Seems like one of the biggest topics of discussion in this early offseason has been about Michael Brewer. I've not got any hard data to back this up, but it seems like TKP members (at least the active commenters) are split close to right down the middle on Brewdog.
Full disclosure: I'm pro-Brewer. He won me over with his moxy in the Ohio State game. and held my loyalty by the way he kept peeling himself off the turf and continuing the fight, like his scoop and score on a fumble. But I also wanted to take a look at how the young man did by the numbers in 2014, factoring out any emotional lean due to Brewer's heart and competitiveness. In general what I want to look at is, did Brewer develop over the course of the season, and was the development sufficient for him to have any leg up in the QB competition come spring practice?
If there was a knock on Brewer early in the year, it was (everyone say it with me now)... INTERCEPTIONS. Through week five, Michael had tossed ten picks, putting him on pace for a 24 interception season. After the Western Michigan game, if Scot Loeffler had one mission as a QB coach, it was to get Brewer to stop throwing picks. And how did that particular mission fare? Here's a look at Brewer's interceptions by game:
Looking at raw numbers:
- Games 1-5: 2.000 INT/Game
- Games 6-13: 0.625 INT/Game
The knee-jerk is mission accomplished. Yes, Brewer still threw some picks down the stretch, but it was at a very manageable rate. However, just celebrating a steep drop-off in INTs would be myopic. How was the rest of Brewer's game affected by the focus to rope in his interceptions? Was there a significant decline in his effectiveness as a QB once his INTs dropped? Here's a look at his INTs/Game against his passer rating:
Here I've converted Brewer's INTs to a bar graph, while the line graph represents his passer rating in each contest, in the hopes that this makes it a little easier to read. The dotted line represents Brewer's season average passer rating. I chose passer rating rather than ESPN's QBR because QBR focuses on all around QB contribution to the outcome of a game, and here I'm more focused on how the attempt to reign in interceptions affected Brewer's passing game. (Plus I'm skeptical of the QBR since ESPN refuses to divulge the formula.)
Looking at this reveals the following:
- There was not a significant drop-off in passer rating after Brewer started focusing on reducing INTs.
- Both Brewer's best and worst games as a passer against FBS competition came after he'd gotten INTs under control.
- Brewer is a way more consistent QB than I originally gave him credit for.
In regards to that last point, Brewer was pretty much right on his season average passer rating in five of the thirteen games he played. On a whim, I compared ther standard deviation in Brewer's game-to-game passer rating to that of Heisman winner Marcus Mariota. Feeling it was unfair to compare Brewer to a Heisman winner, I also included an "average" quarterback. I arbitrarily selected the QB ranked 50th in passer rating, Northern Illinois' Drew Hare. The results:
Brewer | Mariota | Drew Hare | |
---|---|---|---|
Passer Rating | 117.35 | 184.35 | 136.33 |
Standard Deviation | 20.31 | 36.94 | 38.24 |
STDEV as % of PR | 17.47% | 19.64% | 27.03% |
Apologies if that's hard to read. The bottom line (literally) is that Michael Brewer displayed Heisman-level consistency from game to game, and that's the only time "Heisman-level" and "Michael Brewer" can be used in the same sentence. Brewer was consistent, but he was also a consistently subaverage passer. Part of the reason why is because Brewer's YPA is a paltry 6.1. Another reason is, although he did do a pretty great job corralling his INTs, his 18:15 TD:INT ratio put a dent in his passer rating.
Finally, speaking of that TD:INT ratio, here's one more round of graphy goodness before we adjourn:
In games 1-5, Brewer threw more TDs than INTs once, against ECU. In games 6-13, he managed that feat four times.
So there you have it. All the info on Michael Brewer's performance I can cram into Excel. And what have we learned today? Mostly that Brewer is a consistent QB with definite limitations who improved in terms of throwing picks over the course of the season without taking a big hit in passer efficiency. Even if he maintains this improved TD:INT ratio, we won't see a dramatic improvement in his passer efficiency unless his yards per attempt and completion percentage takes a big boost. (If his 0.625 INT/game average down the stretch had held all season, his passer rating would still have only been 120.52, all else holding equal.)
The question is, is the Michael Brewer we saw down the stretch good enough to have any sort of advantage or coach favor when spring practice begins? Based on the numbers above, I'm not sure there's a definite answer either way.
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