Here's why I truly believe Tommy is starter from beginning to start.
I recently re-read the conversation someone had with Beck. In that conversation, Beck stated that he didn't want his team "running plays". I think in a lot of ways, he was speaking of zone blocking. However, it's not as if that's a brand spankin' new concept that we are only doing. Anyway, after reading that again and thinking about some mistakes I have seen over the season, I came away thinking that some of those pass plays, the WR's aren't running routes.
Now, obviously, they had some plays that had routes ran, and route concepts built within them. But some didn't. For example, Purdue. Tommy threw two picks. Both were to Westerkamp. However, every single coach verified what I had in real time. The WR ran the wrong route, or made the wrong read. Why is was there so much miscommunication between the QB and the WR? Probably because the WR often had too many option routes. So sometimes, they plain didn't have true routes to run, rather it seemed to be "if the coverage looks like this, run this". Which is great, IF everyone makes the right read. But if one guy makes the wrong read, it's disastrous.
After both of those INT's, Tommy looked visibly upset that the WR made the wrong move, or ran the wrong route. You can't blame him for that, but you also can't blame the WR. I actually found myself blaming the WR at the time. But now, that's on Beck. always has been. That's twice in one game. That's too many for a team if they are indeed "running routes". But probably just about right for teams that allow their WR's to run a couple options at the line dependent on what they saw.
Of course, we saw a similar mistake on the pick 6 vs. McNeese State.
The play against MSU where Tommy almost threw the game winning TD to Alonzo Moore. Moore almost made the catch, but couldn't pull it in. However, there were two guys running almost identical routes on that play. A lot of us thought "WTH?" but I think the answer is within the freedom given to those guys. They decided to run the same route.
I often think that Tommy was also being made to wait in the pocket to see what move the WR was going to make. Was the route going over or under the defender? Was the route going inside or outside this guy?
I mean, just watch Westerkamp on the second INT vs. Purdue. Tommy throws the ball inside the defender, and Westerkamp just suddenly goes outside of him. No knock on Westerkamp, he's going to playing Sundays. But what makes a WR make a sudden move like that 10 yards down the field? At that point, he should be looking for the ball. But it looked like he was still looking into coverage to make the "right read".
Are some of these mistakes made by Tommy, a true mistake made by Tommy? Of course, every single QB, even the best of them, will make mistakes. However, I think a lot of the time, Tommy could be a victim of the odd "option route" system by Beck. I'd love to see what Tommy does when coaches don't find themselves in the position of blaming WR's on INT's.
