Before we get to quarterback talk, cfbstats is back up and running and I am thankful for that.
The theme from last year was maybe getting through a year healthy and having some decent options. When quarterbacks were healthy, this team played pretty good, good enough to stay in most games. I was not a fan of Tyler Shough, his inconsistent play was tough to watch and he was given a long leash to get it right. The 4 interceptions in essentially 3 games, 3 of them against Oregon, were likely the nail in the coffin for that team, you just can’t turn the ball over that much and the Wyoming pick wasn’t ideal either.
- Behren Morton (6-2/215) | JR
- Cooper LaFebre (6-1/175) | JR
- Cameran Brown (6-2/225) | SO
- Jake Strong (6-1/210) | RS FR
- Will Burns (6-2/200) | RS FR
- Will Hammond (6-2/195) | FR
Morton’s picks were largely spread out, except for the Texas game where he threw 3. His quarterback rating was 123.92 overall and it was a rollercoaster for the most part with highs against TCU, Houston and Baylor and lows like Texas and West Virginia, the difference between good and great is consistency. He wasn’t ideal, but I think he can be better. And he was fighting off a shoulder injury for a good part of the year, Morton’s ability to stay healthy will be vital.
And Jake Strong was a bit of a project. He only passed for 2,000 yards with 23 touchdowns and 5 picks as a senior at Northwest in Justin. In his college debut he was clearly overwhelmed, 2 touchdowns and 6 picks with a 98.39 rating.
There’s a lot of hype regarding Will Hammond and there’s some that expect that Hammond will just walk into the starting role and I just don’t see that. At Hutto, Hammond was really good as a junior, 2,700 yards, 30 touchdowns and just 5 interceptions, but in his senior year he was maybe trying to do too much, 3,900 yards, 35 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. It should be acknowledged that Hammond had 19 rushing touchdowns. If there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s that Joey McGuire abhors turnovers and interceptions. If he were to start over Morton, he’d have to improve that immensely.
And then we get Cameran Brown, the walk-on transfer from West Georgia, completing 54% of his passes for about 860 yards (about 100 yards passing passing a game), 10 touchdowns and 6 interceptions, while running for almost 500 yards and 6 touchdowns. This was a bit out of left field for me because Brown appears to be a real dual-threat quarterback and that’s not the type of quarterback that Kittley has recruited.
I don’t know how Brown will be used and you kind of get the idea that he doesn’t get offered if he’s not part of some sort of plan, maybe he takes a handful of snaps a game and or maybe he’s an option if there’s an injury? I don’t know, but I think the idea is that maybe they didn’t want to just have one option or maybe two or multiple if there is an injury. If we know anything, it’s that there have been injuries at the quarterback spot since McGuire arrived and he requires a certain amount of toughness and ability to carry the ball from the quarterback and a player like Brown might take the spot of Morton or Strong or Hammond doing those tough running yards. Brown does weight 225 according to his West Georgia profile and that’s just 5 pounds short of Tahj Brooks’ weight. Regardless, McGuire and Kittley decided that they would need options if Morton goes down and Brown gives you someone who has played college football and had some success. I’m not completely sold on the idea that Hammond leap-frogs Morton and I think that the interceptions are a big issue, but the quarterback room is certainly more interesting than it was before.