I hear a lot of people say we could really miss TA's mobility, and it could hurt us this year. I have also heard multiple people say that it is not going to matter, because now we have a threat in the passing game.
I lean toward the "We now have a passing threat" crowd.
Tommy Armstrong was about as inconsistent as a quarterback could be in both aspects of the game. Meaning he was just as inconsistent running the ball as he was passing. I believe that inconsistency was more on his limitations and how well opposing coaching staffs could exploit his limitations.
If you look a our running game as far as Total yards per carry for the whole year, and opponents yards per carry against us. It can be very deceiving, and if you break it down game by game you can see that having a "Mobile" quarterback is irrelevant when the opposing team can shut it down.
This is the YPC chart from last year...
Opponent: TA/Team/Opp/Score
Fresno St: 3.8/5.7/1.2/43-10 W
Wyoming: 1.0/3.2/4.2/52-17 W
Oregon: 5.9/4.9/7.1/25-22 W
Northwestern:10.2/6.6/4.3/24-13 W
Illinois: 1.5/4.1/5.9/31-16 W
Indiana: 3.3/3.4/2.9/27-22 W
Purdue: 5.1/4.2/1.1/27-14 W
Wisconsin: 3.0/3.5//5.9/23-17 L
Ohio St: 4.8/3.2/5.7/62-3 L
Minnesota: 6.8/4.9/2.5/24-17 W
Maryland: N/A/4.0/0.4/28-7 W
Iowa: 2.2/2.9/5.6/40-10 L
Tennessee: N/A/2.2/6.1/38-24 L
I know there our exceptions in every game... Wyoming and Illinois stand out in that category, but in general you shut down Tommy's legs we were SOL. Although if you remember right that Wyoming score is a bit deceiving as it was 24-17 going into the 4th quarter, and we were extremely lucky to win that game against Illinois, because we looked terrible that whole game.
So the question is how much did Tommy's mobility actually help us?
If a team is one dimensional, they are a lot easier to defend. Purdue is the exact opposite as us in the fact they have no running game, and you can focus on the passing game. This in my opinion is why teams like Iowa and Wisconsin always gave us fits since joining the Big 10. They knew we couldn't pass efficiently and they were athletic enough to shut down our run game.
So this year they are going to be f'ed, because we are not going to be a gimme for them to plan for if we have any kind of run game. No longer can they stack the box and completely shut us down! There is no guarantee that we win those games, but they no longer have an easy game plan to shut down our offense. That is where I see the biggest upside in our team with Tanner Lee behind center. We will have more consistency, and you won't see many more games where we score 3 straight touchdowns and then go 3 and out the next 5 possessions.
I know Tommy Armstrong did not play against Maryland, but we had so many one quarter games!
Maryland - 1st Quarter
Wyoming - 4th Quarter
Illinois - 4th Quarter
Fresno St. - 4th Quarter
Wisconsin - 4th Quarter
Northwestern - 2nd/3rd Quarters
We had one game last year that was a 4 quarter game and that was the Oregon game. I think we are going to see more of that this year. We may see similar totals in punts, score and yardage per game in the final box score. With that said I also think the days of 5-6 straight 3 and outs are history, because of our new versatility.with Tanner Lee behind center
GBR and I can't wait for tomorrow!!!
I lean toward the "We now have a passing threat" crowd.
Tommy Armstrong was about as inconsistent as a quarterback could be in both aspects of the game. Meaning he was just as inconsistent running the ball as he was passing. I believe that inconsistency was more on his limitations and how well opposing coaching staffs could exploit his limitations.
If you look a our running game as far as Total yards per carry for the whole year, and opponents yards per carry against us. It can be very deceiving, and if you break it down game by game you can see that having a "Mobile" quarterback is irrelevant when the opposing team can shut it down.
This is the YPC chart from last year...
Opponent: TA/Team/Opp/Score
Fresno St: 3.8/5.7/1.2/43-10 W
Wyoming: 1.0/3.2/4.2/52-17 W
Oregon: 5.9/4.9/7.1/25-22 W
Northwestern:10.2/6.6/4.3/24-13 W
Illinois: 1.5/4.1/5.9/31-16 W
Indiana: 3.3/3.4/2.9/27-22 W
Purdue: 5.1/4.2/1.1/27-14 W
Wisconsin: 3.0/3.5//5.9/23-17 L
Ohio St: 4.8/3.2/5.7/62-3 L
Minnesota: 6.8/4.9/2.5/24-17 W
Maryland: N/A/4.0/0.4/28-7 W
Iowa: 2.2/2.9/5.6/40-10 L
Tennessee: N/A/2.2/6.1/38-24 L
I know there our exceptions in every game... Wyoming and Illinois stand out in that category, but in general you shut down Tommy's legs we were SOL. Although if you remember right that Wyoming score is a bit deceiving as it was 24-17 going into the 4th quarter, and we were extremely lucky to win that game against Illinois, because we looked terrible that whole game.
So the question is how much did Tommy's mobility actually help us?
If a team is one dimensional, they are a lot easier to defend. Purdue is the exact opposite as us in the fact they have no running game, and you can focus on the passing game. This in my opinion is why teams like Iowa and Wisconsin always gave us fits since joining the Big 10. They knew we couldn't pass efficiently and they were athletic enough to shut down our run game.
So this year they are going to be f'ed, because we are not going to be a gimme for them to plan for if we have any kind of run game. No longer can they stack the box and completely shut us down! There is no guarantee that we win those games, but they no longer have an easy game plan to shut down our offense. That is where I see the biggest upside in our team with Tanner Lee behind center. We will have more consistency, and you won't see many more games where we score 3 straight touchdowns and then go 3 and out the next 5 possessions.
I know Tommy Armstrong did not play against Maryland, but we had so many one quarter games!
Maryland - 1st Quarter
Wyoming - 4th Quarter
Illinois - 4th Quarter
Fresno St. - 4th Quarter
Wisconsin - 4th Quarter
Northwestern - 2nd/3rd Quarters
We had one game last year that was a 4 quarter game and that was the Oregon game. I think we are going to see more of that this year. We may see similar totals in punts, score and yardage per game in the final box score. With that said I also think the days of 5-6 straight 3 and outs are history, because of our new versatility.with Tanner Lee behind center
GBR and I can't wait for tomorrow!!!
Last edited:
