Both Frazier and Frost were much better decision makers than Tommy and Taylor in general. But, in fairness, Osborne didn't ask the QB to do a lot of deciding of things as most plays in the pass game were pretty much designed and preset. Rarely did Osborne have more than 3 receivers and usually one of them was a pure decoy and sometimes the other two were sent in to routes that left them 'in the vacinity' of each other so an errant throw might well be in fact caught by the other one. It also meant the QB had less head turning and 'checking down' of course which takes time and puts much more pressure on the QB with the play's design complexity. Often the QB and receivers are supposed to read and ad lib or automatically audible into a particular route and throw based on the defensive alignment/coverages. I believe this to be true. While Tommy and Taylor were the rare exceptions in NU history to play for 3 or 4 straight seasons, even they didn't become very good a 'reading the defenses' and finding the right receivers and then throwing it to them in stride so that the could catch and run.
Even with POB and Gebbia and Lee being much better QBs coming in (presumably they can do the mental things of a QB better than some we've had here), they are still raw rookies next fall. It is totally predictable that our QB play will be only marginally better than this year, if at all. As I've noted multiple times before, I feel if POB was in fact a better QB in the usual QB ways and measures, then he should have been at least #2 and have played a 12 to 15 quarters of action this year to get ready for 2017. I hope that all those practice reps adequately replace game experience. But, I believe I am not mistaken to say that for about 40 years of watching now, I have heard many many coaches and commentators say that there is just no substitute for live, game action in prime time. Repetitions under the lights in front of cameras and 80,000 loud fans is a big difference. IMO.
Please don't misunderstand: Frazier and Frost were tremendous decision makers in the option game but these are read and react in a split second things based on one or two defenders' actions and formations and play call One is not attempting to look all over the field and quickly assess locations, directions, distances, speeds, coverages, etc all in a couple seconds. You send 4 and 5 receivers down field to scatter around and find the opening, the QB needs to be extra calm and cool and collected with those defenders are coming hard right at him. Coverages are disguised and reading eyes and tendencies and guessing and so on are all over the place. It is very very difficult. Don't understate Tommy Armstrong's accomplishments either. He did a lot of good things through his 4 years.
