Gray is What We Thought he was!!

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Wouldn't You like to Know said:
This is a stupid argument! So, we take 15YAC away from Gray hitting a wide open Rabe in stride. Doh Kay. That's part of the game. Breaking tackles, YAC and hitting WR's in stride every QB that has ever played gets YAC added to their numbers should we take that away from them?

I get it. He missed some long balls! That doesn't mean he played horrible!
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I never said he did play horrible. And yes, YAC happens in every game but Gray's numbers are bloated by an unusual amount of YAC. What doesn't happen very often is 3 stop routes turned into 30 yard gains. A stop route going for long gains is rare. UNLV had pretty poor tackling last night and it really helped out Gray's #'s. Therefore just looking at Gray's statistics doesn't show the whole story which was the whole point of my post.
 


Come on, not even Q thought he played well. His body language said his confidence was shot & the fact that Limegrover wouldn't let him take a shot at the end zone when it mattered speaks volumes. Stats can be spun just about anyway you want to spin them, but he stunk last night. I give him credit for holding it together & playing his best in OT, but he single-handedly made this game a nail biter. If he hit 1/2 of his wide open receivers we win by 21. We won't win a B1G game with that type of performance.

Unregistered User said:
337 Yards Passing and rushing. 57% completion rate. 2 TDs 1 tipped INT. (when he locked in on a receiver). Some bad throws, many good throws. 1 alligator arm play that should have been caught, 1 freshman WR giving up on a route or reading the wrong route. I'll take that all year.
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Don't read too much into not throwing in the third OT.
If you have confidence in your kicker, you would be an idiot to throw in that situation.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Every All I can see objectively from an outside perspective are the stats. A win, over 250 yards passing, over 50% completion, a 2:1 TD:INT ratio, and 68 yards rushing can not possibly be a horrible, or even bad, game. I will never, ever, ever, ever be convinced otherwise. People are seeing what they want to see.
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That's the problem. I didn't see what I wanted to see.

For 6 months I've been hearing about the improvement of Gray, from a passing and from a leadership standpoint. With that in mind, I LITERALLY thought he could enter the season as somebody who could put a team on his back and have a special kind of season. I think back to Daunte Culpepper going into Memorial Stadium in Lincoln right after Nebraska was coming off a National Championship season (s?), and almost willing UCF to beat the Cornhuskers singlehandedly.

Instead I saw the same Gray that we saw last year. A great athlete playing QB, that is just well below average as a thrower. Yes, he will quarterback and LEAD the team to some wins this year but he's just extremely below average as a thrower. That is not going to change.

There's not a lot of sense arguing about it or even agonizing about it. The title of the thread was spot on; he is who we've always known he is. For better or worse, this is what we have. Now the coaches have to figure out how to use him to our best advantage, put him in positions to be successful, and others will have to pick up their game as well.

The problem is, the defenses of the BT are going to have even less respect for him as a passer than the UNLV's of the world. UNLV's secondary WILL be the worst they face this year. Easily. Receivers were running around open ALL FRIGGIN NIGHT. A 400 yard passing night was there for the taking. For the next 11 games, defenses will dare the Gophers to throw the ball. Sometimes Gray will be on the money, and it appears more often than not, sometimes he will not be on the money.

I'm fine with that and he is the leader of the team for the remainder of the season. The coming seasons they will be sporting a QB that can do more though. And I can't wait!!
 



There are no apologies for victors, only for the vanquished.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
That could definitely be too.

I only saw it once and it looked terrible but you never know what goes into a play like that.
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I only seen it once, and the first impression was his being wide open...no way to tell if he slowed up, gave up on route, miscommunication...to go along with the other missed opportunities such as Fruechte twice (though might not have been tds on those) and Rabe early in the game.

Anyway the thought crossed my mind that maybe part of the problem is that Gray was trying to incorporate the runners into the game so much he had trouble getting his own rhythm going.
 

Gray has definitely improved from last year. If they had stuck with last year's general game plan his numbers would be much different.
 



Ogee Oglethorpe said:
That's the problem. I didn't see what I wanted to see.

For 6 months I've been hearing about the improvement of Gray, from a passing and from a leadership standpoint. With that in mind, I LITERALLY thought he could enter the season as somebody who could put a team on his back and have a special kind of season. I think back to Daunte Culpepper going into Memorial Stadium in Lincoln right after Nebraska was coming off a National Championship season (s?), and almost willing UCF to beat the Cornhuskers singlehandedly.

Instead I saw the same Gray that we saw last year. A great athlete playing QB, that is just well below average as a thrower. Yes, he will quarterback and LEAD the team to some wins this year but he's just extremely below average as a thrower. That is not going to change.

There's not a lot of sense arguing about it or even agonizing about it. The title of the thread was spot on; he is who we've always known he is. For better or worse, this is what we have. Now the coaches have to figure out how to use him to our best advantage, put him in positions to be successful, and others will have to pick up their game as well.

The problem is, the defenses of the BT are going to have even less respect for him as a passer than the UNLV's of the world. UNLV's secondary WILL be the worst they face this year. Easily. Receivers were running around open ALL FRIGGIN NIGHT. A 400 yard passing night was there for the taking. For the next 11 games, defenses will dare the Gophers to throw the ball. Sometimes Gray will be on the money, and it appears more often than not, sometimes he will not be on the money.

I'm fine with that and he is the leader of the team for the remainder of the season. The coming seasons they will be sporting a QB that can do more though. And I can't wait!!
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And the WRs are mostly a very young crowd and should get better.
 

GopherGack said:
I never said he did play horrible. And yes, YAC happens in every game but Gray's numbers are bloated by an unusual amount of YAC. What doesn't happen very often is 3 stop routes turned into 30 yard gains. A stop route going for long gains is rare. UNLV had pretty poor tackling last night and it really helped out Gray's #'s. Therefore just looking at Gray's statistics doesn't show the whole story which was the whole point of my post.
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Unusual amount of YAC??? Please don't make me pull up the numbers...Do you watch college football much??
 


This is only the start of his 2nd year as the QB. It was the 1st game of th year and it was on the road. Relax
 



Former Goofer said:
And the ad hominem's start. I'm done arguing with you. Have a good day.
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Generally speaking, there need to be two reasonable competing viewpoints in order for it to be considered an "argument". I'd characterize this more along the lines of an instruction, or "schooling", if you prefer. Next on the list is addressing your moronic user name.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Generally speaking, there need to be two reasonable competing viewpoints in order for it to be considered an "argument". I'd characterize this more along the lines of an instruction, or "schooling", if you prefer. Next on the list is addressing your moronic user name.
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You really do like to listen to yourself blather, don't you? Why don't you worry less about being a thread policeman and more about debating what people have to say?
 


station19 said:
You're normally an objective and logical poster. Today, not so much.

An average to good performance by a qb and the game is over at half time.

Let's be honest folks.
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If the game lasted only 3 quarters or so, you are probably right. But late in the 4th and in OT, Gray played very well and I don't think that can be disputed. You seem to be basing your opinion on his performance in the 1st half. I usually base my opinion on the entire game, but that's just me.

As for the YAC argument, you can also say that on some of those, if Gray doesn't put the ball where he did, the WR wouldn't have had a chance to break the tackle. That certainly was the case in one of Barker's receptions. If the ball was thrown to his inside, he probably gets tackled right there.

Gray deserves a lot of criticism for the overthrows, but he also deserves some praise for the balls he put right on the money.

I'm going to stay cautiously optimistic and hope we see a lot more of the late 4th/OT QB the rest of the year.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Fair enough. You are correct. Let's say 99.9%, then. Is someone in the top 0.1% of anything able to be called "horrible"?
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I think MarQueis will be okay. I, like you, just have an eye for details.
 

Sparlimb said:
You really do like to listen to yourself blather, don't you? Why don't you worry less about being a thread policeman and more about debating what people have to say?
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Why don't you stop being a negative, sarcastic, condescending d0uchenozzle every time you discuss the team? As soon as you do that, I'll stop being a "thread policeman". Deal?
 

Troy McClure said:
At the end of the day, we get the "W." In a very similar fashion to our last OT victory that came against Syracuse - pick off in the end-zone to seal/set-up the win. Here's to another 7-0 start?!
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That win @Syracuse was in 2009. We only started 2-0 that year. After Syracuse we opened up TCF Bank Stadium with a win verses Air Force and followed that up with a loss against California.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Why don't you stop being a negative, sarcastic, condescending d0uchenozzle every time you discuss the team? As soon as you do that, I'll stop being a "thread policeman". Deal?
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Pot meet kettle
 


skauma said:
Of course! the unproven backup QB is a lot better!
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Yup. Shoulda been here a few years ago when people were calling for the head of Adam Weber to roll. Gray was the next big thing and the obvious superior QB and being.

This is a tried and tired argument not worth the energy to engage.
 

This is such a weird debate to me. . .

Was Gray good? No
Was he atrocious? No

But some of the things that I'm reading here are proposterous.
#1: We were a 6.5 point favorite. If you thought we should have blown out UNLV, that's fine. The experts (who make their livings and gigantic palaces in the desert) disagreed. It wasn't a pretty game, but beating UNLV on the road by 1 score. . .that's about what we should have expected.

#2: Why are people saying that Gray can't lead a team and put him on his shoulder. Do you remember the end of the Iowa game? The entire Illinois game? Post 3rd Quarter Gray from last night (7-10 140 2 TDs). He was dynamic at the end of the game. Does it make up for his first 3 quarters? No, but you can't just ignore the end of the game.

#3: I keep hearing people talk about how fantastic the WRs played. They did, they were a bright spot. However, they made 1 difficult catch amongst them. The rest of them were perfectly places passes at the exact right time. YAC is a stat that tells you how good the receivers are but it's also a huge factor in showing how good a QB is at getting the ball to his receivers at the right time (see Aaron Rodgers).
 

Formo said:
Yup. Shoulda been here a few years ago when people were calling for the head of Adam Weber to roll. Gray was the next big thing and the obvious superior QB and being.

This is a tried and tired argument not worth the energy to engage.
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I saw a 4th grader firing a football around with his friends in my neighborhood, I can't wait until 2021 when he gets to replace that bum of a starter on the 2020 team.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I saw a 4th grader firing a football around with his friends in my neighborhood, I can't wait until 2021 when he gets to replace that bum of a starter on the 2020 team.
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My guess is that that same 4th grader could have completed that opening drive overthrow to Rabe for a TD.:) For the 1st 3 quarters MG was atrocious. The fans rightfully should expect a better performance out of a senior. That's what has everone so cranked up. It was deja vu from last year. Those early misses were what kept a poor UNLV team in the game. To MGs credit he finally recovered and began playing much much better. A slow start like that against a quality opponent will result in a loss. The good news is that when we had bad Qb play last year we lost to the NMSU's and NDSU's of the world. Last night, we recovered and got the W.
 



Thank goodness we're not saddled with Denard Robinson

2011
Yards per game passing: 167
Yards per game rushing: 90
Interceptions per game: 1.15

We would have gotten crushed if started that loser last night.

/sarcasm>
 

46Gophers said:
My guess is that that same 4th grader could have completed that opening drive overthrow to Rabe for a TD.:) For the 1st 3 quarters MG was atrocious. The fans rightfully should expect a better performance out of a senior. That's what has everone so cranked up. It was deja vu from last year. Those early misses were what kept a poor UNLV team in the game. To MGs credit he finally recovered and began playing much much better. A slow start like that against a quality opponent will result in a loss. The good news is that when we had bad Qb play last year we lost to the NMSU's and NDSU's of the world. Last night, we recovered and got the W.
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Yeah, a slow start would obviously result in a loss because we aren't very good. We aren't going to win a lot of road games. Lets assume Gray played the exact same way but we corrected some of the other bad things (Stoud fumble, chip shot FG and penalties), we probably still win by 10-14.

Also. . .there were tons of things that kept UNLV in the game but you're focusing on only Gray. He had one terrible pass, one pass where he and a reciever had bad communication (neither one of us knows who was at fault), and a bad INT. Other than that, he threw for almost 60%, 2 TDs, and 269 yards.
 

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