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Are you just making the second man argument against Logan or you believe honestly believe Leal would have won all those games?
1) I think if you have good depth at QB, coupled with good coaching, then the drop from QB1 to QB2 should not necessarily be very high. No matter one is a 3 year starter and the other a career backup. Bama's McElroy to McCarron for example. QB2 was able to step in and take over from where QB1 left off. If you coach a good offense with good talent this should always be the case.
2) If arguing that Leal could have done a better job this season then what specifically did you see in the Sun Bowl that made you think this? I personally was underwhelmed by his performance. Beamer seemed to be as well. I remember the comment from Lefty during the season that he believed Leal "could do anything that Logan can do" but I didn't see it. For getting thrown into the fire he didn't play too terribly but he certainly didn't show that he was ready to take the job.
I think Leal has a chance to be the starter next year, but only slim.
Pitt, I'll give you. But would we be running much Read Option/IV if Leal was the QB? It seems to me that like I was saying earlier, that decision was made around exploiting LT's strengths. For example, I don't think we will run much RO/IV next year if Ford is the starter next year.
That said, wouldn't it be fair to assume that an increase in accuracy/precision in the short to medium passing game (assuming that's the one strength that Leal would bring where LT was much shakier) would help to alleviate some of that pressure? Assuming that with real game experience, he would start to hit more of those passes under pressure (perhaps this is too big of an assumption, there is no way to know).
I've mostly been in disagreement with what you've been saying...but I'll agree with you on Durkin. When I saw his film my immediate thought was that he was recruited because Loeffler saw the power running threat in him that LT had. He could use Durkin in the read option game and run Veer and IV plays with him. I think, as French said a while ago, the "seduction of the Veer" drew Loeffler to Durkin.
also...that last sentence...I see what you did there...
I appreciate your opinon. You're the most respected poster/columnist on this site for a reason, and please don't take my disagreement as a sign of disrespect. I absolutely hear what you are saying 100%, even if I don't agree 100%.
My only thing to add at this point is to piggyback and say "if they had recruited well," you would have been doing film review on a different QB all season, including reviewing the back-up.
I think Logan Thomas is a great guy who was put in an unfair situation. I think it was a gigantic gamble playing him as QB, and we did it because we had to (because of poor recruiting). I think with a good to great offensive coaching staff, it very well *could have* worked. I'd say the chances are high. But we didn't have a good offensive coaching staff, and this is what happened.
I think IIWII and it's time to move on. I think (hope, more accurately) that the future is bright. My only worry from a program perspective is that this move was made about 5 years too late. It's hard for me to not think about where we would be right now if the hard (but IMO obvious) decision about the offensive coaching staff was made a few years earlier.
Watch the Pitt film again- Logan was making special throws against absurd pressure. Donald was in his face all game long. Against Georgia Tech, Logan had to serve as a primary running threat (I think we both agree that Leal isn't a threat on read option or the inverted veer.) In both situations, I don't think Leal provides the same level of performance for the reasons highlighted in the film review. I say, with all conviction, that what you saw in the Sun Bowl was not a "rusty" quarterback. He played exactly the same way he played in the two Spring Games I have watched and multiple scrimmages. That is what he is.
And, while BC is a bit up in the air (Logan was under a ton of heat that game), I think Maryland beats the Hokies regardless of the QB. Maryland physically looked like the better team in all facets that day.
The guys who develop it do so usually serving as a second string QB and facing the pressure that comes with taking snaps behind a 2nd team OL against a much better DL. In scrimmages and spring games, he was pressured often. That experience is there, but he doesn't handle it as well as you would like to see. You want a quarterback to "feel" pressure, but not have it disrupt his throw. For Leal, he feels pressure very well, but he reacts to it by taking his eyes off his receivers down field. You can't have that unless your QB has maximum escapability. Reading the defense, and then standing in and making the throw are my biggest worries, and that part of the Sun Bowl test he bombed, no pun intended. He has two months to improve. If he does win the job, nobody will root harder for him to succeed than me. I just don't see the skill set.
No one seems to want to say, it. But, it's hard for me to not see all the glaring parallels between Durkin and Thomas. Is that a fair statement?
Seems to me that the Ford/Durkin decision (All else being equal, with Ford's January enrollment I don't think it quite is) would come down to if Loeffler wants to continue in this offense that he devised around the strengths of Logan Thomas, or if he wants to move the program in the direction of utilizing a more traditional pocket passer. Is that a fair statement?
This is why I think Leal will get a shot, but will get left in the cold. He's not a pocket passer on the level of Ford, and he's not a power run threat on the level of a Durkin/Thomas. He's a Mark of all trades, master of none.
Why would Spurrier do that? They had their best playmaker Bruce Ellington playing basketball as well the past 3 years...
10 of the 12 teams we played this year were in bowl games at the end of the year...in fact, we are the ONLY bowl team who played against 10 other bowl teams.
I don't think your "8-5 against a weak schedule" argument holds much water
Concussions and ACL tears hurt your career as a NBA baller more than a low batting average.
To me, the gap is large enough that I would have made the same choice as Beamer and I wouldn't have thought about it very much. That isn't to say that Logan wasn't flawed. He was. But, unlike a vast majority of the people who were offering opinions about benching Logan, I saw Leal play in person on several occasions, and not one time did the eye test suggest that he should be starting over Logan. Honestly, if they had recruited well I think we would be doing a film review on a different quarterback right now. I don't know if I could name three ACC QB's he would start over. Ultimately I think if he wins the job, it will be more a byproduct of Ford and Motley not being ready to play than some kind of dominant performance by Leal.
What, specifically, was Logan doing against Pitt, GT, and UNC that Leal wouldn't or couldn't have done? Weren't the big praises of LT for those games really that he just didn't turn the ball over? You said that he was the starter because he was the only playmaker on an offense that had no others. Did he make a lot of big plays that turned the tide of those games? Maybe he did, I honestly don't remember.
Do you still think we lose to both BC and Maryland late in the season if Leal has a season of starter practice reps and game experience?
Spurrier strikes me as the kinda dick who would say that. Remember when Tom O'Brian told Russell not to play baseball. That wasn't such a hot idea.
Following the great traditionof Radall and Jeff King. Coach Johnson has to be thrilled.
He absolutely does, do you not agree that this is a skill that comes with real in-game experience? You can only do *so much* in practice.
If Logan gets hurt early, they lose to Pitt, GT, and UNC. Duke and ECU were the two games where Logan was really bad throughout. Maybe they beat Duke. 6-7 maybe?
Our offense could go up Tempo
A fair statment, and I understand even if I disagree to an extent. I can't help but wonder how much of that was due to 3 years of starting level experience, these are things you figure out over time. The sample size when making a "how they react under pressure" evaluation between the two, you have to admit, is very large. There's much more chance for variance in Leal's small sample size.
I stand by my statement that after 3 years of starting the gap between the two in all facets of the job should have been so large that there was absolutely no question at all, and while you think there was, it should have been a lot easier to get consensus on that there there was. I also stand by the notion that if Logan went down with a season -ending injury at any time early this year, that the end result for this team this season would not be that different.
It does, but he has to be able to make that throw under pressure. Especially in 3rd and medium to long when you know the defense will bring a blitz.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you...and LT didn't exactly line up as a TE if we're nit picking..but this is damn close enough. I think it's foolish to use such definite statements like
No one is going to waste a 3rd/4th round pick for the sole simply for the sole purpose of taking a flyer on converting a guy to play TE who's spent the last 7 years playing QB and has never played a down of TE in his life.
We will go into this in greater detail once Ford is enrolled and Durkin signs his LOI, but when I watch the film, I see Ford as a much more refined product throwing the football. He is very solid with ball handling, is accurate and has great touch. Durkin has a stronger arm, and is a terrific power running threat with enough speed to also threaten the edge on a read option. However, Durkin's mechanics are very erratic at this point. Right now, he is a big, strong, fast athlete who can throw. He isn't a quarterback. It will take some time before his accuracy on short to medium throws out of a misdirection based offense are accurate enough for him to contribute.
The other tricky thing about LT is that a good team can stop him from running when they know he's going to run. There was a time (2011? the first half of 2012?) when he could QB-sneak for 2 or 3 yards anytime we really needed it. But once surprise was lost on that tactic, it was no longer effective. Others have posted that his read-option would probably have been more effective overall if he had handed the ball off more. But too many defenses decided they would take away the pitch, and either stop LT short or wear him down with all the heavy hits. Once the read-option became "Logan's going to keep it," it lost much of its effectiveness.
Against those points, I have often found it frustrating that Leal's greatest strength (IMHO) - his ability to throw a pass with touch instead of firing everything 100 mph - happens to line up with Logan's greatest weakness as a passer.
well if you actually read my comment you would see that I wasn't pro 'LT for TE'..I was just saying you(figuratively..don't get your knickers in a twist) look foolish when you make definitive statements that people can easily refute. I'm all for LT making it as an NFL QB...if someone wants to convince people in an argument they need to be smarter about what they say.
Pat White was drafted as a QB for the Dolphins wildcat offense. He never played WR.
In several states and municipalities, Bud has to register his thoughts and dreams as lethal weapons.