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Joe Burrow won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night.
If you’ve followed my writing for any length of time, you know I’m a fan. I’m still disappointed Dan Mullen didn’t go after him when he transferred from Ohio State and wrote at the time that he could be the biggest recruit of Mullen’s tenure.
Mullen has done just fine, going 20-5 in his two years in Gainesville thus far. But LSU has gone 23-3 in that same time, in no small part due to Burrow.
I saw something in Burrow – both in his statistical profile and his film – that made me think he had a chance to be special. Even I didn’t think we were talking Heisman Trophy-special, but Burrow’s profile absolutely screamed he had a chance to be elite.
So are there lessons we can take from Burrow’s recruitment and recruiting profile?
Importance of a Quarterback
It’s pretty obvious when you say that the quarterback is important to make the offense go. But when I started looking at the numbers, even I was a little bit surprised at exactly how much.
Average passer rating ranking and yards above replacement (YAR) ranking for QBs with top-5 offenses from 2016-2019. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
The above chart shows the average passer rating and yards above replacement (YAR) of the quarterbacks of offenses ranked in the top-5 in yards per play gained from 2016-2019. This includes highly-rated QBs like Tua Tagovailoa and Kyler Murray and much lower-ranked QBs like Central Florida’s McKenzie Milton and Louisiana Tech’s Ryan Higgins.
Only three of the 20 QBs ranked worse than 10th in YAR, and they ranked 13th, 15th and 19th. There was a little bit wider spread in passer-rating, but the lowest ranked passer (27th in 2017) had won the Heisman Trophy the year before (Lamar Jackson) and ranked third in YAR.
It’s not a coincidence that UCF went undefeated the year Milton put up the second best YAR in the country. How’s Scott Frost doing now that he doesn’t have Milton at Nebraska?
The same could be said for Willie Taggart. He went 6-18 in his first two years at USF until he put Quentin Flowers in at QB. Flowers proceeded to post a YAR of 1.54 in 2015 and 2.39 in 2016 as USF went 18-7. Given his tenure at Florida State, I think it’s fair to ask whether Taggart developed Flowers or if Flowers masked Taggart’s shortcomings.
This year LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma are in the playoff. Not coincidently, LSU (3rd), Ohio State (5th), Clemson (4th) and Oklahoma (1st) all rank in the top-5 in offensive yards per play. Those teams have the first, second, third and seventh-rated QBs using YAR.
The take-home is simple: elite QB play produces fantastic seasons. And for Florida specifically – or any SEC team – fantastic seasons will lead to the playoff.
Evaluating QBs as Recruits
That means you have to recruit a star at the position if you want to win a championship.
Yes, you can find a few examples where a star QB wasn’t under center for a championship team, but most of those examples include Alabama. Unless you’re recruiting at the Crimson Tide’s level, this article should be relevant.
If we look at the 2015 QB class, the 247Sports Composite rankings had 18 quarterbacks ranked in front of Joe Burrow. This looks really stupid in the wake of him bringing home a Heisman Trophy.
One thing we should acknowledge is that there were successes on that list ahead of Burrow. There are three first-round NFL draft picks (Kyler Murray, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen) from that class, including Murray taking home the Heisman last year.
But there are some busts as well. Quinten Dormady didn’t exactly work out at Tennessee.
Neither did Zach Gentry, Sheriron Jones or Jauan Jennings (yes, THAT Jauan Jennings was listed as a dual-threat QB ranked just behind Darnold).
I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at quarterback completion percentage in high school to see how well it translates to college (hint: it does). Had you sorted the QBs of the 2015 class by completion percentage in their senior year of high school, Burrow would have ranked third.
But one of the reasons we want QBs who are accurate is because that translates into a higher yards per pass attempt. Again, if we sort the QBs of the 2015 class just by yards per attempt, Burrow rises to second.
Comparison of the 2015 QB class’ high school senior stats sorted by yards per attempt. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
More importantly, a lot of the busts go down the list significantly. They aren’t completely eliminated, as Brandon Wimbush and Ricky Town still rank really high. But this list is a lot more accurate than if you sort them by their composite recruiting ranking.
Implication for Florida
What does this mean for the 2020 QB class? Well, if we sort the top-14 QBs of that class based on yards per attempt for their high school senior seasons, some interesting things pop up.
Comparison of the 2020 QB class’ senior stats sorted by yards per attempt. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
Look who shows up third on that list? It’s Florida QB commit Anthony Richardson.
I don’t think Richardson is going to be the best player coming from this list. If I had to bet, I’d put my money on Shane Illingworth (Oklahoma State commit) or Bryce Young (Alabama commit). Illingworth has been able to push the ball down the field and Young has completed a high percentage with an ability to run the ball.
But I’d also be willing to bet that Richardson will have a better career than Haynes King, Jay Butterfield and Luke Doty, three QBs who are ranked much higher.
He’ll have to wait though.
In 2019, Kyle Trask established himself as the Gators starter by completing 67.6 percent of his throws. This wasn’t an aberration. In high school (an admittedly small sample size), Trask completed 73.9 percent of his throws at an 11.9 yards per attempt clip.
I suspected Burrow could be elite because this isn’t a skill that I believe can be taught. Go outside and throw 10 passes to a friend who’s wide open 15-yards away. Then go throw 10 passes to the same friend when there’s someone standing three feet away. I bet you’ll be less accurate even if the defender doesn’t try to knock the ball away because his presence requires you to be more precise.
Go look at the film for Burrow. Sure, he throws his receivers open sometimes and makes spectacular throws. But the core of what he does is find the weakness in the defense and throws to the wide-open man. Trask shows some of the same qualities.
The lesson should be clear.
The spectacular throw (or run) is exciting. But throwing to the right man – even if it’s a checkdown – wins you the Heisman Trophy.
Lindell
AR’s sample size of attempts is half that of the next closest QB. Shouldn’t that impact the overall value of the statistics? Some of those guys have four times the attempts.
Hanks,
Will Miles
Absolutely. One of the thing about Burrow is he was accurate immediately in his sophomore year. But we can only eval the stats we have.
Marshall
AR was hurt for most of the year, just an FYI as to why his senior stats seem incomplete.