Matt Hinton’s QB Curve piece from yesterday has a little bit of everything for you, starting with this astonishing clip of Nick Fitzgerald from last year’s Egg Bowl.
When you’ve got a quarterback who can run away from the secondary, you’ve got a fast quarterback. Hell, you’ve got a fast back, period. Fortunately for Georgia, who has to defend him in a couple of weeks, Fitzgerald’s passing game isn’t on the same level.
With the exception of the Alabama game and a pair of midseason losses at BYU and Kentucky, he was rarely awful. Even at his best, though, his ceiling as a passer settled in around replacement-level. His overall completion percentage for the season (54.3) was the worst of any regular SEC starter except Texas A&M’s Trevor Knight. His average yards per attempt in conference games (6.1) was the worst of any SEC starter except Georgia’s Jacob Eason. Against opponents that finished with winning records, he turned in the worst efficiency rating (108.4) of any SEC starter except Vanderbilt’s Kyle Shurmur. In contrast to his breakaway style on the ground, he had one of the league’s lowest rates of explosive plays through the air.
Pretty obvious that Tucker’s game plan will be a lather, rinse, repeat version of what he had for Brandon Wimbush.
As far as the local boy goes, it’s hard to argue with Matt’s summary.
Still, the upshot is that, with Georgia’s defense and ground game, Fromm only needed to be minimally competent to survive and he was. Given the rest of Georgia’s schedule, that might be good enough to the take the Bulldogs an awfully long way: None of the toughest remaining tests (against Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, and Georgia Tech) look any more daunting right now than the one Fromm just passed, and there’s clearly no need to rush Jacob Eason back from the knee injury that kept him sidelined in South Bend. Whether it was good enough for Fromm to continue to earn significant reps whenever Eason is 100 percent is another story.
And that’s the thing. The quarterback controversy may be a trendy topic for message board arguments and pundits, but if Georgia is good enough in other areas to get away with minimally competent quarterback play, it’s not that big a deal which of the two starts, is it?
Finally, the snark. And it’s tasty stuff.
Honk If You Sacked Jarrett. Remember when this was a thing?
I dunno, something tells me the bets that drove up those odds aren’t going to be paying off. Call it a hunch.
Get The Picture 
Where I disagree with Hinton, is on the SEC road schedule. I think that will be rougher on Jake than ND was… whether the team we’re playing is better than us or not. There’s going to be a big difference at Tennessee and ND… but I still think he doesn’t get rattled by it, but the crowd noise will be a much bigger issue. Hopefully we can keep them out of it.
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Fitzpatrick and Mullen have made me nervous since before the season started. I know I’ve got a comment somewhere in the offseason that has us losing that game. It’s such a different animal than what we saw at ND…both Fitzpatrick and Mullen are far superior to Wimbush and NDOC [speaking of which…ND could do a lot worse than Mullen if/when they get rid of Kelly].
The biggest difference to me is the pocket discipline. Fitzpatrick will both run between the tackles…as you see above…and will throw the quick slant seemingly directly from the fake handoff in the RPO. He doesn’t drift in the pocket. Wimbush was constantly dropping too far back (whether by habit or design) and rarely took off up the middle. Fitzpatrick will take more advantage of our LBs respecting the hand-off to the RB by testing the middle. I’m not saying that they will have a ton of success…but I do expect it to test our D-Line and Patrick/Smith/Carter a bit more. (I think it also could be a situation where LeCounte has a chance for a big game)
And as far as the YPC…note that Mullen has some precedent in taking a Sophomore QB with a low YPC and developing him into a better passer as an upperclassman.
http://www.cfbstats.com/2013/leader/911/player/split07/category02/sort04.html
Short version…I’m all Larry Munson over the MSU game. I’m going to be watching their matchup with LSU pretty closely Saturday.
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Yes, TN will be a much bigger test than ND was, relative to stadium hostility. Need to take the crowd out of that place early, the Vols are desperate, and may be even more so if they fall flat in The Swamp on Saturday.
Encouraging stats on Fitzgerald. He is still a dangerous runner but we all got a warm feeling last Saturday about Tucker’s ability to scheme the defense for a running QB. LSU will probably put some bruises on him this week if he tries to run as much as he has.
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If Eason never gets his job back that means Fromm is playing lights out so that’s what I’m hoping for. In that case, Eason can either go back to Washington or learn how to punt like Ramsey did.
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Not so fast, my friend! We’re gonna need him eventually. Especially until this OL gets settled.
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?
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Toughest schedule in the nation just went to easy enough to handle with a serviceable QB. Let the dawgrading begin!
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Wonder who Urban Meyer would vote for.
Bet old Urban misses his OC, Tom Herrmann. After he left at end of 2014 season things have not been the same for the Buckeyes. Just a matter of time for Herrmann to get the Horns moving…and they have a premier state to recruit in and they have all kinds of money…$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Baker Mayfield torched Meyer’s Buckeyes. They could not keep pace with him.
All my old Marine officer buddies from OU eat that up this go around. Boomer Sooners!
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