BigAppleBuckeye;870397 wrote:First off ... great posts. Seriously, nicely done, particularly Scarlet, COA and FatHobbit.
Now, while these are strong, valid arguments pertaining to why, in general, it is hard for any particular school to produce a star NFL QB, you can apply this same logic to any big school. My question, at its core, is why OSU in particular has not done this successfully? USC, Michigan, Tennessee, etc all have produced at least one marquee NFL QB.
I think it is because it is largely a crap shoot when drafting and recruiting QB's.
Think about examples like Jimmy Clausen and Todd Marinovich. Jimmy Clausen was in ESPN the Magazines NEXT when he was in 8th grade and was trained by QB guru Steve Clarkson and had two older brother's as college QB's his whole life. Yet, he was good in college but not unbelievable...and is about to sit the bench in the NFL it appears. Todd Marinovich was called the Robo QB and "the first test tube athlete." His father never even let him eat a big mac or watch cartoons. The kid had to take his own birthday cake to birthday parties that wasn't made with white flour. He went on to have a mediocre career. Both of them were literally bred to be NFL QB's with the best training and coaching available and neither lived up to expectations. Jimmy may still go on to have success but who knows?
For Every Peyton Manning, there's how many Jimmy Clausen's? And then, add in that Peyton Manning had Tom Moore and his simplistic one back scheme and the levels passing concept that Peyton mastered and an all-star GM and staff and all of the pieces fell together for Peyton to be successful.
At Michigan, Tom Brady would sit the bench in the second quarter for the phenom of the day, Drew Henson...who was also in ESPN the magazine as a high schooler. They called him the next John Elway. Where is Drew Henson? washed up out of both the Majors and the NFL...who mind you, was also beat out in Dallas by Tony Romo...an undrafted free agent out of Eastern Illinois...
Matt Ryan was only a 3 star recruit when he went to Boston College and Aaron Rodgers had to go to JUCO to even get a sniff before he ended up at Cal. Sam Bradford was also only a three star and Oklahoma fans preferred Keith Nichol from Michigan, a four star recruit. Bradford goes on to win the Heisman and have a phenomenal rookie year and Keith Nichol went on to play Wide Receiver at Michigan State after he got beat out by another 3 star recruit.
And the thing is, in the aggregate, star rankings do matter...but they appear to matter less for the QB position....at least when it comes to being a star NFL QB. If you get a 5 star QB recruit...odds are much higher that he makes the NFL than a 3 star QB recruit...but when it comes to being a star NFL QB like Aaron Rodgers....it's not clear.
In the last couple years Vince Young, Mark Sanchez, Matt Stafford and Blaine Gabbert were 5 star recruits who went on to get drafted in the first round and Sanchez is a starter but not awesome by any means (yet anyways) and Vince Young has headed to the bench. Personally I think Stafford is another Jeff George. In Gabbert's class, Pryor and Dayne Christ were also 5 stars. Pryor is doubted to have the stuff to be a big time QB and Dayne Christ may lose his job to 3 star Tommy Rees. In Sanchez' high school class, he attended the elite 11 camp with Cincinnati's Rob Schoenhoft; who had the strongest arm at the camp by all accounts and had legitimate NFL size...Schoenhoft transferred to Delaware and Sanchez made the NFL.
So the bottom line is...you can recruit who appears the best of the best...even with all of the 7-on7's and camp circuits and it's still just as likely that a 3 star grey shirt from St. Henry Ohio will beat out the rocket armed elite 11 kid (who you also recruited over the kid from St. Ignatius, Brian Hoyer, who was only a 3 star but found his spot in the NFL as a backup).
Additionally, the NFL has made it extremely difficult for any QB to be good as they do not put their players in positions to have success. NFL teams largely do not use constraint plays to the extent more and more college programs are (especially now that the Run and Shoot has left the NFL scene) and accept the numerical disadvantage they have against the defense in running situations because QB's are not used in the running game (for the most part). They've adopted the Jim Tressel mindset that "welp we don't have anyone to block the safety if he comes in the box so you better have a player at the Running Back position."
Also, most pass plays aren't designed to make it easier on less than awesome QBs. The NFL still runs a curl flat against a Quarters and just expects the QB to be able to make the throw. If you can't make the throw before a fast reacting DB can get there then you're out of the league. You also don't see coaches going out of their way to high-low that corner so as to back him off the curl on first and second down like you might have seen when the Bills were running the Run and Shoot in the 90's. Plus, it's really hard to do that consistently anyway because the D-Line's are so good that you have to get rid of the ball. So you're left with telling Brady Quinn that he doesn't have all day to throw waiting for Samardzija to cross the field underneath Mcknight's Go Route and that he better get some balls and fire the ball in there, on time and on target with the DB sitting there ready to pick it off; and you end up getting a first round pick who dumps the ball off all day long.
So in sum...to me tOSU hasn't had a successful NFL QB because 1). It's really hard to get a guy who has the stuff to be one...even if you seemingly recruit well and 2). Even if you do, and that guy makes it to the NFL, like Bobby Hoying, the way the NFL plays offensive football makes it extremely difficult for someone who is just good but isn't absolutely awesome, physically and mentally, to have prolonged success. I mean Drew Brees passes as accurately as Olympic Archer's shoot a Bow and Arrow.
