College Football News
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| Saturday,
July 19 2003 |
Tips for
Evaluating QB Talent for 2003
By
John Horvath, FFWarroom, Contributing Writer for CFFL.com
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Evaluating the College Quarterback
In NFL leagues, we have the Stud RB
Theory, a widely espoused theory that says you have got to
grab a good RB right away, because there is little depth
at RB in the NFL. Some
take this even further and draft RB in the first 2-3 (or
sometimes more!) rounds of their draft, regardless of who
is there at other positions.
Since the emergence of College Fantasy Football (CFF)
I have heard some say that the Stud RB Theory does not
apply to the college game, because of the sheer depth at
the position. Instead,
they point to the lack of quality quarterbacks in college
and say that to win at CFF, one should adhere to the Stud
QB Theory.
The logic behind the Stud QB Theory
goes sort of like this:
1-
There is a shortage of quality QB in college
football.
2-
Since most teams do not have a solid QB, they are
forced to overemphasize the run in their offense.
3-
The overemphasis of the running game leads to an
abundance quality RB for your team.
All this means that you should grab a
QB early, since they good ones are harder to come by, and
grab a RB later on, because the depth at the position will
enable you to get a better one later in your draft.
Points two and three rely on point
one, and I intend to show that point one is not true.
Why do some claim that there is a
shortage of quality QB in college football?
Simply put – a lack of passing yards.
In 2002, only 26 QB passed for 3000 yds.
Of those 26, only 5 of them threw at least 30
touchdowns (In case you’re curious, the five were: Kliff
Kingsbury, Texas Tech; Byron Leftwich, Marshall; Carson
Palmer, USC; Ryan Schneider UCF; and Josh Fields, Oklahoma
State.) This 3000/30 club has few numbers every year, so you should
go out and grab one of the four quality QB while you can.
Here is the problem with such
reasoning:
First, it is easy to forget that not
every team plays the same number of games in college.
Becaue of this, end of the season stats are often
misread. Some teams play 11 games, others 12, 13 or even 14 games.
<b>You need to calculate stats on a per game
basis.</b> This
is an honest mistake.
Every NFL team plays 16 games, and seasonal NFL
statistics are kept separate from post-season statistics.
College ball is different.
A small chart will easily show the problem with
using cumulative yards, instead of yards per game (YPG) to
judge players.
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3000
yds
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3500
yds
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4000
yds
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games
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YPG
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games
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YPG
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games
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YPG
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10
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300
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10
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350
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10
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400
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11
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272.7273
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11
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318.1818
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11
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363.6364
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12
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250
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12
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291.6667
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12
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333.3333
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13
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230.7692
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13
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269.2308
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13
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307.6923
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So you really think the guy who threw
for 4000 yards in 13 games is <I>that</I> much
better than the guy who put up 3000 in 10?
Me, neither. But
I bet a handful of guys in your league are only looking at
cumulative stats.
Touchdown statistics can be just as
misleading as the yardage stats.
Here’s another chart that compares the fantasy
value of passing and rushing touchdowns.
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30 pass TD
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20 pass TD
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10 pass TD
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Rush
TD
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Pts.
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Rush
TD
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Pts.
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Rush
TD
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Pts.
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0
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120
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0
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80
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0
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40
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5
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150
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5
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110
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5
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70
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10
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180
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10
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140
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10
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100
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15
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210
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15
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170
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15
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130
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As you can see, 30 passing touchdowns
is not some magic number for fantasy stats.
It’s not just the gunslinger who you need to set
your sights on for your fantasy team.
The other mistake that the Stud QB
Theorists make is leaving rushing yards out of the
equation. My
league scores yards in the following way:
1pt/30 pass yds, 1pt/10 rush yds
As you can see, rushing yards are
worth 3x as much as passing yards.
And our scoring is fairly common.
So I took the Top 50 QB in total offense (pass yds
+ rush yds) from 2002 and sorted them by YPG.
(To keep the article a bit shorter, I’ll be using
all 50 in my spreadsheet, but only showing the Top 25.)
While I sorted them by YPG, I left the Total Yards
rank on the left as a reminder of how important it is to
get per game averages.
<I>Warning: I’m about to go
chart happy on you, but bear with me, because I’ll wrap
it up nicely for you at the end..</I>
<b>Top 25 Total Offense (2002),
sorted by YPG</b>
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TO
Rank
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Player
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G
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Rush
Yds
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Pass
Yds
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TOPG
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4
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Byron
Leftwich, Marshall
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12
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-1
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4268
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4267
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355.6
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1
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Kliff
Kingsbury, Texas Tech
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14
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-114
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5017
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4903
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350.2
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3
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Cody
Pickett, Washington
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13
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-185
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4458
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4273
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328.7
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2
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Timmy
Chang, Hawaii
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14
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New
League types!