My thoughts, take them fwiw. Writing this cause I need a distraction.
His efficiency rank is 49th in the country right now. So he's average at that. However, his YPA is 8.22, which is probably about 30th or better... but take that with a grain of salt with Prich doing most of the work. What is really holding him down is his completion % of 54.6 or so, which is not very good. Putting it in persepctive, only 3 guys in the top 50 have less than 60%.
Also, 5 TDs, 1 INT. We need him to keep getting better. I've seen him get better every single game. That UH game was not good. But he put the ball in the right spot for Prich to get it. Then in the Cal game he missed some throws, but still played light years better. Where he really struggled is running and his deep ball. In the CSU game, he finally shrugged off his obvious (to me, anyways) fear of running and fear of getting hit and regained his scrambling form. However, he still missed on some crucial longer throws. But not as badly as he did against cal. He was not helped by his receivers having the dropsies on shorter routes, but I think he hurt himself on those throws by lacking touch.
His stats so far compared to last year are more reflective of having a legit WR threat (Prich wasn't there yet when he was playing last year) and with playcalling (see Tclems long TD off playaction against CSU). TH needs to continue his upward trend for us to sniff 5 wins this year.
Where I've seen clear improvement this year:
1. Scrambling. I think he was still very gunshy from the spleen injury last year, and getting destroyed in the UH game did not help. It was painfully evident against Cal that he just didn't want to get touched on those runs, and it cost us at least one first down, which is the kind of thing that costs you a close game. However, he seems to have gotten over it, cause he sure ran like a boss and didn't mind taking a hit to get a TD or a first down against CSU.
2. Pocket presence: He is starting to feel it. Against Cal he had some great adjustments, and although I haven't rewatched CSU yet, I remember him doing pretty well even though his tackles were anything but dependable.
3. Looking Deep: He's finally looking for plays longer than 10 yards, especially on play actions. This is more compared to last year than this year. Last year, he was competing with checkdown for the worst YPA. Starting in the 2d half of the UH game, he has continually been looking downfield.
Where I haven't seen improvement:
1. Long Range Accuracy: He just hasn't hit the long range ball like he needs too. the Prich long gains (sans 1 in the 1st half) were all shorter throws that Prich went monster on. He had a nice one in the CSU game, but considering there wasn't a cSU player within 6 yards of TH or 15 yards of TClem, I hesitate to see progress.
2. Clutch Passing: He's been anti-clutch when passing the ball in press situations. Crushing our hopes of a comeback in the UH game. Going dead on the last drive of the Cal game. I remember that the OT fade pass to Prich on 3d down should have been picked off it was so horrifically underthrown. The CSU game where he was off on that throw on 3d down that should have gone for a LONG TD to Deehan. And although it worked out, that semi-duck he threw to Cefalo with 20 seconds left in the 1st half gets picked off against a team with better athletes in the secondary. However, I loved how he played in that last drive. That was solid, even though he made his best plays with his feet. Hope he can build on this performance and calm himself down in clutch situations.
Thoughts?