Juco QB

[GameDay]

He's been named a 2015 captain as a Jr.

He just lead this team to the best year in Kill's time here, including road wins at Michigan and Nebraska, and a near perfect game against Iowa.

He did so even though he played through a sprained MCL and turf toe

He also ran for 500 yards and 10 TDs this season which regardless of what some fans think, is a priority for this staff's QBs.

He lead the program in offseason conditioning and keeping teammates accountable and was so good at it that Kill described in glowing terms his leadership all last winter and spring. As a sophomore.


I really think you folks need to calm down and be patient with the passing game.

In a perfect world we'd have had depth built up at QB and WR, this simply wasn't reality for a variety of reasons, some possibly on the coaches, some definitely not. Going forward it's hard to convince myself that the coaching staff won't add talent and depth to those positions just like they have at every other position since they've been here.
Look at almost all of our transfers since Kill's arrived. They've nearly all been WRs and QBs. Barker(Baby), Shortell(Scheme fit), Moulton(Grades?), Tufts(Drugs?), Harris(Stole stuff), McDonald(Drugs), Nelson(Wanted guaranteed start), and Harbison(Homesick).
I will assume the staff put their foot down and redshirted all those WR's, and 2 QBs this year to put and end to this and develop guys who can catch and throw the ball.

By the time Mitch is a senior either they'll have things fixed and he improves like you would expect, or he could easily be a redzone changeup run threat if someone else emerges. He'll likely break the all time gopher record for career QB rushing TDs here.

He also can't hit the broad side of a barn. I love what he brings to the running game, but his accuracy MUST improve. People can't be wondering where in the heck that ball's going to end up every time he makes a pass. Like someone said above, he needs to work on his short/middle passing game. The deep ball is fine.

 

[killme]

The one thing few to no people will calmly and intelligently discuss in threads like this on GH is play calling and play design. Leidner's effectiveness may have been better against Wisconsin had Limey called some plays that (to my admittedly very unsophisticated football mind) he just didn't call. Take the 53 yard pass to Maxx for example. That was a great call. Short pass, misdirection, that caught Wisky off guard. I just can't understand why we don't call 5 to 10 garden variety, short pass plays each game. Some games, we'll throw to our full back effectively or to Cobb effectively, then the next game we won't do that. Or, what about using two tight ends and then not throwing to Maxx a couple times? These seem like easy things to at least try. I realize that we don't protect the QB very well, but common sense would tell us that if Mitch can complete that simple pass to Maxx that yielded 53 yards, he could complete other similar passes. I'm not looking for triple-reverse passes, or other difficult passes where Mitch has to thread the needle, but it just seems to me that we ask Mitch to heave the ball into double coverage down the side line way too much. Opposing teams are ready for our pass plays. Why not develop a few simple, new plays for the Wisky game that their defense hadn't seen before. Again, I admit that I'm far from a football genius, but I absolutely refuse to believe that we couldn't have a more effective passing game with Mitch as our QB. I love our coaches and team and am amazed and incredibly thrilled and impressed at what they accomplished this year. But I firmly believe that everyone of us here on GH could've created a few fairly easy passing plays that they could've tried against Wisky. Bottom line, I'm just confused about the plays we don't use (simple ones) yet admit that I don't understand the game deeply enough to figure this out.

Maybe Limegrover should call the plays that work and scrap the ones that don't. Hey!? I bet he never thought of that. Well, gosh, let's send him a note and tell him. This is great! We just figured out how to score on every play next year.

 

[killme]

He also can't hit the broad side of a barn. I love what he brings to the running game, but his accuracy MUST improve. People can't be wondering where in the heck that ball's going to end up every time he makes a pass. Like someone said above, he needs to work on his short/middle passing game. The deep ball is fine.

You must have a really small...barn. One thing that hasn't been said in this thread is the overall philosophy of this staff at this point in the progression: don't turn it over, win the kicking game, play good D. While some gunslingers might toss a few balls into tight spots and have talented receivers go win the jump ball, ML7 was likely told an incomplete pass is a million times better than a pick.

 

[dbaldrich1]

The one thing few to no people will calmly and intelligently discuss in threads like this on GH is play calling and play design. Leidner's effectiveness may have been better against Wisconsin had Limey called some plays that (to my admittedly very unsophisticated football mind) he just didn't call. Take the 53 yard pass to Maxx for example. That was a great call. Short pass, misdirection, that caught Wisky off guard. I just can't understand why we don't call 5 to 10 garden variety, short pass plays each game...

Play calling on offense seems to be a major thorn in the sides of a number of posters here, and I agree that at times it seems like coach Limegrover calls a pretty vanilla game. That being said, we have had many pass plays over the last few seasons (with Nelson or Leidner at QB) that were called and would have been successful (resulting in a first down, or perhaps a touchdown) where at least one part of the offense didn't execute:

1. The pass was catchable and the WR/RB/TE didn't make the catch.
2. The pass protection broke down, and the QB didn't have time to pass the ball.
3. The QB made a throw that was off target (too high, too low, wrong read).
4. The QB made the right read and a good throw, but the defender was able to break it up.

Three of these four factors are out of the control of the QB. The fact that the offense throws relatively few times during a game makes execution by all parts of the offense that much more important. Dropped passes and pass breakups make the stats look bad, but they aren't the same thing as poor QB play or play calling.

I am not in any way trying to be an apologist for Leidner's inconsistent passing. There's no disputing that he is inconsistent, and that is one of the reasons our passing game has struggled. But, I am willing to contend that if you go back and watch the season as a whole, there would be a significant number of plays where Mitch made the right read and throw to a receiver who was open, and the pass was dropped. If even 20% of those plays had been successful, it's possible that we're talking about a 9 or 10 win regular season record, and the play of the QB would have been no different.

If the coaches can identify and sign a JuCo QB to bring in as part of that competition to add experience and depth, I'm all for it. I'm also expecting a truly open competition at QB in the spring and fall practices, and that the best option will be playing on Saturdays next year. Whether that will result in more consistency in the passing game remains to be seen.

 

[Winasota Gopher]

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Should I be?