For those who are new to college football, or excel at not talking to anybody in the outside world (especially if you live in Oklahoma), Landry Jones is entering his fourth year at starting QB for the Oklahoma Sooners. Before I go further, let me quickly summarize his three, going on four, seasons at QB.
Freshman year: He was thrown into a very hot fire as trophy winner Sam Bradford went down due to a shoulder injury. Overall, he had a promisin heisman g debut his first year at quarterback and a very impressive game against Standford at the Sun Bowl. Some freshman mistakes, but lets be honest, nobody was expecting him to carry the team as well as Sam Bradford did. Promising nonetheless.
Sophomore year: A year where Landry Jones was looking to take the title as "Best QB in the Big XII". It was a good year statistically, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was a mentally weak quarterback when it came to games on the road. Getting upset my Mizzou and Texas A&M on the road and barely escaping the wrath of Cincinatti. His game of the year that season was bedlam where OSU's secondary just laid down and let Landry do whatever he wanted. It was in this season I began to have concerns despite winning a BCS bowl (against an unranked UConn team).
Junior year: This is where my concerns and worries started to come true. Landry clearly went onto the decline in his junior campaign especially after losing safety blanket Ryan Broyles. Landry wouldn't throw a TD pass for 3 games until the Insight Bowl against the lowly Iowa Hawkeyes. It was how he ended the season that I became convinced Ryan Broyles made his career.
Senior year (after a 2-1 start): Landry Jones has been less than stellar and has began a debate amongst Sooner fans based on his worth and value after being average against UTEP, good against a Florida A&M team, and flat out awful against Kansas State.
Now that the history lesson is over, lets get to my overall opinion of Landry Jones. Landry Jones has done absolutely nothing to be worthy of Heisman discussion the day he became a starting QB for the Sooners. He has proven to be inconsistent and the fact that there's even a debate on Landry Jones entering his FOURTH year as a starter, is very alarming to me. If he is as great as some people claim, there should be no debate as to if he's good. Yes, he does own Oklahoma records in passing but he's been a full-time starter for going on four years. Can you imagine if Sam Bradford played four full seasons at QB? Landry would not be close to touching any of his records. Adrian Peterson is fourth in school history in rushing but he is clearly the best running back to play in the NFL from OU. Tony Romo has impressive numbers but what does he have to show for it? Landry Jones has the skill set to be good, but not the intelligence. More often than not, he forces passes into coverage and pays the price as we saw against Kansas State. I could go on about Landry but that is my general summary of him.
Now lets look at the numbers. Since losing Ryan Broyles, Landry Jones has thrown for 7 TD passes to 11 turnovers. Granted, you should expect a decline after losing such a reliable receiver, but Landry is still playing like he is a freshman. Good QB's don't have this problem as they generally make their receivers good. We can even look at Brandon Weeden. Although Weeden only had one game without two time Biletnikoff winner Justin Blackmon, Weeden made Bo Bowling his leading receiver that game with 9 receptions when playing at Kansas State. Brandon Weeden looked anything but helpless. That one game without Blackmon, Weeden looked better than any game Landry has had without Ryan Broyles and I dare you to find a game since Texas A&M of 2011 where Landry Jones looked better.
With all of this said, I decided to look further back at OU quarterbacks besides Landry Jones and Sam Bradford and decided to do a comparison of Landry Jones and 2006 QB/WR Paul Thompson. I am in no way implying Paul Thompson is a better QB, however, I am implying that Paul Thompson was more efficient. The difference between the two was Thompson knew his limitations and did not try to do anything too crazy with the skill set he had. He tried to be efficient and do what was needed and within his ability. Josh Heupel deserves a lot of praise as he was able to replace a future star (Rhett Bomar) destined for a Big XII title and replace him with a WR who was still able to earn OU a Big XII Title. He utilized Paul Thomson correctly and his play at QB was nothing short of a miracle after many felt hope was lost when Rhett Bomar was expelled. Paul Thomson's passer rating that one season? 142.5 and only lost two games to Texas and Boise State (ugh). Now the record books will show three losses but I REFUSE to call OU's win at Oregon a loss. In Landry Jones career, he's only had one season where his passer rating was better than Paul Thompson's and that was his sophomore year at 146.3. That is astonishing to me and speaks volumes to what Paul Thompson was able to do as well as what Landry has NOT been able to do.
With all of this being said, I could go on about how I believe it is now time for Blake Bell to start but I have already written enough for today. What I will say is that Blake Bell has 12 TD's to Landry's 7 TDs and 2 turnovers to Landry's 11 turnovers since losing Ryan Broyles. If Stoops copies everything from Urban Meyer's playbook during the Tim Tebow era, I have a hard time believing that anyone in the Big XII will be able to stop the Oklahoma offense. The kid may not be as accurate as Landry Jones but I fully believe he has a higher football IQ than Landry Jones and isn't going to force passes! Now I know right now people may roll their eyes at this but I predicted Tim Tebow's NFL success, Terrelle Pryor's non existant NFL career (although it's only been two seasons), the New York Giants winning the Super Bowl last year, and even Tim Tebow's victory over the Steelers and then predicting them to lose to the Patriots. I say this to show I'm not biased towards Tebow. I also predicted Landry Jones to be incredibly overrated. Humble right? I have to establish some credibility though. Bottom line, I hope Landry Jones proves me wrong since it would only benefit my college team; but I firmly believe it's not going to happen.
I leave you guys with a Blake Bell highlight reel from his senior year in High School. Besides his spring game this year (in which he was 14-19, 171 yds, 1 TD and no INTs, best of any QB that spring game) there are not really any other highlights of him throwing the ball. There are many other things I would address, but I feel this should suffice for the blind support he has.
1) Please let me proofread these before you post them
ReplyDelete2) Didn't Paul Thompson start for a year before losing out to Bomar and moving to WR
3) Blake Bell is more like Collin Klein (a former WR just like Paul Thompson) and that is not what you want running your pass happy spread attack. Can you imagine Collin Klein throwing 45 times a game?
4) Boise game <3
1) I wrote this in a hurry in between classes. I tried to proofread, but I had a feeling it had quite a few errors. Next time I'll have you proofread!
ReplyDelete2) Paul Thompson started week 1 against TCU in 2005 and due to turnover issues in that game, was benched for Rhett Bomar the rest of the season. 2005 was OU's first season without Jason White so prior to the 2006 season, Paul Thompson only had one career start.
3) For awhile now OU's offense has seemed to take on a more balanced offensive attack with 112 passing attempts to 105 rushing attempts. That being said, I'm not sure where people are receiving this notion that Bell cannot throw. Besides coaching, nobody has consistently seen what he can and cannot do. From all the film I can dig up, he CAN throw. He wont turn heads but Percy Harvin seemed to do just fine with Tim Tebow. If you stick Damien Williams and Blake Bell in a spread option package, I don't believe many teams will be able truly prepare for that. With Sterling Shepard and Trey Metoyer on the outside, I don't think there's much you can do to stop it. Add another 25 lbs--in comparison to Klein--and Bell will run a lot like Tebow. Landry will start this whole season even if he throws 3 ints a game...I've accepted this. But you take this inexperienced offensive line OU has now and next season they will be much more stable. OU will lose a few defensive key players but if Mike Stoops makes that defense, just average, we are talking about an offense that loses one offensive lineman, a worthless QB, and hopefully Kenny Stills. If anything, they'll improve. I just think it'll be a drastic improvement.
4) Yeah....