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Clayton @ Combine

^ And for a stretch, not having a threat at RB btwn Sutton and Mark.



Which has to do w/ being consistent in his footwork.

How good of a QB CT will be in the NFL will come down to his ability to read defenses and how quickly he can process what he sees after the snap, and having the right person as his OC.

Agree w Stink that the bad FO's make too much of the measurables.

I don’t see any basis to question his ability to read defenses. He will have an adjustment to make for the jump to the NFL but there is nothing in his track record at NU to suggest that is an issue.

I agree that the accuracy isssue is partly related to his inconsistent footwork, which means it can be fixed. His ability to refine his mechanics and regain some of his lost mobility will be keys to how successful he is at the next level.
 
I think the point is that Colter never led the team in passing during a given season.

No, that's not really the point at all. The point is that we've had a series of very good passing QBs. The omission on the list is the starting QB who never led the team in passing and never should have been behind center in the first place, especially when it meant a future professional NFL QB had to sit on the bench. I would argue that your starting QB really ought to perform sufficiently well to lead the team in passing, but apparently our coaches felt otherwise. Putting him in at QB hurt us at two positions, WR and QB. I hope McCall never makes that mistake again.
 
No, that's not really the point at all. The point is that we've had a series of very good passing QBs. The omission on the list is the starting QB who never led the team in passing and never should have been behind center in the first place, especially when it meant a future professional NFL QB had to sit on the bench. I would argue that your starting QB really ought to perform sufficiently well to lead the team in passing, but apparently our coaches felt otherwise. Putting him in at QB hurt us at two positions, WR and QB. I hope McCall never makes that mistake again.
We'll just ignore that in 2012 and 2013 his QB stats were virtually equivalent to Trevor's when adjusted for playing time, plus he was 2nd on the team in rushing both years as a QB so you can keep your vendetta going.
 
We'll just ignore that in 2012 and 2013 his QB stats were virtually equivalent to Trevor's when adjusted for playing time, plus he was 2nd on the team in rushing both years as a QB so you can keep your vendetta going.
And he “only” led NU to 10 wins in 2012
 
No, that's not really the point at all. The point is that we've had a series of very good passing QBs. The omission on the list is the starting QB who never led the team in passing and never should have been behind center in the first place, especially when it meant a future professional NFL QB had to sit on the bench. I would argue that your starting QB really ought to perform sufficiently well to lead the team in passing, but apparently our coaches felt otherwise. Putting him in at QB hurt us at two positions, WR and QB. I hope McCall never makes that mistake again.

And have no running game with a back like Mark? Nope.

Both QB's were effective. Colter as an option QB with Mark and as a dink and dunker, Siemian as a passer.
 
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And have no running game with a back like Vick? Nope.

Both QB's were effective. Colter as an option QB with Vick and dink and dunker, Siemian as a passer.

Vick = Mark, I presume? Venric Mark. ;) :) :D :p
 
I never understood the dislike for Colter. He ran the read/option beautifully and was a decent passer. NU's offense with him was truly dual threat

My dislike came more from his self-promoting and dishonest antics as it related to throwing his university and coach under a bus and manipulating his teammates in the union fiasco. As for his QB play, my dislike is more for the coaches for making such a travesty into reality, putting high caliber WR talent behind center so we suffered from two positions as a result. Look at the statistics. Look at our inability to do anything against Army or Syracuse until Siemian came in. Our offense was stagnant and we won on the strength of our defense. Imagine for a moment if we'd actually had a high powered offense that could score on the other side of the ball. The arguments that having a running QB threat helped Venric Mark flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that says you balance the pass and the run to avoid running against 8 in the box and opening up both.
 
Our offense was stagnant and we won on the strength of our defense. Imagine for a moment if we'd actually had a high powered offense that could score on the other side of the ball. .
The Siemian to Colter TD pass against OSU was a thing of beauty.

 
My dislike came more from his self-promoting and dishonest antics as it related to throwing his university and coach under a bus and manipulating his teammates in the union fiasco. As for his QB play, my dislike is more for the coaches for making such a travesty into reality, putting high caliber WR talent behind center so we suffered from two positions as a result. Look at the statistics. Look at our inability to do anything against Army or Syracuse until Siemian came in. Our offense was stagnant and we won on the strength of our defense. Imagine for a moment if we'd actually had a high powered offense that could score on the other side of the ball. The arguments that having a running QB threat helped Venric Mark flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that says you balance the pass and the run to avoid running against 8 in the box and opening up both.

Just ignore the game-killing pick-6's Siemian served up against Minny, Nebraska, OSU, and one other (can't recall), or the failure of Siemian to do anything against Minnesota in 2012 and Nebraska in 2011 and you've got a dandy argument there, ECat.

I'll take statistical reality over ECat "conventional wisdom" any day and twice on Saturday! Colter helped spring VMark the last 9 games of the 2012 season. The difference in yardage, average yards per carry, and runs over 10 yards for Mark when Colter was running the option versus when Siemian was at QB over the last 9 games of the season was more than considerable.

Alternating QB's worked well.
 
Just ignore the game-killing pick-6's Siemian served up against Minny, Nebraska, OSU, and one other (can't recall), or the failure of Siemian to do anything against Minnesota in 2012 and Nebraska in 2011 and you've got a dandy argument there, ECat.

I'll take statistical reality over ECat "conventional wisdom" any day and twice on Saturday! Colter helped spring VMark the last 9 games of the 2012 season. The difference in yardage, average yards per carry, and runs over 10 yards for Mark when Colter was running the option versus when Siemian was at QB over the last 9 games of the season was more than considerable.

Alternating QB's worked well.

But the offense didn’t look how he thinks it should, so it must have been bad.
 
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My dislike came more from his self-promoting and dishonest antics as it related to throwing his university and coach under a bus and manipulating his teammates in the union fiasco. As for his QB play, my dislike is more for the coaches for making such a travesty into reality, putting high caliber WR talent behind center so we suffered from two positions as a result. Look at the statistics. Look at our inability to do anything against Army or Syracuse until Siemian came in. Our offense was stagnant and we won on the strength of our defense. Imagine for a moment if we'd actually had a high powered offense that could score on the other side of the ball. The arguments that having a running QB threat helped Venric Mark flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that says you balance the pass and the run to avoid running against 8 in the box and opening up both.
Yeah, what a dick. He wanted to be covered later in life for injuries he suffered playing football for good old NU.
 
Yeah, what a dick. He wanted to be covered later in life for injuries he suffered playing football for good old NU.

The goals may have been admirable, but the way he went about trying to achieve them rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
 
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But the offense didn’t look how he thinks it should, so it must have been bad.

No, the offense statistically speaking was middling at best, and downright stagnant most of the time. "Oh, but it got the job done." My ass. We won because of the Hankwitz led D despite the Colter led offense which stank. Glades talks about statistics. Look at the statistics again and tell me that the Colter led offense compared favorably to the ones let by Bacher, Persa, Basanez, Thorson, and yes, Trevor Siemian. If you need him, Katatonic can lay down the truth for the umpteenth time. There's an obvious reason Fitzphile left out Colter in his list of QBs in his argument for Northwestern as QB U, even if some are in denial.
 
No, the offense statistically speaking was middling at best, and downright stagnant most of the time. "Oh, but it got the job done." My ass. We won because of the Hankwitz led D despite the Colter led offense which stank. Glades talks about statistics. Look at the statistics again and tell me that the Colter led offense compared favorably to the ones let by Bacher, Persa, Basanez, Thorson, and yes, Trevor Siemian. If you need him, Katatonic can lay down the truth for the umpteenth time. There's an obvious reason Fitzphile left out Colter in his list of QBs in his argument for Northwestern as QB U, even if some are in denial.

Because it was a list of guys who led the team in passing, which Colter never did... though he did have a better completion percentage and efficiency than Siemian in 2012 and 2013 while also essentially matching Siemian's Yards/Attempt and Adjusted Yards/Attempt.

We can go around and around on this like we have before, but I'll just leave it at this: Colter was a much better QB for the roster as constructed in 2012/2013, when we couldn't pass block for our lives. He was able to make plays with his legs that very few QBs can while doing just enough to keep defenses honest with his arm, without which our offense would have stagnated even worse and even more frequently.
 
No, the offense statistically speaking was middling at best, and downright stagnant most of the time. "Oh, but it got the job done." My ass. We won because of the Hankwitz led D despite the Colter led offense which stank. Glades talks about statistics. Look at the statistics again and tell me that the Colter led offense compared favorably to the ones let by Bacher, Persa, Basanez, Thorson, and yes, Trevor Siemian. If you need him, Katatonic can lay down the truth for the umpteenth time. There's an obvious reason Fitzphile left out Colter in his list of QBs in his argument for Northwestern as QB U, even if some are in denial.

Katatonic will have tough sledding finding fault with what I wrote about the Colter-Mark duo over the last 8-9 games in 2012. I did the homework on that several years ago reviewing the play-by-play after he claimed (correctly) early in the season that Mark was equally effective with both QB's in the first 4 games of the season. Things changed on the back nine.

Total yards don't mean anything if you turn the ball over, effectively nullifying those yards.

Fitzphile emphasized passing stats.
 
Siemian and Colter complimented each other and made it difficult for defenses to concentrate on one style of play. As much as you can say Siemian loss games for NU, he also won games for us so that shouldn't be an argument. His success in the NFL showed he has talent even if our coaches couldn't work it into our schemes. There were games where one style played better than the other but there was a stretch there where the offense we put out was outstanding. Only when injuries started forcing us into a style of play were defenses able to coral us. Anyway, all water under the bridge. We are now seeing a series of NFL style QBs, which is different than what we had before. I hope we can use their talents better.
 
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You don't have to go out of your way to throw people under the bus to do so. That was not looked upon well by players or coaches alike.

Re: the overused phrase of "throw someone under the bus," when the hell was anyone actually thrown under a bus? Sounds like that would have been major news!
 
Re: the overused phrase of "throw someone under the bus," when the hell was anyone actually thrown under a bus? Sounds like that would have been major news!

I dunno. Depends what the Boss Man has to say.
 
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Re: the overused phrase of "throw someone under the bus," when the hell was anyone actually thrown under a bus? Sounds like that would have been major news!
All right, Fitz! Join the battle against trite, overused words and phrases. You’re on the right side of history; you are thinking outside the box; that’s the fact of the matter; you are an icon; it all starts upfront; you can’t teach speed...
 
All right, Fitz! Join the battle against trite, overused words and phrases. You’re on the right side of history; you are thinking outside the box; that’s the fact of the matter; you are an icon; it all starts upfront; you can’t teach speed...
It takes one to know one. ;)
 
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All right, Fitz! Join the battle against trite, overused words and phrases. You’re on the right side of history; you are thinking outside the box; that’s the fact of the matter; you are an icon; it all starts upfront; you can’t teach speed...
Please try to stay within yourself during this conversation.
 
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All right, Fitz! Join the battle against trite, overused words and phrases. You’re on the right side of history; you are thinking outside the box; that’s the fact of the matter; you are an icon; it all starts upfront; you can’t teach speed...

You're owning this right from the get-go!
 
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I don’t see any basis to question his ability to read defenses. He will have an adjustment to make for the jump to the NFL but there is nothing in his track record at NU to suggest that is an issue.

That's exactly my point.

Being able to read defenses in the NFL is a whole 'nother thing; can't really take anything from college in that respect.

Despite heading into his 5th NFL season, still really don't know if Trevor is adept at reading NFL defenses (look how the Pats completely confused Goff).

It takes a QB at least 5-6 yrs to start being able to do pre-snap and post snap reads well; and for more QBs it's probably like 7-8 yrs w/ many never being able to grasp it.

Part of the issue for Siemian is that he has had to spend so much of his time learning a new playbook every season, so that has taken time away from other aspects of his development.

The one thing Clayton needs to stop doing is trying to think he can loft a deep pass into double (or triple) coverage.

For both Trevor and Clayton, whether they have long careers in the NFL will depend on whether they are better at doing pre and post snap reads than most of the other QBs.


I agree that the accuracy isssue is partly related to his inconsistent footwork, which means it can be fixed. His ability to refine his mechanics and regain some of his lost mobility will be keys to how successful he is at the next level.

I wouldn't say it's even so much regaining any lost mobility (Clayton isn't going to run away from NFL defenders) as it is Thorson developing his ability to extend passing plays w/ his legs.

Right now, Thorson is a strictly on-schedule QB, but to succeed, that type of QB needs the right combo of O-line, RB, receivers and play-calling.

How many teams have that?

Would help Thorson's chances of sticking in the NFL if he became a better off-schedule QB.
 
Just ignore the game-killing pick-6's Siemian served up against Minny, Nebraska, OSU, and one other (can't recall), or the failure of Siemian to do anything against Minnesota in 2012 and Nebraska in 2011 and you've got a dandy argument there, ECat.

No one is saying that Trevor didn't make his share of mistake, as did Colter.

9 Ints, 12 fumbles (5 of which were lost, including a couple of crucial ones, 1 against UM); and 36 sacks out of 321 dropbacks (that a greater than a 10% sack rate).

Siemian had 57 sacks in 934 dropbacks - which isn't bad considering that he played a good part of 2 seasons w/ a high ankle sprain, so was basically immobile (not that McCall was going to let him out of the pocket).

In 2 OT losses (including 1 against UM), the O (w/ Colter and Mark) wasn't even able to move the chains; in a following OT game against UM, w/ Trevor getting some play, they were able to move the ball and score.

And what about Colter's 2 Ints against MSU in the Taxslayer Bowl?

One of which was a nearly a pick-6?

Never like McCall's over dependence on the sideline pass, which was DB's were constantly looking to jump.

Or the dOSU game where Siemian got the 'Cats a late lead, the Bucknuts regained the lead and the Colter-led O turned the ball over on downs.

In the UM game (where Colter had the crucial fumble at midfield), Trevor, again, got the lead for the 'Cats and they just needed to get 2 1st downs to run the clock out.

The 'Cats just barely made the 1st down going on 4th and 1 (which was risky) and failed the obtain that crucial 2nd 1st down.

Point is, both QB's made their share of mistakes.


I'll take statistical reality over ECat "conventional wisdom" any day and twice on Saturday! Colter helped spring VMark the last 9 games of the 2012 season. The difference in yardage, average yards per carry, and runs over 10 yards for Mark when Colter was running the option versus when Siemian was at QB over the last 9 games of the season was more than considerable.

Alternating QB's worked well.

Marks' YPC was higher w/ Colter b/c opposing D's brought their safety up, so once Mark got past the 1st line of defenders, there was open space.

At the same time, opposing D's learned how to defend the Colter/Mark combo better (or had better defensive coaches who just knew how to defend it better from the start - see Boston College) and there were plenty of times where that O stalled (just as there were times, the O stalled w/ Trevor).

Now, agree that the O in 2012 needed both QBs, but 2013 really didn't have Mark, which is why the coaching staff started playing Trevor more.



Katatonic will have tough sledding finding fault with what I wrote about the Colter-Mark duo over the last 8-9 games in 2012. I did the homework on that several years ago reviewing the play-by-play after he claimed (correctly) early in the season that Mark was equally effective with both QB's in the first 4 games of the season. Things changed on the back nine.

Total yards don't mean anything if you turn the ball over, effectively nullifying those yards.

Fitzphile emphasized passing stats.


Also did homework for a post several years ago and the Siemian-led O was better at sustaining long scoring drives.

Also, when you needed a quick score (such as right before the half), that was the time to send Siemian in.
 
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If you needed a score near the goal line, Colter was very effective.

McCall could have used them more effectively, but there's nothing like having a good ground game for wearing down defenses, setting up the passing game, and controlling the clock. Colter/Mark were a better rushing combo and Colter was really excellent near the goal line. I wanted to see Colter execute more of a dink and dunk offense with Mark more often as he showed after halftime in the 2012 Syracuse game. Colter took them right down the field with short passes.

I hate to be critical of Siemian (or Colter) because he had some great games for us. However, this insistence on having Siemian as the starter by certain posters fails to appreciate just how important Colter's contributions were for creating a running game and offensive balance when we had a weak OL. As frustrating as Colter was in deep pass accuracy, so was Siemian's (and Thorson's) inability to run the read-option effectively to help spring Mark (JJackson et al., though JJ could create well anyway). I'm hoping HJ will fill both roles effectively. HJ has the speed and quicks to be an effective true dual-threat QB a la Persa. Now we need to get a quick, elusive RB to compliment Bowser. Even Baz was good at running the option for several nice gains a game, but he had Tyrell Sutton as a pitchman. Once they got the running game going, our offense became practically unstoppable (Wisconsin and MSU, 2015). I'd love to see that again.
 
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If you needed a score near the goal line, Colter was very effective.

McCall could have used them more effectively, but there's nothing like having a good ground game for wearing down defenses, setting up the passing game, and controlling the clock. Colter/Mark were a better rushing combo and Colter was really excellent near the goal line. I wanted to see Colter execute more of a dink and dunk offense with Mark more often as he showed after halftime in the 2012 Syracuse game. Colter took them right down the field with short passes.

I hate to be critical of Siemian (or Colter) because he had some great games for us. However, this insistence on having Siemian as the starter by certain posters fails to appreciate just how important Colter's contributions were for creating a running game and offensive balance when we had a weak OL. As frustrating as Colter was in deep pass accuracy, so was Siemian's (and Thorson's) inability to run the read-option effectively to help spring Mark (JJackson et al., though JJ could create well anyway). I'm hoping HJ will fill both roles effectively. HJ has the speed and quicks to be an effective true dual-threat QB a la Persa. Now we need to get a quick, elusive RB to compliment Bowser. Even Baz was good at running the option for several nice gains a game, but he had Tyrell Sutton as a pitchman. Once they got the running game going, our offense became practically unstoppable (Wisconsin and MSU, 2015). I'd love to see that again.

I would have had no problem sticking Colter behind center in Wildcat situations including short yardage or at the goal line. To put him there as the primary QB when you had to 80 yards was just inane. It hurt us at two positions on the field including WR, where his athleticism would have upgraded that position, and it hurt our offense overall.
 
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