I hope he stays next year to become the backup after ND hits the portal. It's nice to see some give him credit for what he did.
This team had the look of a 4-8/3-9 team early, and likely would have been if Kelly was still here.
Pyne is an accurate passer with a good arm--not a cannon, but good. And he is smart and athletic. Plus, as you say, he has grit and is a leader. He is highly respected by his teammates.
Pyne has more tools and upside than Stetson Bennett, GA's walk on QB.
Pyne will learn to go through progression and will drop ball off when under pressure.
The only limit to Pyne's upside is Rees. When Pyne started Cal game poorly and video showed Rees going viral, yelling at Pyne, that was last straw for me. Pyne is smart, quiet and hard working. Yelling at Pyne was the last thing Rees should have done.
I can't speak to Rees's potential for growth in future, but his play calling against Marshall, Stanford and Navy (in the second half) was the worst I have ever seen -- and I say that as a long-time watcher of college football who has no coaching experience.
Rees may understand how to develop a game plan, but he has no capacity to make adjustments during game and has no grasp of strategy, anticipating "mindset" and tendencies of defensive coordinators.
OC's go through a series of scripted plays at start of a game to strategize and prepare for calls later in the game. Rees has no grasp of tactical play calling. The "lollapalooza" tight end QB play with one full yard to go demonstrated that. Rees could have had "QB" flip ball back to Pyne and have him throw to Tyree coming out of backfield -- TD is my guess. My point re the tight end sneak: Rees learned play worked so he was going to keep calling it until it didn't.
I think he played to his full potential, and as ACross stated, deserves our respect in terms of commitment and leadership, but I don't think we have to overstate the quality of his performances (or his athleticism or "tools").
He played well in 3 of his 11 games:
- USC
- UNC
- BYU
2/3 of those performances in his first 4 games.
Navy was a push. Played outstanding in 1st half, atrocious in 2nd half.
He played poorly in 7 games:
- Marshall
- Cal
- Stanford
- UNLV
- Syracuse
- Clemson
- BC
He was 3-7-1 in that regard, and 1-4-1 on the back half of the season.
Take Navy. Do you really believe Pyne could throw 4 TD passes in first half and have zero completions in second and blame difference on Pyne's performance?
The difference was Navy blitzed 10 in second half. Yes, Pyne continually held ball and got sacked. Pyne should have gotten rid of ball. But who was the guy who kept calling the 40/60 yd pass plays? Receivers were open in first and second half. Only difference was Rees play calling. He continued to call the same plays in 2nd half as first. First half Pyne had time. 2nd half he didn't. No team can defend 10-man blitz.
Can say the same against Marshall and Stanford. Your right to say Pyne zeroes in on target. He threw two pics against Marshall. But both happened because Rees called play to Mayer. Rees always called pass to Mayer on 3rd and short yardage. No creativity.
Against Stanford they were blitzing corners and went straight to Pyne. Rees even put wide receivers in motion toward Pyne (rather than have them pivot and go to sideline) leading corners to Pyne.
My point? Pyne has serious problems holding ball and going though progression. With time however he is reasonably accurate. With right OC much of Pyne's downside could have been limited. What did the defensive coordinators for Marshall, Stanford and Navy games did was "gamble" to take advantage of Pyne's weaknesses. And Rees failed to adjust. Instead, he compounded problem by calling plays that allowed defenses to exploit Pyne's weaknesses.
I could go on. The problem was the primary call made by Rees. Sure, experienced QB would have checked out or gotten rid of ball. But if Rees's call out of huddle had been a play where Pyne got rid of ball in one to two seconds in 2nd half against Navy -- for example, say a swing pass to Tyree, Navy's 10 man blitz would have exploded in their face and Tyree would have taken it to the house.
He's a gamer and will do well in life.
I called him a dwarf. It is more accurately thought of as a critique of the coaches. I am pretty sure Pyne knows how tall he isnt.
A normal label of yours for Golson when he was at ND as well.
I agree with the sentiment you expressed in the original post, but it is pretty funny that whenever you criticize a player (physique or otherwise) then you think it should obviously be considered a critique of the coaches and not the player. I'm sure if you asked Pyne if "Pyne's a midget with a noodle arm" was a criticism of him or the coaches he'd align with your point of view.
Circus folk. Small hands - smell like cabbage
...is disputing Pyne is really short for a quarterback. It's just funny when a demeaning post directed at a player is supposed to be construed as not as a critique of the player, but "an indictment of the coaching staff."
But that’s obviously not a critique of you, it’s on your English teachers. You’ve done what you can with what god gave you and I applaud you for your efforts…you illiterate bastard. Obviously directed at the teachers again.
I'm not sure the initial point was made specifically about you.
Not that one pejorative is much better than the other here anyway.
a midget. I'm happy you support him now.
Amd his height is positively a limiting factor. The context was Rees and his attraction to short qbs.
You A-Hole....
Learn some reading comprehension for starters
I was incredibly critical at the beginning, and even in the middle of the season at times, but full credit to the kid for toughing out this season and showing alot of improvement. Cannot ask for more from him.
...You can't dictate the circumstances surrounding your opportunity, but you have a lot of control over how you approach and use that opportunity. Drew did a great job; and to expand on your comment about next year, if he can expand on his play against USC, he could have a very high ceiling indeed.
Overall I thought this was a fun season in many ways. Drew Pyne's development and growth, the mid-season re-commitment to the running game, our punt blocking team. There were a lot of fun moments.
I could tell that the players felt it too. They understood their identity, they were less afraid to make mistakes and as the season went along you started to see development with quite a few players.
Even with the 4 losses I see a lot of reasons for optimism going into next year. Most of all - Freeman is a true leader. His attitude and spirit embody the better memories I have from my college years.
The qualities you note (you forgot to specifically note humility) may not be enough on their own to get us back into the top 5, but they bode well. I think he will be open to what he needs to learn, and tuned into many sources of guidance and input.
He models an ND person in ways Kelly could not.
I think a true leader needs to be humble.
With that said, I was a little taken aback when he greeted Lincoln Riley while mic'd up before the game. Riley said something like "How's it going?" and Freeman's response was something like "Still figuring it out every day." I'm not sure what I would have wanted to hear as a response, but this seemed a little TOO humble when meeting the opposing coach for the first time.
Seriously, I agree. I just wish they had trusted him to throw a little earlier in the game. It might have had a positive impact for both the run and pass games.
I don’t think it could have turned out much better for him. He went to the playoffs twice as a starter and his “down year” was an 11-2 season. He took advantage of a mediocre quarterback situation and maximized his potential. Not really sure it was a “wrong time” for him to be at ND.
Absent the completion of the story.
Put another way, if ND was a championship level team from 2017-2020, then they would have either recruited a more naturally talented QB or done a better job at developing the more naturally talented QBs that were behind Book on the depth chart, namely Wimbush and Jurkovec. Is that not the point you're making?
pretty much perfectly describe the reigning champion and their QB situation?
I think Book could've switched places with Bennett as smoothly as a Back to the Future changing photograph. And I think he could've definitely AJ McCarron'd a built to win roster.
My recollection is that AJ McCarron was as highly recruited as an Alabama QB should be. He was limited only by Alabama's pound it style, not his physical abilities.
Good point about Stetson Bennett, but he might be the exception that proves the rule, as they say.
I guess you'll need to ask the OP what his point was because the grouping together of Crist, Book, and Pyne is confusing. Crist was a 5 star recruit who lost his starting job at 2 different schools. Book was a 3 star recruit who led his team to playoff appearances in 2 different seasons. And Pyne was a 4 star recruit who seems to have lower expectations than the supposedly less talented Book.
I for one am less willing to give Pyne a participation trophy for his efforts. He is a 4-star QB and I stand by my take last year that he should have started last year vs Cincinnati when our OL was unable to protect Coan. I am not as surprised as others when he plays well, and am as frustrated as everyone else with his inconsistency. His 8-2 record in games he started was the floor of my expectations given the talent of our running game and defense, the success we've had over the past 5 years, and the quality of our opponents (UNC, BYU, and Syracuse are not good teams, despite their inflated rankings on gameday, and Stanford sucked ass). Many teams have had success with backup QBs at ND and elsewhere, under good coaches and bad ones. Kevin McDougal in 1993, Matt Lovecchio in 2000, Tommy Rees for the last 4 games in 2010, Deshone Kizer in 2015, and Ian Book in 2018. Committing to a strong running game and defense is critical when a backup qb is pressed into service.
Stetson was the clean comparison I wanted to highlight.
With McCarron, very much agree that they had vastly different recruiting profiles. I only included him for the parallel that despite Book's beginnings, his body of work at ND indicated to me that he could have very likely served as AJ McCarron during Alabama's running offense days. And both college careers resulted in mid/late draft profiles, although as it stands, McCarron looks like he will have ended up with the more (relatively) meaningful pro career.
He was two personal fouls away from winning a playoff game. And a team even tried to trade for him to be their starter.
7 wins over ranked teams (excludes Wimbush’s win over Michigan in 2018), 5 total losses, 0 home losses, 0 losses against opponents outside top 20. The guy maximized his talent and opportunity.
I applaud him.
He was put in a difficult situation, constrained to a degree by his own physical limitations, but much more-so by the limitations of his OC and the trappings of a dogshit offensive scheme. He didn't let this team down. That was the work of others.
Said he asked to be coached hard, as that was how he responded best in practice and games.
I agree with you that was a classy response on Pyne's part. But from all I read about Pyne he is dedicated, hardworking and respected by teammates.
Pyne's first start against Cal was a disaster. Three straight three and outs. He was nervous. So, what does Tommy do? He screams at Pyne when he puts headset on after returning to bench. IMO Pyne is smart and responds best to quiet criticism. Supposedly he is the ideal Ivy Q-back. Yelling at him, as Rees did, is not going to help calm his nerves.