ND's QB used to be "the" position in college football, so

ND's QB used to be "the" position in college football, so
by Hickster (2020-09-16 22:43:35)
Edited on 2020-09-16 23:21:03

In reply to: In-depth article on Phil Jurkovec in P'burgh Post-Gazette posted by SWPaDem

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who are the last ND QB's that have made it in a meaningful way in the pros. The ones that I can think of:
- Lamonica 9-6 as a starter - he was 5-1 in '62 & and an All American
- Theismann 20-2-3 as a starter
- Montana 20-5 as a starter - 19-3 in his last 2 years - National Championship

Some other QBs that were great in college, but not in the pros
- Huarte 9-2 as a starter - in '64 9-1 Heisman winner & one bad call at USC for a NC
- Hanratty 21-2-1 as a starter - NC in '66
- Clements 29-5 as a starter - NC in '73
- Rice 28-3 as a starter - NC in '88 - 24-1 in last 2 years

5 of the above 7 QBs were recruited or developed by Ara.

Some other highly rated recruits that did a strong job in college, but were not in the same category as the above:
- Mirer 28-7-1 as a starter - if he had a NC he would have been in the above group
- Clausen although 16-18 as a starter - had some great moments, best was yelling at Harbaugh
- Quinn 29-17 as a starter
- McDougal 10-1 as a starter in '93 - should have won the National Championship - not sure of his rating as a recruit.

Biggest disappointments in their development:
- Powlus 29-16-1 as a started - Top Recruit in the Country
- Clausen 16-18 as a starter - # 2 recruit in the Country (#1 was McKnight USC)
- Crist 4-6 as a starter - last 5-Star QB recruit at ND - in '07 #1 Pro QB #20 National recruit

ND has certainly not done well in the development of QBs in the last 12+ years. Jurkovec appears to be the highest ranked QB that ND has recruited since Powlus, Clausen, Crist and Mirer. You can always miss on an individual, but the lack of successfully developing QBs makes Jurkovec's departure even more damning. It was critical to work to make him successful for the sake of future QB recruiting.

P.S. Edited, due to forgetting to put in Rick Mirer

Where Is Sandy Bonvecchio? *

You forgot Beuerlein *

* *

Of course. This however contradicts the chuckle heads below

that think coaching can "ruin a QB for life." That is complete bullshit.
There are several recent examples of QBs getting new coaching that completely turned them around (including the last three heisman winners).
Joe Burrow went from probably undrafted free agent status all the way to the heisman just on a change in QB coaches.

We have several examples in our own ND history where a change in coaching dramatically turned a career around. The most recent was Brady Quinn.
He got really shitty coaching from Ty and could barely complete 50% of his passes, threw a lot of picks, and had few TDs. Charlie came in (who is an excellent QB coach, just not a HC) and Quinn's completion % went up by over 10%, his TDs tripled and picks halved. Under what is said below, you just cant turn it around in one year, which is complete and utter bullshit.

I think it can be a little of both

I think if a coach tinkers with a player's throwing mechanics, it can really screw him up. If a new coach doesn't start to fix those tinkerings until the player's senior year, it's pretty tough for the kid to overcome that and perform well enough to play in the NFL.

That said, I don't know why people get so bent out of shape over Jurkovec specifically. Book has seemingly outperformed every quarterback in Jurkovec's class except Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields (unless I'm missing somebody who was ranked pretty low and ended up performing very well.)

The biggest issue I have with Kelly is that his system sucks and I don't think it gets the best out of the quarterbacks (or much of our talent) in general. But if we're being intellectually honest and are going to rip him for not making enough out of Jurkovec, doesn't he also deserve credit for Book's success?

(IMO - the guy who should really be pissed at Kelly is Dayne Crist. Crist was ranked behind Blaine Gabbert (Career NFL earnings $22.2M) and ahead of Mike Glennon ($28M) and Andrew Luck ($97M).)