbers in college and went undrafted while Josh Freeman (10th rated passer) and Stephen McGee (85 ATT in 08) were picked in the first and fourth rounds respectively.

Ultimately, this shouldn't be that surprising. The next great pro quarterback you see from the Big 12 will be the first.

Since the Big 12's first season in 1996, a total of nine quarterbacks have been drafted from the conference (not including this year's picks). Their career stats, along with their draft position, are listed in the table below:

Not much to look at numbers wise and even less to look at in the win column. Collectively, Big 12 QBs are 39-37 as starters (.513 WIN%) and have exactly zero playoff wins. Vince Young, the best quarterback in the history of the Big 12 and highest quarterback picked, had a brilliant rookie season but has since flamed out in Tennessee. Sage Rosenfels, who finished 8th in passer efficiency rating in his senior season (that's two spots behind Eric Crouch), did enough in his five starts for the Texans last year to earn a shot to compete for the starting job in Minnesota this year. Sprinkle in about a dozen starts each for Chris Simms and Seneca Wallace, eight starts for Koy Detmer, two glorious pass attempts for Kliff Kingsbury and eight shots at the end zone, all hail mary's I presume, for Michael Bishop and that's basically the entire history of Big 12 quarterbacks in the NFL.

What gives? Why can't one of the premier conference's in college football produce premier pro talent at the premier position in the game?

Should we blame the systems? Maybe. One of the Big 12's two Heisman winning quarterbacks, Eric Crouch, never got drafted because he was actually a running back (or a wide receiver or a safety, nobody really knew), and the option has kept Nebraska's NFL history at the position pretty much limited to Vince Ferragamo starting the majority of three seasons with the Rams and losing a Super Bowl. You could say the same thing for Oklahoma in their wishbone days. The Sooners have only had one quarterback drafted ever. That's two of the top programs in the country (and therefore conference) who were basically eliminated from the pro QB race based on their system alone. And, while it used to be the option that didn't translate, now it's the spread which is all the rage with the nouveau riche in the conference. Even the best "system quarterback" out of Texas Tech, Graham Harrell, fared worse than the "system quarterbacks", Symons and Kingsbury, before him when he didn't get drafted.

Should we blame size? Maybe. The fact that Josh Freeman is 6'6" and 250 lbs. seems to be about his only recommendation and he went in the first round while Ganz, 6'1", and Daniel, 6'0", both had to join the Redskins via free agency despite posting better numbers across the board. I blame Doug Flutie for this. Flutie had moderate success in the NFL to bookend his pro career but between those two periods he had his greatest success in Canadian Football. Did you ever see him play a game other than the occasional Grey Cup on ESPN2? The NFL didn't either. The undersized QB doesn't have a great track record in the pro game. Grit and guts are great if you are also 6'6", but it's a one way street and the NFL loves measurables above all. This doesn't bode well for Todd Reesing next year.

Should we blame pure, simple bad luck? Maybe. Jason White, the second of the Big 12's Heisman winning QBs and only the third player to win back-to-back Davey O'Brien awards, didn't get drafted because both of his knees had been shredded while at Oklahoma. Major Applewhite consistently outplayed Chris Simms but lacked the pro pedigree, and, again, the size, to lure any NFL team into spending a pick on him.

That's three maybes and no real good answer other than "the college game is just different." To use an example from the Big 8, Tommie Frazier hit all three "reasons." Largely considered the best pre-Tebow college quarterback, Frazier was an option quarterback, 6'2" with a history of blood clots, who had the misfortune of preceding the NFL success of the likes of Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick. Would he have gotten a longer look in 1999 than he did in 1996? Probably, but them's the breaks.

So the question now is: Is the Big 12 a more "collegiate" conference than its BCS brethren? The Big 10 feels like the NFL of 1958 from an offensive standpoint and the SEC, and to a slightly lesser extent the ACC, makes their quarterbacks look that way with their defenses. The Pac-10 still throws it around pretty good but they do it mostly from a pro-style approach and the Big East fights for scraps without the major recruiting bases of the other BCS conferences.

You could say that the Big 12 is an amalgam of all of those things. Currently it represents the Pac-10 in its aerial assault, but there have been periods of dominant defense. Teams in the North aren't much better off than teams in the northeast in terms of recruiting base. Toss in a few QBs who, despite their talent, hover around the six-foot mark and you have a great college conference that, to date, has yet to produce a truly "professional" quarterback.

Ultimately, as a fan of the Big 12, I'm fine with that. I watch the college game, not the pros, and it even gives me a little bit of pride that the often great QB play we see in the Big 12 is uniquely ours, almost like a one-off or a limited-print run. Blink and you'll miss it.

But someday it would be nice to quiet the critics. Maybe it can start at Nebraska a couple years down the road. Hey Mel Kiper, Cody Green is 6'4", 220lbs, and yet to throw a pass. How does that grade out?

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