Greg Ward Jr.

[seaofred92]

I find Ward's development absolutely fascinating. He played QB in high school, then moved to WR at Houston. He was moved back to QB midway through the season last year and now in Tom Herman's offense is completing 72% of his passes. SEVENTY TWO PERCENT! This is absolutely astonishing to me considering that Ward has been a QB at the FBS level for a little over one year now.

My question is, what exactly can our offense do to make Tommy's completion percentage rise? He will never be a 70% completion guy, heck he may not ever be a 60% completion guy, but there has to be some concepts we can take from Herman's offense to raise Tommy's percentage, no?

EDIT: Wanted to include Mandel's Heisman Top 5 snippet and what they said about Ward Jr.

"Cougars coach Tom Herman's Braxton Miller-like clone continues to shine. Thursday against SMU he was 16 of 18 for 243 yards and rushed 14 times for 82 yards, with all four of his touchdowns coming on the ground. He's completing 72.3 percent of his passes on the season."

This stat line is ideal for Tommy IMO. The concepts seemed to be there in the beginning of the season with a lot of various WR/TE/RB screens but I feel like all of these plays have been scrapped for deep balls. Is it as simple as scheme that leads to these differences in completion % or is it something more?

 

[ADS]

Stop throwing the ball when there are 40 mph winds in his face would be a good start. Finding a consistent running game to take pressure off of Tommy would help too.

 

[Kernal]

I find Ward's development absolutely fascinating. He played QB in high school, then moved to WR at Houston. He was moved back to QB midway through the season last year and now in Tom Herman's offense is completing 72% of his passes. SEVENTY TWO PERCENT! This is absolutely astonishing to me considering that Ward has been a QB at the FBS level for a little over one year now.

My question is, what exactly can our offense do to make Tommy's completion percentage rise? He will never be a 70% completion guy, heck he may not ever be a 60% completion guy, but there has to be some concepts we can take from Herman's offense to raise Tommy's percentage, no?

Why don't you go post your question on the Houston message board.

 

[irieboy8]

Tom Herman for HEAD COACH!!!!

 

[suh_fan93]

The only thing this article made me think of was Jamal Turner. Sometimes I wonder 'what if' he had not switched to wr where he obviously has been pretty quiet somehow this year despite being fully healthy and especially head scratching when Riley vocally seemed very high on him. Maybe he could have been a better quarterback than receiver. We'll truly never know. We sure could use the depth right now at that position. Last year as well.

 

[MichiganDad3]

Tom Herman for HEAD COACH!!!!

This is the correct answer

 

[lo country]

Have TA throw less. Not from the pocket. Have him rollout and throw off PA. Establish a running game. Currently, DC's see our "offense" and realize that we are a pass first team. This puts even more stress on TA. They can roll a safety over to double cover Westy or whom ever they choose to make the passing even more difficult. Thrown in disguising blitzes, odd fronts and well, our OL and its a recipe for disaster in the passing game.

Riley's O doesn't fit our talent. I'll be honest, I don't want to wait 3-4 more years for him to get "his guys". I still don't see what will make a .536 coach from OSU take us to conference championships or the next level. We have lost "close" games, but was Wisky really the same as last year? It's still a loss. In games we shouldn't have been in the situation to begin with, let alone the STUPID coaching decisions. That's not the team or talent, that's on this uber experienced staff. Every team has injuries. Some of walk-ons, IMO, are playing better than the starters..........

 

[MichiganDad3]

Have TA throw less. Not from the pocket. Have him rollout and throw off PA. Establish a running game. Currently, DC's see our "offense" and realize that we are a pass first team. This puts even more stress on TA. They can roll a safety over to double cover Westy or whom ever they choose to make the passing even more difficult. Thrown in disguising blitzes, odd fronts and well, our OL and its a recipe for disaster in the passing game.

Riley's O doesn't fit our talent. I'll be honest, I don't want to wait 3-4 more years for him to get "his guys". I still don't see what will make a .536 coach from OSU take us to conference championships or the next level. We have lost "close" games, but was Wisky really the same as last year? It's still a loss. In games we shouldn't have been in the situation to begin with, let alone the STUPID coaching decisions. That's not the team or talent, that's on this uber experienced staff. Every team has injuries. Some of walk-ons, IMO, are playing better than the starters..........

If we wait three years for Riley to get his guys. We will improve .... from a 300 team to a 500 team

 

[VectorVictor]

Stop throwing the ball when there are 40 mph winds in his face would be a good start. Finding a consistent running game to take pressure off of Tommy would help too.

The f*** you say. That's "throwin' weather" according to Langsdorf.

 

[BaytownHusker]

For one If Tommy played for Houston against the nobody conference he may be completing 70% as well. Put Greg Ward jr in the B1G or another power conf and I bet that % goes way down. Dont want to take any thing away from him though, kid can ball.

 

[NUance]

For one If Tommy played for Houston against the nobody conference he may be completing 70% as well. Put Greg Ward jr in the B1G or another power conf and I bet that % goes way down. Dont want to take any thing away from him though, kid can ball.

This isn't far off. Tommy's OOC completion pct is 58%. In the three game before Miami it was 64%.

But in the last three games we've had Tommy passing more, against better DBs and in worse weather conditions. His completion percentage has suffered from it. Our W/L % has suffered from it as well.

 

[Undone]

For one If Tommy played for Houston against the nobody conference he may be completing 70% as well. Put Greg Ward jr in the B1G or another power conf and I bet that % goes way down. Dont want to take any thing away from him though, kid can ball.

Good post, +1.

 

[seaofred92]

For one If Tommy played for Houston against the nobody conference he may be completing 70% as well. Put Greg Ward jr in the B1G or another power conf and I bet that % goes way down. Dont want to take any thing away from him though, kid can ball.

Very good point, obviously passing against SMU and Tennessee Tech is a little different than Miami/Wisconsin/BYU etc

Even against Louisville though, 23-33 236 yards 3TDs and 1INT.

in 2014 he had a 69% completion percentage, 29/33 against Temple (top 10 defense), 27/45 against Cincinnati, and 15/24 against Pittsburgh in the bowl (with Illinois like weather) for a combined 902 yards, 5TDs and 1INT. Just think its very interesting since he started last season as a WR and Tommy is now in year 3 of being the starting QB on this team. Is this more schematic differences, competition level differences, or both?

 

[BaytownHusker]

For one If Tommy played for Houston against the nobody conference he may be completing 70% as well. Put Greg Ward jr in the B1G or another power conf and I bet that % goes way down. Dont want to take any thing away from him though, kid can ball.

Very good point, obviously passing against SMU and Tennessee Tech is a little different than Miami/Wisconsin/BYU etc

Even against Louisville though, 23-33 236 yards 3TDs and 1INT.

in 2014 he had a 69% completion percentage, 29/33 against Temple (top 10 defense), 27/45 against Cincinnati, and 15/24 against Pittsburgh in the bowl (with Illinois like weather) for a combined 902 yards, 5TDs and 1INT. Just think its very interesting since he started last season as a WR and Tommy is now in year 3 of being the starting QB on this team. Is this more schematic differences, competition level differences, or both?

Not taking any thing away from Ward Jr.. Heck he may even just be that much better then T.A..