Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Dual Threat vs Pocket Passer

Buffnik said:
For college, I like an offense that relies more heavily on the running ability of the QB as the foundation. As the saying goes, "speed doesn't slump". For consistency of the program, it's much more likely that coaches will always be able to recruit QBs that can be plugged in and move the offense with their legs. Having a guy who can win games with his arm is much more prone to ups and downs. And, if there's injury to the starter, it's easier to plug in a running QB without losing as much.

Ohio State is a great example of this. Urban knows his stuff. Force teams to load up to stop the run and any QB who can hit the broad side of the barn will be able to make a simple read and hit big passes down field.

That said, I also think that you don't hit an ultimate upside in college football any more unless your offense is able to pass for big numbers these days. Defenses are too fast when playing the better teams to be one dimensional. Again, Ohio State is the model offense in my mind.
Click to expand...

Thank you for saying everything I'm thinking in a clear and concise manner that I can't seem to articulate. :thumbsup:
 
College teams rarely have the complete set of talent to support a pure pocket passer or pure running QB. A quality DT can force defenses to cover the whole field and make up for deficiencies.

That said I don't care as much about if a guy is a pocket passer, a run first guy, or a dual threat if he is a winner. It's easy to say this year that we would love to have a guy like Mariota, news story, so would virtually every other team in the country.

Tebow as was proven in the pros was more of a thrower than a passer, but mostly a runner who could toss the ball in the general direction of a wide open reciever.

The problem in college ball the number of pure passers who understand defenses well enough to take advantage is much more limited that the number of guys who can make simple single reads while having enough athletic ability to turn a gap in the defense into a successful run.
 
Anu Solomon > Sean Mannion

Mannion will likely be picked somewhere between the 2nd and 4th round of the NFL draft. He impressed the hell out of me when CU played OSU and Mannion was absolutely the difference in that game. But if I'm building a college team (not an NFL team), I'll take Anu over him in a heartbeat.
 
Buffnik said:
For college, I like an offense that relies more heavily on the running ability of the QB as the foundation. As the saying goes, "speed doesn't slump". For consistency of the program, it's much more likely that coaches will always be able to recruit QBs that can be plugged in and move the offense with their legs. Having a guy who can win games with his arm is much more prone to ups and downs. And, if there's injury to the starter, it's easier to plug in a running QB without losing as much.

Ohio State is a great example of this. Urban knows his stuff. Force teams to load up to stop the run and any QB who can hit the broad side of the barn will be able to make a simple read and hit big passes down field.

That said, I also think that you don't hit an ultimate upside in college football any more unless your offense is able to pass for big numbers these days. Defenses are too fast when playing the better teams to be one dimensional. Again, Ohio State is the model offense in my mind.
Click to expand...
I really like the offense Meyer runs, and he's clearly a hell of a coach, but when you recruit like they do I'm not sure how valid the example is (and I'm sure you knew that already)

Braxton Miller was a 6.1 5*
JT Barrett was a 5.9 4*
Cardale Jones was a 5.7 3*
 
'Tini said:
I really like the offense Meyer runs, and he's clearly a hell of a coach, but when you recruit like they do I'm not sure how valid the example is (and I'm sure you knew that already)

Braxton Miller was a 6.1 5*
JT Barrett was a 5.9 4*
Cardale Jones was a 5.7 3*
Click to expand...

Same offense he ran at Bowling Green and Utah to build those programs. Urban's got a formula he works off that correlates the number of explosive plays with offensive efficacy. His entire recruiting and playcalling strategy is to set up explosive plays and to find guys who can both execute those game changers and also find some extra ones out of conservative calls & plays that broke down.
 
So I think we have all agreed that, for the college game, it's better to have a Dual Threat QB over a "Pocket Passer" (assuming they are the same caliber at their respective skill set). With that said, I hope Montez has a little more "escapability" and improvisation than Sefo does. Sefo will do good things over the next two years, but I think a guy who can do both will make this a truly dynamic offense.
 
Buffnik said:
Anu Solomon > Sean Mannion

Mannion will likely be picked somewhere between the 2nd and 4th round of the NFL draft. He impressed the hell out of me when CU played OSU and Mannion was absolutely the difference in that game. But if I'm building a college team (not an NFL team), I'll take Anu over him in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...
Mannion is and was the reason OSU won. That guy was hitting everything in sight. I only watched him a few other times but he had the best game of his career against CU this year, that I watched. Mannion is a Brady disciple so won't get you anything on the ground.
 
One other thing that a dual threat QB brings that hasn't really been discussed is the fact that it forces the defense to account for the QB when he has the ball in his hands. A pro style quarterback isn't going to pick up any yards on his own, so the offense is playing 10 on 11. At the pro level, that's OK because of the speed of the receivers and accuracy of the quarterbacks.

At the college level, I'd take a dual threat QB every time. In order for a pro style QB to be effective at the college level, he needs to have a very good offensive line, a running threat, and receivers who can run good routes, stretch the field, and catch the ball. That's a lot to ask at the college level. It's standard fare in the NFL.
 
sackman said:
One other thing that a dual threat QB brings that hasn't really been discussed is the fact that it forces the defense to account for the QB when he has the ball in his hands. A pro style quarterback isn't going to pick up any yards on his own, so the offense is playing 10 on 11. At the pro level, that's OK because of the speed of the receivers and accuracy of the quarterbacks.

At the college level, I'd take a dual threat QB every time. In order for a pro style QB to be effective at the college level, he needs to have a very good offensive line, a running threat, and receivers who can run good routes, stretch the field, and catch the ball. That's a lot to ask at the college level. It's standard fare in the NFL.
Click to expand...

You make a lot of sense, especially since college offenses are usually not as sophisticated as pro offenses and can't take advantage of weaknesses in coverages as well.

At the same time a really good pocket passer in college can shred the simpler college coverage schemes. The trouble is that there are very few college QBs who are advanced enough in their thinking to do this.

Overall I'd take a great pocket passer but you simply can't count on finding them. At the college level (even at the pro level) they are so rare that you are better off looking for and planning for a quality dual-threat guy who may not be able to read weaknesses in a defense as well but who can create big weaknesses due to his ability to move with the ball.
 
Wilson at Utah is actually an interesting example of a DT quarterback. Utah has struggled with QB's since Alex Smith with both frequent injuries and also the general quality of their QB recruits. Wilson is a very mediocre passer and a very mediocre runner. But because both are an option, he is effective enough to win some games. To my mind, that is the benefit of the DT. A pure passer is a rare talent to find, requiring both mental and physical talents that are unusual. To me, the most important PP physical attribute is not the arm, but exceptional field vision accompanied by height.
 
I'm starting to think Blowhio St's qb, Braxton Miller, might very well go to Oregon. Heard them talking about it the other day, seems to have some validity. I hope not, hell he killed us as a freshman.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top