Landlord
Banned
Offseason is boring as hell.
A comment in the qb depth chart thread gave me the idea to start this. Obviously there is no science or equal ground to compare quarterbacks apples to apples, but I'm interested in how people would rank all of our starting quarterbacks over the last ten years.
Feel free to do this with whatever criteria you want to in your head, and explain what that criteria is. Here's my list, which I'm mostly basing on my best guess at ultimate potential/ability, with no regards to injuries or situations that might have given certain guys legs up or kept them down from what they could have been in different scenarios:
1. Joe Ganz - wasn't perfect, a bit prone to turnovers at times, but his senior season was straight videogame-esque, and if it wasn't in the middle of the best year for quarterbacks ever in the best conference for quarterbacks ever, he would have been in contention for some serious hardware and recognition. He had the 3rd highest career passer rating among active quarterbacks when he was playing his senior season, behind only Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow. That's nuts.
2a. Zac Taylor - toughest kid I've ever seen play quarterback. Scary to think just how much uglier the Callahan era could have been without him - his progression from junior to senior years was tremendous, and while his numbers weren't all that elite, you don't become the Big XII Offensive Player of the Year by accident.
2b. Taylor Martinez - oh, what could have been. Taylor did absolutely everything he could within himself for this program, and broke his body in the process. Was voted the best offensive player in the conference, not by media, who don't know sh#t, but by the coaches that schemed against him. His freshman and junior seasons were filled with highs and lows, but the highs were really high, and a whole lot of fun.
4. Sam Keller - for some reason people have a sour taste in their mouth towards the guy, and it's not really warranted. What happened with that team was far from his fault, and despite the conspiracy theories (without any evidence) that he was handed the starting job over a supposedly more deserving Ganz, he was on pace to break Zac's numbers before going down with a broken collarbone (during a lights out performance against Texas).
5. Ron Kellogg III - kind of a Joe Ganz-lite. A guy that was just happy to be here, content being a career backup, when the football gods rewarded him with the spotlight for a little while. Played very surprisingly well considering his lack of physical attributes, and the reason we won two of our four closest games that season.
6. Zac Lee - if we're going on accomplishments Zac is lower, but if we're going on ability/potential he's probably higher in my opinion. Not quite sure where to put him, but he looked like he could have been the best pure passer we've ever had before having to struggle through a torn elbow for 75% of a season, and other undisclosed injuries the entirety of another.
7. Tommy Armstrong Jr - This is no intentional slight against Tommy at all, and while he's been fun to watch and is a fierce competitor, at the end of the day I just don't think he's shown anything great. Mediocre numbers, a good handful of ugly performances, another good handful of good ones, no great ones to my eyes. He's been decidedly average and hasn't improved much, but that can't all fall on his shoulders. He's a product of the staff that's been over him.
8. Cody Green - seems he ended up doing alright at Tulsa, but never gave any reason for true rational excitement here. Didn't have the best situation, but also was never going to be anything special.
A comment in the qb depth chart thread gave me the idea to start this. Obviously there is no science or equal ground to compare quarterbacks apples to apples, but I'm interested in how people would rank all of our starting quarterbacks over the last ten years.
Feel free to do this with whatever criteria you want to in your head, and explain what that criteria is. Here's my list, which I'm mostly basing on my best guess at ultimate potential/ability, with no regards to injuries or situations that might have given certain guys legs up or kept them down from what they could have been in different scenarios:
1. Joe Ganz - wasn't perfect, a bit prone to turnovers at times, but his senior season was straight videogame-esque, and if it wasn't in the middle of the best year for quarterbacks ever in the best conference for quarterbacks ever, he would have been in contention for some serious hardware and recognition. He had the 3rd highest career passer rating among active quarterbacks when he was playing his senior season, behind only Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow. That's nuts.
2a. Zac Taylor - toughest kid I've ever seen play quarterback. Scary to think just how much uglier the Callahan era could have been without him - his progression from junior to senior years was tremendous, and while his numbers weren't all that elite, you don't become the Big XII Offensive Player of the Year by accident.
2b. Taylor Martinez - oh, what could have been. Taylor did absolutely everything he could within himself for this program, and broke his body in the process. Was voted the best offensive player in the conference, not by media, who don't know sh#t, but by the coaches that schemed against him. His freshman and junior seasons were filled with highs and lows, but the highs were really high, and a whole lot of fun.
4. Sam Keller - for some reason people have a sour taste in their mouth towards the guy, and it's not really warranted. What happened with that team was far from his fault, and despite the conspiracy theories (without any evidence) that he was handed the starting job over a supposedly more deserving Ganz, he was on pace to break Zac's numbers before going down with a broken collarbone (during a lights out performance against Texas).
5. Ron Kellogg III - kind of a Joe Ganz-lite. A guy that was just happy to be here, content being a career backup, when the football gods rewarded him with the spotlight for a little while. Played very surprisingly well considering his lack of physical attributes, and the reason we won two of our four closest games that season.
6. Zac Lee - if we're going on accomplishments Zac is lower, but if we're going on ability/potential he's probably higher in my opinion. Not quite sure where to put him, but he looked like he could have been the best pure passer we've ever had before having to struggle through a torn elbow for 75% of a season, and other undisclosed injuries the entirety of another.
7. Tommy Armstrong Jr - This is no intentional slight against Tommy at all, and while he's been fun to watch and is a fierce competitor, at the end of the day I just don't think he's shown anything great. Mediocre numbers, a good handful of ugly performances, another good handful of good ones, no great ones to my eyes. He's been decidedly average and hasn't improved much, but that can't all fall on his shoulders. He's a product of the staff that's been over him.
8. Cody Green - seems he ended up doing alright at Tulsa, but never gave any reason for true rational excitement here. Didn't have the best situation, but also was never going to be anything special.
