Expectations for Tanner

Yesterday on BYU SN Blaine Fowler outlined his expectations for Tanner for this season. He specifically said that he wants to see 65% completion %, 10 yards per attempt (not completion), and 2 - 2.5 TD-INT ratio.



What do you guys think? Is this fair? Achievable? I think with our front loaded schedule his stats will be quite a bit below that; maybe by the end of the season with the weaker competition he might reach it, but I have to say I'm doubtful. I hope he does though. That would be awesome.



They also stated that since 2010 (I think) the QB that began the season (game #1) as the backup has ended up starting 40% of the games during the season. This is mostly attributed to Nelson's and Hill's injuries. But it begs the question: do you have faith in any of our other QBs? (and we actually have a lot of QBs on this roster)

I think 2-2.5 TD to INT ratio is laughably under performing. A 4 TD to INT ratio is what my goal is for a QB. Yes, it's high, but it's reachable and it's a very good indicator of success.

hawkwing wrote:
I think 2-2.5 TD to INT ratio is laughably under performing. A 4 TD to INT ratio is what my goal is for a QB. Yes, it's high, but it's reachable and it's a very good indicator of success.

I don't know. Max Hall was a great QB with great stats, right? His best season he had 35-14 which is a 2.5 ratio. Even Detmer's best season was 35-12 which is 2.9. So 4.0 is way too high!

byufan4ever wrote:

I think 2-2.5 TD to INT ratio is laughably under performing. A 4 TD to INT ratio is what my goal is for a QB. Yes, it's high, but it's reachable and it's a very good indicator of success.

I don't know. Max Hall was a great QB with great stats, right? His best season he had 35-14 which is a 2.5 ratio. Even Detmer's best season was 35-12 which is 2.9. So 4.0 is way too high!

Detmer was actually a very poor QB when it came to interceptions, Max Hall was very good, but not elite. I think 4 is exactly the level of the highest level elite QBs, which is what my goal is for.



4+ - Elite

3-4 - Exceptional

2.5-3 Very good

2-2.5 Adequate

1.5 - 2 Poor

<1.5 Terrible

hawkwing wrote:

hawkwing wrote:
I think 2-2.5 TD to INT ratio is laughably under performing. A 4 TD to INT ratio is what my goal is for a QB. Yes, it's high, but it's reachable and it's a very good indicator of success.

I don't know. Max Hall was a great QB with great stats, right? His best season he had 35-14 which is a 2.5 ratio. Even Detmer's best season was 35-12 which is 2.9. So 4.0 is way too high!

Detmer was actually a very poor QB when it came to interceptions, Max Hall was very good, but not elite. I think 4 is exactly the level of the highest level elite QBs, which is what my goal is for.



4+ - Elite

3-4 - Exceptional

2.5-3 Very good

2-2.5 Adequate

1.5 - 2 Poor

<1.5 Terrible

Fowler was stating "expectations," which is different from one's goals or hopes for the kid. I'm not sure we see elite performance, given our schedule and WRs. I hope for elite level play, but I think a Fowler's expectations might be more in line?

BoiseBYU wrote:

byufan4ever wrote:

I think 2-2.5 TD to INT ratio is laughably under performing. A 4 TD to INT ratio is what my goal is for a QB. Yes, it's high, but it's reachable and it's a very good indicator of success.

I don't know. Max Hall was a great QB with great stats, right? His best season he had 35-14 which is a 2.5 ratio. Even Detmer's best season was 35-12 which is 2.9. So 4.0 is way too high!

Detmer was actually a very poor QB when it came to interceptions, Max Hall was very good, but not elite. I think 4 is exactly the level of the highest level elite QBs, which is what my goal is for.



4+ - Elite

3-4 - Exceptional

2.5-3 Very good

2-2.5 Adequate

1.5 - 2 Poor

<1.5 Terrible

Fowler was stating "expectations," which is different from one's goals or hopes for the kid. I'm not sure we see elite performance, given our schedule and WRs. I hope for elite level play, but I think a Fowler's expectations might be more in line?

That is a totally fair point, expectations are different than goals. I would say a 2.5 is a fair expectation.

Here is how some of the BYU greats have done in these categories that Fowler put out there:


BYU QB Expectations.PNG

I have to say that I'd be very happy if Tanner met these expectations this season against this schedule with these WRs. But I wouldn't be surprised if he falls under this season. Now, next season as a senior? I think he has the potential to put up some monster stats. Despite Tanner being in the program for a number of years (that was Fowler's point) I think we're going to see some growing pains this season.



And do you see how rare that 4.0 TD/INT ratio is? We've had a lot of great QBs. I haven't included them all, but has it happened more than twice?

Several years ago during Max Hall's jr or sr year they talked about a 4.0 TD/INT ratio at the Big Blue Bash and the analysis that they had done on it. Yeah, it's uncommon, but it does happen at BYU and in the rest of college football, that's what makes them elite. If we want a special season it's the level we will have to reach to make it happen.

hawkwing wrote:
Several years ago during Max Hall's jr or sr year they talked about a 4.0 TD/INT ratio at the Big Blue Bash and the analysis that they had done on it. Yeah, it's uncommon, but it does happen at BYU and in the rest of college football, that's what makes them elite. If we want a special season it's the level we will have to reach to make it happen.

Yeah, but that was Brandon Doman talking about an unstoppable offense, not about expectations. That same off-season Sarkisian was setting a 3-1 ratio as a goal for Jake Locker to prove himself an NFL-caliber QB.



So, based on this thread from years ago, a 3:1 ratio is seen as NFL-prospect caliber performance, and 4:1 was discussed as elite/unstoppable.



I think "expecting" a 4:1 ratio from Tanner is like expecting a playoff berth. I think expecting between 2:1 and 3:1 is more realistic and a very good season for a 2nd year starter. I think that the fact we are playing ball-control run-oriented offense makes ball security that much more important, so I am more concerned with total INTs this season than the ratio. He has to keep that number under 1 per game.

So.... is Tanner going to be the starter?

2.5xTD/Int ration would be good and seems very attainable and is on par with what he's done in the past 26/10 and 3/1). I expect somewhere in the 2.7 range. If he gets to 3:1 I'll be very happy.



65% would be very good and I would be very happy with that. I expect something like 63%. He was at 59% his Freshman year and 66% last year (half his completions came in an 11/13 effort against SUU).



10YPA is excellent and I would be ecstatic. I'm expecting 7.8-8.3YPA (he was at 7.6 in 2015 and 7.3 in 2016).



Not sure how Fowler came up with those numbers but they aren't in the same ballpark with each other.

I think Fowler has an unrealistic expectation for Tanner. I looked up QB's for the last nine years to see how many met this criteria and there were only 7 QB's that made it. I researched all FBS schools. I basically said a QB needed to have a minimum 200 passing attempts for the year, so basically in 9 years that would have been 1170 QB's who could have done it and only 7 accomplished those numbers.



The QB's were Jameis Winston FSU, Baker Mayfield OU, Robert Griffin Baylor, Russell Wilson Wiscconson, Mike White Western Kentucky, Marcus Mariota Oregon, and Cam Newton Auburn. Actually Cam had the worst numbers out of all 7.



Mayfield 2016 70.9% completion, 3965 yds, 11.1 Y/ATT, 40 TD, 8 INT 5-1 TD/INT

White 2016 67.3%, 4363 yds, 10.5 y/att, 37 td, 7 int, 5-2 td/int

Mariota 2014 68.3%, 4454 yds, 10.0 y/att, 42 td, 4 int, 10-5 td/int

Winston 2013 66.9%, 4057 yds, 10.6 y/att, 40 td, 10 int, 4-1 td/int

Griffin 2011 72.4%, 3965 yds, 10.1 y/att, 37 td, 5 int, 7-4 td/int

Wilson 2011 72.8%, 3175 yds, 10.3 y/att, 33 td, 4 int, 8-2 td/int

Newton 2010 66.1%, 2854 yds, 10.2 y/att, 30 td, 7 int, 4-2 td/int



The category that prevented a lot more from making it was the pass per attempt stat, so there could have been many more but the 10 yards per attempt is actually pretty hard to achieve.



If Tanner was able to do that this year I have no doubt that it would be a special season for BYU and they would lose maybe 1 game. I think BYU could still have a great season if Tanner avg 65% completion and 3.1 + TD/INT rate, which i think he can do.

My expectation is he meets the bar he set as a FR and improves on it. Here are his FR stats:

267 of 446 for 3,377 yards with 23 TDs and 10 INTs for a 136.00 PER and .599 complete.



I think he'll have more attempts this year (closer to 500) so an improvement I would be happy with him upping his PER by about 10 points to around 150 (which is where he was last year (151.95). If he has 500 attempts, here's what a 150 PER could look like:



325 of 500 for 3,975 yards with 36 TDs and 13 INTs for a 150.34 PER and .650 complete.



I'd be very happy with those numbers.

SpiffCoug wrote:
My expectation is he meets the bar he set as a FR and improves on it. Here are his FR stats:

267 of 446 for 3,377 yards with 23 TDs and 10 INTs for a 136.00 PER and .599 complete.



I think he'll have more attempts this year (closer to 500) so an improvement I would be happy with him upping his PER by about 10 points to around 150 (which is where he was last year (151.95). If he has 500 attempts, here's what a 150 PER could look like:



325 of 500 for 3,975 yards with 36 TDs and 13 INTs for a 150.34 PER and .650 complete.



I'd be very happy with those numbers.

I'd be happy too with those numbers. I think it will be tough though. Tanner had much better receivers as a FM. Much better and to some degree the completions and yards and PER are dependent upon your receivers getting open and catching the dang ball. Thus while Tanner is now older and more experienced, I think the schedule this year is tougher in terms of better defenses. Hence, my expectations are lower than this.....

These are great points. I am watching closest the 3.1 TD/INT rate. He doesn't have to be superhuman for BYU to have a special season, but an INT at the wrong time against LSU or Wisconsin...

SpiffCoug wrote:
I think he'll have more attempts [than his frosh 446] this year (closer to 500).

I disagree. Ty isn't running a pass-happy offense.



Last year we had 412 total passing attempts, and that was with a lot of close games where we were passing late in the game---not a lot of run-the-clock-out blowouts.



Granted, Taysom had some designed runs in there, but I still don't see us throwing the ball 8x more per game this season as our RB corps gets deeper.

Taysom had 135 rushing attempts. Let's figure half of those are now passes and half are rushes by the running backs. That puts the passing attempts up 480. But also remember that we're playing 13 regular season games as well. 500 attempts over 13 games is 38 a game. Last year BYU was at 32 attempts per game. Upping that to 38 doesn't seem like a huge stretch with a pass-first QB running things.

If our receiver play is anywhere near as bad as it was last year, I expect Tanner to really struggle. Talking about 10 yards per pass attempt and 4:1 TD to Interception ratio with our prospects at receiver is like saying BYU is in the running for the NFL superbowl.

frdbtr wrote:
If our receiver play is anywhere near as bad as it was last year, I expect Tanner to really struggle. Talking about 10 yards per pass attempt and 4:1 TD to Interception ratio with our prospects at receiver is like saying BYU is in the running for the NFL superbowl.

Agree. Tanner can throw it all he wants. Someone has to catch it and our receivers didn't do a whole of that last season.

I just hope Tanner survives the LSU-Utah-Wisconsin stretch. I'm afraid injury is very likely against one of those teams.