Where did all the QBs go?

As I’m reading Year2’s initial post on the 2009 Gamecocks, I come across this quote from a Columbia radio show host –

Spurrier’s still as good a playcaller as he ever was, and his system still works. There were plenty of times last year where receivers were open and the quarterback either didn’t make the read, made a bad throw, or was getting sacked. No Spurrier offense can work correctly without a QB. In four years in Columbia, he hasn’t one worth a darn yet.

… and I think to myself, what the hell is the deal with quarterbacks in this conference?

Look at lists like this one and this one.  You may quibble a little about the order, but is there any real doubt right now that there are two legitimate starting SEC QBs and then a bunch of question marks (or worse)?  And that’s just the starters – check out Chris Low’s list of what the backup situation looks like.

If Spurrier, with his coaching talent and track record, can’t find a decent quarterback to run the show in four years, what does that say about what’s going on in the SEC these days?

And it’s not like ’09 is an outlier.  2008 saw eight SEC starting QBs in the top 100 nationally in passing efficiency, but five of those ranked between 66 and 100.  And as we sit here in June, five of those guys are gone.

So what’s happening here?  Bad recruiting?  Bad coaching?  Poor talent base in the Southeast?  Not enough high schools that have quality passing attacks?  Are SEC defenses that good?

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They’re smart and they want respect.

I’m starting to get dizzy:

To recap: last January, the JCCW posited that Tennessee’s and Auburn’s commitment to spending far more money on their assistant coaches than at any point in their program’s history while simultaneously spending less (far less in Auburn’s case) on their new head coaches than their predecessors might represent “perhaps a new way of financial thinking in the SEC.” Blutarsky responded with skepticism. The JCCW responded with silly pictures. Earlier this week, Rocky Top Talk made a similar argument regarding Kiffin. Blutarsky responded, again with skepticism. The JCCW responded to that response.

That brings us to this new post from Blutarsky in response to that response…

We’ve spilled a lot of bandwidth on this, so I don’t want to go on very long here, but I do think there’s something that bears repeating.

Jerry thinks that there’s big changes afoot, and that even if they don’t rise to a level worthy of being categorized as a new model, they’re significant enough to bear watching.

Me?  I can’t see it as any more than the logical extension of what’s been coming for a while now, namely, the steady rise in coaching salaries.  The only difference between what UT and Auburn have done and what Oklahoma and Alabama are doing is that the latter two are blowing the big money on the marquee head coaches and the former aren’t.

Not by choice, though.  If the right big name had been there, each would have been happy to toss the bucks at him.  In the SEC these days, money’s no object if you’ve got a target.  Auburn and Tennessee, coming off of disappointing seasons and watching rival schools hit home runs with their most recent hires, didn’t want to waste their ammo, so they simply shifted their sights to what was available – big name assistant coaches.  Inevitable, given the players involved.

That’s fine, but it isn’t the same thing as a planned strategy worth crowing about or emulating.  The continuing insistence that there’s more going on here than meets the eye risks sounding positively Fredo-esque.

The likely long term impact from all this is that there a lot of assistant coaches – particularly the great recruiters – who are going to need to put Mike Hamilton and Jay Jacobs on their Christmas card lists.  Now that’s a plan Jimmy Sexton can believe in.

Monday morning buffet

It’s a short week, so let’s get it off to a good start.

• The Quad looks at its #65 team, Vanderbilt.  From the easier-said-than-done department:  “If the team can locate depth at running back and have two of its young, talented receivers step up, the Commodores will do better than the 19.2 points and 256.2 yards of total offense it averaged per game a season ago.”
• Nick Saban Fights The Power – with contract extension news.  It’s a win-win for everybody!  (Including Les Miles.)
• Rex Robinson hooks up with Brandon Bogotay.
• CFR cites this great quote from Steele:  “There is no way that you could find a single #7 team in the country the last 12 years that had a legitimate claim to being in the national title game.” B-b-b-but Cinderellas, fellas!
• It’s all good in Knoxville – except for that pesky quarterback thing, you know.
• Matt Hayes counts up all of the non-conference games, and finds that the BCS conference schools left a little too much on the table:  “In the six BCS leagues, there are 57 games against I-AA teams and 111 against non-BCS, Division I teams. That’s 168 chances where teams from BCS leagues could’ve played.” And check out his worst game of the season.
• Promises, promises from Michael Adams:  “I don’t think we’re going to see the 30-year tenures in ADs anymore than we are in college presidents these days…” Anybody got a calendar?