Historically Speaking, How Bad Was McElroy's Performance?
by outsidethesidelines on Oct 19, 2009 8:03 AM CDT
in Football
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PrintIn my initial impressions piece yesterday, I wrote that Greg McElroy played so poorly against South Carolina that, "for all intents and purposes, we had Spencer Pennington at quarterback last night," and that I could not remember, "the last time we had a quarterback play this poorly." That was, of course, just an early survey of the South Carolina game, and I wanted to take a closer look and see exactly how McElroy's performance stacked up historically with Alabama quarterbacks in recent years.
To that end, I've looked at the game statistics in the post-Stallings era and focused on the QB ratings of the individual quarterbacks. For the purpose of this survey, I've set a minimum of 10 passing attempts in order to factor out those who just saw limited action at quarterbacks, or those who just threw a handful of passes out of gimmick formations. With all of that said, the following are the 12 lowest single-game QB ratings of the post-Stallings era:
| Quarterback | Year | Opponent | Passer Rating |
| Brodie Croyle | 2002 | Southern Miss | 8.4 |
| John David Phillips | 1998 | Arkansas | 52.53 |
| Andrew Zow | 2000 | UCLA | 59.68 |
| John Parker Wilson | 2007 | Mississippi St. | 65.18 |
| Freddie Kitchens | 1997 | Tennessee | 65.88 |
| Greg McElroy | 2009 | South Carolina | 68.64 |
| Freddie Kitchens | 1997 | Tennessee | 69.62 |
| Andrew Zow | 1999 | Louisiana Tech | 77.56 |
| John Parker Wilson | 2006 | Mississippi St. | 78.73 |
| Brodie Croyle | 2002 | Auburn | 81.07 |
| John Parker Wilson | 2008 | Kentucky | 81.78 |
So, yes, it really was that ugly. And I actually owe an apology to Spencer Pennington. As painful as the 2004 season was to these eyes, I assumed that Pennington would have a couple of appearances on this list, but to my surprise the Fayette native never showed up. He was not good, mind you, but he was never that bad.
Either way, that notwithstanding, I'm afraid that Greg McElroy actually was that bad on Saturday night. We've played over 150 games at Alabama since Mike Dubose took over for Gene Stallings at the end of the 1996 season, and since then only six times have we had a quarterback post a lower single-game passer rating than McElroy posted against South Carolina. Ouch. And making matters even worse, McElroy has more talent around him than just about all the rest of these guys ever could dream of having. Freddie Kitchens would have killed for an offensive line this good, Andrew Zow didn't quite have a Mark Ingram to hand the football to in 2000, and obviously Brodie Croyle throwing to Dre Fulgham isn't quite the same as throwing to Julio Jones.
As for the other 11 performances on the list, let's do a few quick hitters on the background to those performances and what ultimately happened:
- Brodie Croyle had probably the single worst game a 'Bama quarterback will ever have -- God I hope so, anyway -- against Southern Miss in 2002, but in all fairness he was the back-up in that game and was forced into a tough situation when Tyler Watts went down with a foot injury early in the game. The following week, he played a great game in Fayetteville to help us get a big win over a good Arkansas team, and you know the rest of his story.
- John David Phillips' terrible performance came in Arkansas' 42-6 thumping of us in Fayetteville, which is still easily the worst loss I've ever seen in a 'Bama game. He basically lost his job for good after this game, Zow took over, and Phillips spent the rest of his career with a clipboard in hand.
- Andrew Zow's showing against UCLA helped the Tide lose in the season opener in Pasadena, and I don't think I need to remind anyone on how the rest of the 2000 season played out.
- John Parker Wilson against Mississippi State, of course, was capped by that god-awful interception return for a touchdown that I don't have the heart to look up right now. He played poorly in losses the following two weeks to Louisiana-Monroe and Auburn, but had a decent performance in the bowl game against Colorado and rebounded as a senior in 2008.
- Freddie Kitchen's performance came a week after the loss to Louisiana Tech in 1997, and LSU basically thumped us. Kitchens was a senior during this game, and capped the year the following two weeks with Mississippi State and Auburn.
- Freddie Kitchen's performance against Tennessee was just another thumping. The Vols were a good team, we were a bad team, you do the math. This game was the week after the loss to Kentucky in Lexington at the hands of Tim Couch, and this loss pretty much was the death knell in a terrible season. We rallied to beat Ole Miss the following week, but lost the final four games of the year to finish 4-7.
- Andrew Zow against Auburn in 2000 probably needs no recollection. We were shut out in Dubose's final game, losing to Auburn 9-0 in Tuscaloosa.
- Andrew Zow's poor showing against Louisiana Tech in 1999 was one of the biggest reasons we lost to the Bulldogs that year. Fortunately, we rebounded the following week with a big upset of Florida, and went on to have a good year.
- John Parker Wilson and the 2006 Mississippi State game needs no real recollection. It was the end of Shula...
- Brodie Croyle's second appearance on this list is much like his first. He came into the Iron Bowl as the back-up, but Dennis Franchione put him into the game in the second half to try to find a spark for the offense. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the streak began.
- John Parker Wilson's performance against Kentucky in 2008 rounds out the list, and it was ugly. Fortunately, though, the running game was dominant and that mixed with a great defensive performance that included a defensive touchdown powered the Tide to victory -- just like what happened Saturday night against South Carolina.
All in all, that's just not a pretty list, plain and simple, and it's hard to put a positive spin on an appearance on this list. McElroy just played poorly on Saturday night, despite having a great running game at his disposal. He made bad decisions, he was uncomfortable in the pocket, he held onto the ball too long, and frankly he just made a lot of bad throws to some open receivers. It was ugly, bottom line.
Of course, though, this is far from a death knell for McElroy, and no one should be treating it as such. He has played great at times this year, and he can play great again. All rational observers knew some struggles would come at some point, and I've personally been saying that for weeks. And though I didn't expect it would be this bad, I imagine he'll work hard to overcome it and I imagine we'll see better play from him in the coming weeks.
As a closing point, though, I will say this: If we are really going to get to where we want to go, McElroy is going to have to play a lot better. If your passing game is struggling that mightily, I don't care how great your running game is or how great your defense is, you're going to get beat against the ultra-elite competition that you have to overcome in order to get where we want to go.
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Ole Miss at Alabame, 1988
We did not complete a single pass.
Only 2-TD's in 9-quarters of football.
This game (and the last game vs Miss) are behind us. GMac should be able to take alot of lessons from these two showdowns. However, all the woes the offensive effort have encountering aren’t the fault of one man. The Offensive Line hasn’t held off the pass rush as well as they have in past games. Yes Ole Miss and SC both have tremendous pass rushers and proved to be effective against us. GMac hasn’t been comfy in the pocket. His feet haven’t been set for many passes. Greg has underthrown most of his deep passes recently and only having two INT"S Saturday is fortunate. Julio Jones has been double and triple covered. When an opportunity does come his way he drops the pass. Last year anything thrown in Julio’s direction was a catch no matter how many DB’S were in the mix. So far this year Julio has defined the term Sophomore Slump.How many more games can this team ride the back of the nations most feared Defense? Can Mark Ingram carry the entire offensive load? With another fierce SEC Defense in town next week. Followed by the seasons second top ten matchup against a streakish LSU. Saban needs to rally his troops sooner rather then later
Your temper brings dishonor to my happy mooshu palace.
by mulletover on Oct 19, 2009 8:46 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Very informative post. Interesting to note that Tyler Watts and Spencer Pennington are the only QBs I can remember since Stallings with a significant number of starts that didn’t have at least one appearance on the list. Perhaps because the passing game was simplified because they were not great passing QBs? Another note is that a lot of these performances came in a QB’s first year as a starter. McElroy is still the same guy that started the year good enough to start getting some Heisman buzz before these last couple of weeks, but he’s also still lacking in experience and has another couple of tough defenses coming up. He’ll come around, I just hope he doesn’t let his recent struggles get in his head where he starts focusing on what’s wrong so much. Just learn from what happened, forget it, and focus on doing the right things. I’m also glad UF won’t be the first really great defense he faces, he has the opportunity to learn and grow as a QB while we can still win without him having a great game.
A couple of corrections: 1997 Tennessee is listed in the table twice. Judging from the comments below the post, I assume the first is supposed to be 1997 LSU? Also looks like 2000 Auburn got left out of the table, not that I’m really upset about that.
the barn's qb rating
from that 2000 game couldn’t have been very good either. it was 30 degrees and sleeting. were ANY passes thrown? my leather jacket FROZE and hasn’t looked the same since. the ball cap vendors made a FORTUNE that day.
and while i’m strolling down memory lane, i have to say that me and pluckNgrit sat with the boogs that game and they were very CIVIL. we did all of the bama cheers and noone gave us too much shit because even though we were losing from the get-go, they seemed to never be sure we weren’t going to put something together and pull it off.
or, they might have been nice because it was FREAKIN’ FREEZING and i was the lady with the crown royal!
"You have to create 6 seconds of hell each play..."
Coach Nick Saban
"Always look on the bright side of life"
If you want to smile or just need a pick me up…any Auburn message board this morning would be a good choice. The AU faithful are in full melt down mode.
Scoring against Alabama will be like birthing a child: rare, painful, and messy. - The Ghost of Jay Cutler
i was in middle school when he played
and yeah… i grew my hair out. (now in college)
i think it was that he was a skinny little dude who didn’t have to turn in to the Hulk on the field but she still got the job done. And when he was healthy, and when he had a chance, he almost always did get the job done. couple that with a hot wife and what seems to be a good off the field personality and pedigree, and youve got the makings of a serious man crush.
although i cut my hair and its time brodie did as well.
he was injured. injured bad.
If he'd been a Hulk on the field,
it might have helped, though. I hated watching him get hurt again and again.
I bleed crimson and white...I puke Vol puke orange. RTR
true
but you take the good with the bad. so many times I wished that 2005 team had a coach like CNS
he was injured. injured bad.
A
QB is only as good as the players around him, and although Croyle played with some good players, we had O-line problems every year under Shula. CNS would’ve certainly made a difference, but some decent protection wouldn’t have been so bad either.
"A demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." -H. L. Mencken
Pennington.....
I, for one, am tired of all the recent poor QB performances being compared to Spencer Pennington. We seem to all forget that Spencer was not given much of an opportunity to suceed on the field. He was thrust into the South Carolina game after a terrible performance by Marc Guillion and played to the preparation that he was given by the staff of CMS. Spencer was a team player that never once became digrutantled or complained about his role on the team ( and I know he gave up football for baseball after the Music City Bowl vs Minn., but who wouldn’t after being put back out there after receiving a concussion and having limited vision in your left eye, by a coaching staff that didn’t have a drop of concern for your health?). I remember very well how relieved we all were when he replaced Guillion. I am not saying that he was a great QB by any stretch, but how good could he have been had the coaching staff took the time to prepare him properly? All he did was play to his preparation, and yeah they probably had a simplified playbook for him but whose fault was that (Shula even admitted that he had only received about 5% of the reps in practice before the South Carolina game)? How can you expect a kid to do something in a game that he doesn’t get to do in practice. So get off Spencer.
+1
I have no problem admitting that Pennington did a poor job, but just like with Chris Capps the blame needs to be put on the coaching staff first. Pennington probably could have been a decent QB if he had been given time to develop, but he was thrown to the wolves without much preperation. I always felt very bad for those two; as much as we cursed them as fans, all they did was go out there and play to the best of their ability. It’s not their fault that their coaches didn’t do a whole lot to get them prepared.
Roll Bama Roll - The Champagne of Bama Blogs.
Spencer threw a nice ball
When I produced the Dennis Franchione show for a year or so, we would have to go to the games and get extra video footage for fill – it was a terrible job, I know, and we were miserable the ENTIRE time, I promise – and I once asked Tom Roberts who that QB was, throwing those beautiful on-the-money passes in warmup. Far sweeter than the starter – Watts? Croyle? Don’t remember – but Tom indicated that Spencer was NOT likely to be a good QB if he got in a game. Later I found out what he meant. :(
That all seems to dovetail with the idea that he wasn’t prepared, because Pennington could sure as hell put the ball on target in practice.
Come to think of it, we also did the Mark Gottfried show, so I don’t even remember the FB coach at the time, the starting QB, or anything. Sorry. I just remember how sweet Pennington’s balls were.
Er… that didn’t come out right. You know what I mean.
I've had a rather crappy afternoon...
…and your unintentional humor towards the end of that post really gave me a much needed laugh.
Maybe it's me?
I was at SEVEN of those games.
"Hollywood made a movie of my life. The film had me proposing to my wife on the football field. I would never misuse a football field that way." -Crazy Legs Hirsch
by Stuck in the Plains on Oct 19, 2009 10:27 AM CDT reply actions
I
think most Bama fans are somewhat used to having “not so great” QB performances, and winning on the backs of defense and the running game. So to that end, I am not pulling the fire alarm just yet. That said, McElroy played terrible and could have single-handedly lost us the game. As you pointed out in your Initial Impressions, had it not been for the plays made by our WR’s and Mark Barron, it may not have mattered if Ingram had a career day rushing.
That said…
John Parker Wilson and the 2006 Mississippi State game needs no real recollection. It was the end of Shula…
I am sorry to say that this was my first Alabama game. My wife, an Auburn fan, also attended her first ‘Bama game that day. I was somewhat embarrassed for both of us. On the way home, I had to explain how this isn’t usually how things work at Alabama, you know… losing to Miss. St. and all.
It was, indeed, the begining of the end for Shula.
"A demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." -H. L. Mencken
The beginning of the end for Shula
was the 2005 Iron Bowl whereat Brodie Croyle was sacked about a hundred times and I became a bitter, bitter man.
Didn't you hear me say God bless George Washington, God bless my mother? What kinda Injun would say a fool thing like that?
by Mr. Kobayashi on Oct 19, 2009 12:04 PM CDT up reply actions
I
was at the FIL’s house for that one. Not fun. That was the 28-18 game that felt like 56-3.
"A demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." -H. L. Mencken
Come to think of it
Im not sure if Greg was use to seeing so many DB’s. I get the whole " im not playing with confidence" angle and that really did show last Sat. night. But most if not all our opponents have been loading the box to stop the run, leaving 3-4 guys to cover our WR’s. Saturday, Greg was seing 5 DB’s and 2 LB’s dropping into coverage all night. Plus the fact that SC was getting pressure with just 4 lineman. Im not making excuses by any means but if your feet are already a little uneasy and you’re looking 7 guys defending the pass, its no wonder his “head” was a little foggy.
The great news going forward is that Ingram had a monster game. UT will more than likey load the box again, forcing GMac to find the open man. Hopefully, he’ll forget about the guys coming after him, go through his progression the best he can and find the open man…
Cross your fingers and hope to die…
Scoring against Alabama will be like birthing a child: rare, painful, and messy. - The Ghost of Jay Cutler
i like how our coach..
..in his post-game presser stated that THEY have to do a better job of getting gmac prepared. gotta love that.
on a bad note, i heard that the student fans were giving our boy a hard time late saturday night. now, i know that as the starting qb for a div I school, you have to grow a thick skin, but it just pisses me off that those fans could remotely believe that kicking someone while theyre down, might help the situation. it scares me too that one day, said fans will have children…
"You have to create 6 seconds of hell each play..."
Coach Nick Saban
It wasn't just the student fans
The boo birds were out quite a bit when we had to call our first time out of the second half because we didn’t have the play ready.
I didn't have a good view on this....
But wasn’t McElroy falling down and throwing across his body from mid-field on that 2nd Interception? Hopefully, he’ll realize that taking the sack is better in that situation.
Fumbles. It was always Fumbles
I don't blame the players
who had those bad passing performances, I blame the coaches.
I was there with some of those guys and it was ridiculous that we didn’t have better quarterbacks. Some of the guys on that list were probably second string at best and we had them starting. UT fans get on Crompton’s case, but at least he was highly touted. Some of the guys we had playing quarterback should never have been more than second string.
MATRIX: Bennett, I thought you were--
BENNETT: Dead? You thought wrong. Ever since you had me thrown out of the unit, I've been waiting to pay you back. Do you know what today is, Matrix? Payday.
I partially agree...
Some of those guys, as you mentioned, were not really high-end quarterback prospects at any point.
Spencer Pennington was very lightly recruited coming out of Fayette, and I’m still not sure why Fran took him in the same class with Croyle. Otherwise, he would have likely gone to Mississippi State (who I’m pretty sure was the only other SEC team watching him). Andrew Zow was passed over by all of the Florida schools after suffering a shoulder injury to his throwing shoulder, and while many of the younger guys probably don’t remember this, Zow was actually committed to Auburn for a long while, but they only wanted him as a safety, and he reneged on them after we offered him a chance at quarterback. Likewise, Wilson wasn’t highly-touted in his own right. Shula in fact wouldn’t even give him a full scholarship offer, as Wilson had to grayshirt and get brought in with us signing a couple of more quarterbacks in the same class.
On the other hand, though, some of those guys were very highly-touted. Freddie Kitchens was a Mr. Everything coming out of Gadsden, he could have gone anywhere in the country. Same thing goes for Brodie Croyle, who many thought was the #1 player in the country before his knee injury in his senior year of high school, and even after that he was still your typical five-star quarterback. Likewise, Tyler Watts was a Mr. Everything recruit coming out of Pelham, and if I remember correctly John David Phillips was also a highly-touted guy out of Anniston when we signed him in 1994.
Clearly some of these guys just probably weren’t very good to begin with, but by the same token we’ve signed just as many guys who were basically Mr. Everything recruits and they did not really fulfill their potential at ’Bama for one reason or another (poor coaching, not enough talent around them, probation, injury luck, etc).
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." -- Milton Friedman
by outsidethesidelines on Oct 19, 2009 1:22 PM CDT up reply actions
Didn't Fran recruit Pennington...
…because he thought he would be a good option QB?
Roll Bama Roll - The Champagne of Bama Blogs.
I don't know...
… that is what some people said at the time, but I have no idea if it’s really true.
He just wasn’t an athletic player, which to me pretty much undercut the whole argument that he was going to be an option QB. He was around 6’4 and 225 pounds with no great foot speed, so really he was more in the mold of a traditional pocket passer. With a shifty guy like Avalos it made sense to me, but honestly I never saw how Pennington fit into the option.
The problem, though, is that we really just don’t know what all was going on when we recruited Pennington. Remember, this all went down immediately after Fran arrived, and he was selling a different offense to different recruits. We were recruiting Brodie at the time and telling him we were basically going to be Air ‘Bama, all the while we were recruiting Cadillac and telling him that we were going to be pro-set heavy and turn him into the next LaDanian Tomlinson. And then we recruit a 6’4, 225 pound guy to run the option, which is the offense that we ultimately ended up going with under Fran?
Who really knows?
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." -- Milton Friedman
by outsidethesidelines on Oct 20, 2009 10:03 AM CDT up reply actions
I think some of it
has to do with scouting, though, and that’s the difference between a guy like Saban and past coaches. Saban would not have pursued some of these guys whereas DuBose and the others pursued and signed them because the booster types were in their ear, talking about how great some of these quarterbacks were. Most coaches could see that Zow and Watts weren’t great quarterbacks. I don’t have a problem offering a scholarship to a guy so he can be a backup. The thing is, we didn’t have very good people evaluating talent back then.
A lot of people who saw Tyler Watts in high school didn’t buy into the hype. He never showed the ability to make the type of throws a great college quarterback can make and his arm strength was suspect. It was a lot of politics and hype.
When Philips was recruited, a lot of people (on the team) thought he should have been moved to outside linebacker. Keeping him at quarterback was a bad decision that better scouting/coaching could have avoided.
Freddie was the big shot coming out of high school (I thought he went to Etowah?) and I guess he fit the mold for what Stallings wanted. But Zow was not a first rate quarterback. He had a big arm but he was very inaccurate with his passes.
Croyle was a big time recruit.
MATRIX: Bennett, I thought you were--
BENNETT: Dead? You thought wrong. Ever since you had me thrown out of the unit, I've been waiting to pay you back. Do you know what today is, Matrix? Payday.
Freddie...
… was out of Ettowah. Keep in mind when I say “Gadsden,” I’m referring to the fact that he came out of the greater Gadsden metro area, not specifically Gadsden High or the city of Gadsden.
At any rate, I agree with you. I think some of those guys were clearly overrated as prospects, and you could really say the same thing for Croyle. After all, he missed his entire senior year and at any rate was playing against 1A private school competition. He had a big arm and all, but no one really knew how good he was. He had more than a few critics in his own right.
And I think you are particularly right on Watts. He’s still one of my favorites, but any decent evaluations even at the prep level should have spotted his limitations. Sure he had good size, but he had an average ball, threw an ugly ball, and wasn’t very accurate. It shouldn’t have taken Steve Belichick to figure out that he wasn’t going to be a great passer at the next level.
My point, though, is just that we’ve had some highly-touted guys sign with ‘Bama over the years to play QB, and it just never panned out. Some were overrated, etc., but honestly we made things worse when they got to campus. Those guys generally received bad coaching, and had very little talent around them. Nearly all of them were stuck with average-at-best receivers, and poor offensive lines in front of them to block. Hell, honestly, in terms of pass protection, I think the only line we’ve had in the past 15 years or so that pass blocked particularly well was in 1999. The rest of those lines ranged from mediocre-at-best to terrible, and that played a role too.
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." -- Milton Friedman
by outsidethesidelines on Oct 20, 2009 9:55 AM CDT up reply actions
What are the best numbers?
In the interest of fairness, and my being a geek, what is gmac’s best QB rating thus far? and where does that number rank?
North Texas...
… I don’t know where it ranks exactly, but it would have to be one of the highest in years.
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." -- Milton Friedman
by outsidethesidelines on Oct 19, 2009 1:06 PM CDT up reply actions
thanks
Guess it is not too significant unless he puts up top numbers in an important game. And we need improvement not regression!
(This commenting business is fun. Thanks for providing and maintaining such an informative blog.)
by rollmathroll on Oct 19, 2009 1:20 PM CDT up reply actions
OTS, how about some the best.......
performances by Bama qb’s. Lets have a little good with our bad. I enjoy your research capabilties, and look forward to more.
There are 3 kinds of men. The ones who learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. And the rest have to pee on the electric fence to find out for themselves. Will Rogers
I was at the 2000 Alabama vs. Auburn game...
and it was miserable. I’ve never seen a coach try so little to win a game. This post has officially made me depressed.
I
remember that game on TV. It was the only ‘Bama game I can vividly remember where I actually gave up watching. I know there were a lot of issues on that team (putting it lightly), but you couldn’t escape that feeling of hopeless. Even during “The Streak” I managed to watch every game down to 0:00.
"A demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." -H. L. Mencken
Fairly irrelevant question...
…but I attended the 1998 UF game the week following that disaster at Arkansas, and didn’t Phillips start that game? I seem to recall Phillips (or someone) being yanked early for Zow, who almost won it for us….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Oct 19, 2009 3:23 PM CDT reply actions
Philips did start that game
and DuBose said, “If a senior quarterback is going to make freshmen mistakes, we’ll put a freshman in and let him make them.”
They put up almost 500 yards on us but struggled in the red zone.
MATRIX: Bennett, I thought you were--
BENNETT: Dead? You thought wrong. Ever since you had me thrown out of the unit, I've been waiting to pay you back. Do you know what today is, Matrix? Payday.
That's right...
If I remember correctly, after the debacle in Fayetteville, Phillips was basically on such a short leash that it was basically like Bobby Knight’s “zero tolerance” policy at Indiana… one screw-up and you’re done.
And, naturally, he didn’t last long against Florida. I want to say he played all of two series or so in that game and got benched.
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." -- Milton Friedman
by outsidethesidelines on Oct 20, 2009 9:49 AM CDT up reply actions
Depends on where you get your ratings from
The ratings ESPN lists in their stats packages show Pennington with several ratings below those of McElroy’s last Saturday, but Pennington’s ratings in the official UA site don’t. And both sites have the same 68.64 rating for McElroy Saturday. Actually, the same disparity is there for all Alabama quarterbacks in recent years.
Here are Pennington’s for 2004 from ESPN and from RollTide:
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/player/gamelog?playerId=123212
http://www.rolltide.com/sports/m-footbl/stats/2004-2005/indgbg.html#IGBG.PAS (They’re at the bottom of the page.)
And JPW’s for 2008 (when he had a decent line providing pass protection). I could only locate the ESPN ratings for individual games:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/player/gamelog?playerId=169602&year=2008
Is it possible that the 68.64 rating might wind up being adjusted higher using a different rating system?
I think this is most times...
that my home town (Fayette) has been mentioned on the Internet, well, in the history of the Internet. Next thing you know, someone will drop a Frog Level Festival reference and maybe recollect that one Doug Stone concert put on by WLDX. Oh, that’s right, I JUST DID.
Anyway, Spencer was a few years behind me in school, so I never really even paid attention to what he did in high school. No, my generation of Fayette Tiger QB was Luke Tucker, who I believe came in the same recruiting class as Tyler Watts. He was another one that I think maybe was recruited to be a backup, but he ended up going to another school to play baseball after his freshman year at ’Bama, I believe. His older brother threw a few passes as the backup to Kitchens, though.
What type of fan are you?
Where should I start? First of all, Alabama has had two exciting football seasons in a row with potential chances of playing in the BCS championship game and the only thing you can possibly do is criticize our quarterback. I’m sure you were drinking the Greg McElroy ‘cool-aid’ two weeks ago but now have degraded to the same ‘fair-weather’ fan you obviously have always been. Let me remind you of the proven success Greg has been through….HE HAS NEVER LOST A GAME HE HAS STARTED. He did not play high school at a small private school with 150 pound linebackers. He started at Southlake Caroll, Texas, where the talent was as good as most FCS schools where he still managed to be a record-breaking quarterback in class 5A (the largest division in Texas in case you needed additional education).
My recommendation for you……if all you care about is people reading your blog, then don’t criticize a winning team. Criticizing our quarterback will not help the team play better.
Greg McElroy is the best man for the job. Even Jay Barker had his critics in ’92. Were you one of them?
I don't see how
analyzing a performance by our quarterback makes the writer less of a fan. It’s possible to love and support the team by both praising its accomplishments and studying its flaws. Everyone here wants to see the same thing happen.
MATRIX: Bennett, I thought you were--
BENNETT: Dead? You thought wrong. Ever since you had me thrown out of the unit, I've been waiting to pay you back. Do you know what today is, Matrix? Payday.
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