Overall considering the recruiting chops demonstrated by the staff we don't have to completely write-off this season as a loss. Losing games when we were short-handed is understandable, as is winning when we had nearly our full complement of players (esp. against Oregon). Looking forward to 2021.
Sure, but if we want to continue building the perception of the program, then we have to hope that people who don't follow the team as closely as we do--including recruits--have this understanding.
I disagree with Berkelium's statement that other states were being COVID careless by allowing fans into the stadium during these season's games. You can easily fit 10,000 to 15,000 fans into a large stadium and have them socially distance to add to the true environment of a game. I challenge anyone to show from contact tracing that attending a college football game led to COVID outbreaks.
California is currently under the strictest COVID lockdowns in the nation and currently has the fifth highest spread of COVID infections this month. It's pretty clear the infection rate is being driven up by large groups of people going inside, not outside. I am visiting my mother in Roseville this week and was stunned by how many restaurants are ignoring the governor's orders to shut down indoor and outdoor dining. I visited one well known restaurant to get take-out, and the place was jammed inside and out with all bar seats full. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I went to the highest rated restaurant in Roseville - La Provence - and it was even worse. The bar was overflowing like a pre COVID Friday night with all of the community tables filled and people not wearing masks while slamming down cocktails elbow to elbow. So I go back to it...attending a college football game in a spacious outdoor stadium is the least of our nation's COVID problems.
Unfortunately, COVID is far more widespread in this country that our contact tracing force can begin to reckon with, so while I agree that attending an outdoor event with proper spacing is probably on the relatively lower end of risks we could take, the camera shots of the crowds attending these games undermine the notion of "proper spacing", and we really have no way of knowing if people are catching COVID at these games or not.
More generally, I am dismayed in general by the lack of concern so many in this country are showing towards the pandemic, and large crowds attending events that are clearly optional do not help in this regard. It is endlessly frustrating that this country has appeared to prioritize restarting sports competition well before more essential activities, such as getting kids back in school.
It's a joke to pretend that any sort of sporting event is going to have proper social distancing and whatnot, and a very large swath of the population cannot be trusted to make prudent health decisions to ever make this sort of thing "safe." After seeing the empty stadiums in Pac-12 games, I was shocked by some of the crowd shots I saw in other games around the country for the other couple games I watched. Take this picture, for example. You have to look really closely to tell that it's even from 2020: https://i.imgur.com/6LuenqT.jpg
The fact that coronavirus cases are spiking again and some people are still not taking it seriously provides all the justification needed for not allowing crowds at stadiums. I do not at all follow the logic that "well, people are doing worse things indoors, so what's the harm in allowing big outdoor gatherings?" It's like saying "well some people play Russian roulette, so what's the harm in letting people juggle knives blindfolded?" The fact that idiots continue to do stupid things is why we're still in this mess in the first place. I'm sick of it.
We are in this mess because massive parts of the population - especially in California - have no choice but to live with several families in one home. In Ventura County where I live, the virus is out of control in the city of Oxnard, which has one of the largest concentrations of migrant labor in Southern California. It's the same way in Monterey County where infections are very low in the golf mecca we all know and love but massively high 20 miles away in the lettuce growing region of Salinas. It's one of the reasons our esteemed governor keeps talking about COVID hitting the minority populations the hardest. We are not going to solve those problems until the vaccine gets distributed to the general population, and I am all for starting with the populations most at risk first. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy my sports.
Sorry, but it's absurd to think that things are as bad as they are because large families have to live under one roof. There are big families all over the country (and all over the world), and yet the US has handled the pandemic worse than almost any other country on the planet. There are definitely systematic issues at play here, e.g. the lack of government support for poor workers which forces them to work even if they may be infected or forced into less than ideal spaces like crowded public transportations/etc, and they're still waiting on a $600 stimulus check for the last 9 months, while e.g. New Zealand hands out $600 stimulus per WEEK to full-time employees.
But still, you're not going to convince me that anything other than willful ignorance by 30-40% of the population (common in rural areas, poor/uneducated areas, etc) is the biggest cause for how poorly the US has handled the pandemic. There are numerous examples from around the world of more densely populated areas (e.g. Singapore, parts of Asia, etc) handling the pandemic better just by following basic common sense guidelines like wearing masks, social distancing, and staying home if you're sick. 30-40% of the country thinks it's a hoax, that you should sacrifice grandma for the sake of the economy, that Bill Gates is sneaking microchips into vaccines, etc., and as long as there is a large population available to be carriers of the virus, the virus will persist, even as vaccinations become more widespread. And frankly if you're one of those 30-40%, I'm not really interested in continuing this discussion further.
Am I ranking by potential or by current performance? Usually my metric is "who I'd rather have start for us?"(Note: I actually wouldn't trade Garbers for anyone listed above him, but I am trying to factor future pro potential in here as well). Let's try that:
1. Davis Mills (Stanford)
2. Sam Noyer (Colorado)
3. Chase Garbers (Cal)
4. Kedon Slovis (USC)
5. Chance Nolan (OSU)
6. Jayden Daniels (ASU)
7. Grant Gunnell (Arizona)
8. Dylan Morris (UW)
9. Jack West (Stanford)
10. Tyler Shough (Oregon)
11. Chase Griffin (UCLA)
12. Tristan Gebbia (OSU)
13. Jayden de Laura (WSU)
14. Dorian Thompson-Robinson (UCLA)
15. Jake Bentley (Utah)
16. Will Plummer (Arizona)
Not listed:
?? Cameron Rising (Utah)
Davis Mills is probably the most pro-ready QB, as his issues are the most easily fixable (stop staring down receivers, tone down the gunslinging when not needed, etc) in addition to the talent he obviously has. I don't really know about Noyer's pro potential yet, but he was easily the biggest surprise of the season, and actually looked better than 4-year starter Steven Montez, despite the similar play styles. I think Garbers is the best passer of the daul-threat QBs, but Noyer probably edges him out with running ability (or at least did better running the ball because had less regard for his own safety with the types of runs he did, although it eventually caught up to him in the Utah game, when he hurt his shoulder on a big hit by Utah LB Nephi Sewell).
Kedon Slovis has seemingly hit his physical ceiling, and he regressed a bit with his throwing mechanics and decision-making. He can be coached out of the latter, but I'm not sure he has much room for improvement in regards to e.g. arm strength. He has pro-caliber receivers and excellent protection up front and USC still struggled, so I can't even imagine how he'd be doing on a team with a worse supporting cast. #4 even seemed generous here.
Dylan Morris and Tyler Shough are both physically gifted and probably have the highest ceilings, but they're both first year QBs and made a lot of first year QB-type mistakes. Shough I thought had the most potential out of anyone, but he struggled big time against Cal's talented secondary, and he looked gun-shy in their following game against USC (although to be fair, simply limiting mistakes is a great gameplan against USC, and was probably part of the coach's strategy).
Chance Nolan was another big surprise, especially since he was backing up Tristan Gebbia. Gebbia has a ton of arm strength but not a lot of touch, and sometimes you need to stop throwing lasers at your teammates and start throwing more catchable balls. Nolan had a slight frame but a willingness to run the ball, and he also had some of the best throws in the conference this year despite the limited game time. It's a bit early for me to judge his potential also, but his highlight reel passes show that he has some excellent accuracy.
Jayden Daniels is super athletic, but I just don't think he's a very good passer, and he seems like the type of QB that the NFL would try to convert to another position. His passing stats are misleading (although he only averages 175 passing yards per game, a mere 49 completions on 84 attempts on the season), since the majority of his passes are to wide open receivers on busted coverages. The key here, though, is that Daniels doesn't take a lot of risks and hence doesn't make a lot of mistakes. This is in stark contrast to the conference's other super athletic QB, Dorian Thompson-Robinson (11th in the conference in rushing, 10th in rushing yards per attempt), who still has fumble-itis and still can't read coverages. DTR's passing yards put him between freshman QBs Dylan Morris and Jayden de Laura. DTR's biggest game this season was against USC, and a credit to the UCLA coaching staff for drawing up a gameplan built around DTR's limitations (they were probably watching some ASU games-- or even just the ASU-USC game would have been enough), in which they took advantage of a short (and safe) passing game, where DTR didn't take any dangerous downfield passes, and consequently didn't have any turnovers. Turnovers are UCLA's single biggest issue. They lose games when they turn the ball over, and win games when they do not. It's really that simple.
That's why I'm a fan of their backup freshman QB Chase Griffin. Griffin is still a dual-threat, and while he's not the 10th or 11th best rusher in the conference, he already showed the ability to read a defense better than the starter, and has the accuracy to challenge DBs down the field (DTR, on the other hand, was top 10 in the FBS in interceptions when he tried the same). I think Griffin can also develop into a good passing QB, but he may end up going the way of UCLA's other backup QB, Austin Burton, who ended up transferring to Purdue despite showing a lot of the same. Chip Kelly prefers super athletic QBs, from Oregon's Darron Thomas and Marcus Mariota, the Eagles' Michael Vick, the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick, etc., so who knows if Griffin will stick around. Chip Kelly's personnel decisions are why he's failed everywhere since Oregon, but that's another story.
Jayden de Laura is a true freshman QB so I probably shouldn't be so hard on him, but right now he just looks like a system QB throwing to talented WRs whose job in the Run&Shoot offense is to find the open zones in a defense.
The only big question mark I have is Utah's Cameron Rising, who I thought would be very good after I saw him in Utah's 2019 spring game (he sat out that year after transferring from Texas), but he was injured in the first game, on like the second drive of the game. Jake Bentley got worse as the season went on, and my best guess is that as a South Carolina native, he just wasn't ready for the cold December weather in Colorado and Utah. But after he misread a very basic coverage against WSU, he was benched for good. Drew Lisk looked okay for a half, but I wouldn't expect anything more from Lisk than to win a backup job.
I like Garbers, and this year wasn't particularly great, but we were breaking in a new offensive scheme with not a whole lot of practice, so I'm likely to give him a pass. I'm going to re-watch the Cal games soon (after bowl season) and take a closer look, because honestly I don't really watch Cal games nearly as intensely as other teams; I still watch Cal games like a "fan" (watching them live, maybe with, uh, a couple drinks, and yelling at the refs any time something remotely controversial goes against Cal). Whereas I download/record other teams' games, fast-forward through downtime, watch and rewind and evaluate what happened on a given play, etc.
Overall considering the recruiting chops demonstrated by the staff we don't have to completely write-off this season as a loss. Losing games when we were short-handed is understandable, as is winning when we had nearly our full complement of players (esp. against Oregon). Looking forward to 2021.
Sure, but if we want to continue building the perception of the program, then we have to hope that people who don't follow the team as closely as we do--including recruits--have this understanding.
Yeah, that's true. At the end of the day it's "Just win, baby."
I disagree with Berkelium's statement that other states were being COVID careless by allowing fans into the stadium during these season's games. You can easily fit 10,000 to 15,000 fans into a large stadium and have them socially distance to add to the true environment of a game. I challenge anyone to show from contact tracing that attending a college football game led to COVID outbreaks.
California is currently under the strictest COVID lockdowns in the nation and currently has the fifth highest spread of COVID infections this month. It's pretty clear the infection rate is being driven up by large groups of people going inside, not outside. I am visiting my mother in Roseville this week and was stunned by how many restaurants are ignoring the governor's orders to shut down indoor and outdoor dining. I visited one well known restaurant to get take-out, and the place was jammed inside and out with all bar seats full. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I went to the highest rated restaurant in Roseville - La Provence - and it was even worse. The bar was overflowing like a pre COVID Friday night with all of the community tables filled and people not wearing masks while slamming down cocktails elbow to elbow. So I go back to it...attending a college football game in a spacious outdoor stadium is the least of our nation's COVID problems.
Unfortunately, COVID is far more widespread in this country that our contact tracing force can begin to reckon with, so while I agree that attending an outdoor event with proper spacing is probably on the relatively lower end of risks we could take, the camera shots of the crowds attending these games undermine the notion of "proper spacing", and we really have no way of knowing if people are catching COVID at these games or not.
More generally, I am dismayed in general by the lack of concern so many in this country are showing towards the pandemic, and large crowds attending events that are clearly optional do not help in this regard. It is endlessly frustrating that this country has appeared to prioritize restarting sports competition well before more essential activities, such as getting kids back in school.
It's a joke to pretend that any sort of sporting event is going to have proper social distancing and whatnot, and a very large swath of the population cannot be trusted to make prudent health decisions to ever make this sort of thing "safe." After seeing the empty stadiums in Pac-12 games, I was shocked by some of the crowd shots I saw in other games around the country for the other couple games I watched. Take this picture, for example. You have to look really closely to tell that it's even from 2020: https://i.imgur.com/6LuenqT.jpg
The fact that coronavirus cases are spiking again and some people are still not taking it seriously provides all the justification needed for not allowing crowds at stadiums. I do not at all follow the logic that "well, people are doing worse things indoors, so what's the harm in allowing big outdoor gatherings?" It's like saying "well some people play Russian roulette, so what's the harm in letting people juggle knives blindfolded?" The fact that idiots continue to do stupid things is why we're still in this mess in the first place. I'm sick of it.
We are in this mess because massive parts of the population - especially in California - have no choice but to live with several families in one home. In Ventura County where I live, the virus is out of control in the city of Oxnard, which has one of the largest concentrations of migrant labor in Southern California. It's the same way in Monterey County where infections are very low in the golf mecca we all know and love but massively high 20 miles away in the lettuce growing region of Salinas. It's one of the reasons our esteemed governor keeps talking about COVID hitting the minority populations the hardest. We are not going to solve those problems until the vaccine gets distributed to the general population, and I am all for starting with the populations most at risk first. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy my sports.
Sorry, but it's absurd to think that things are as bad as they are because large families have to live under one roof. There are big families all over the country (and all over the world), and yet the US has handled the pandemic worse than almost any other country on the planet. There are definitely systematic issues at play here, e.g. the lack of government support for poor workers which forces them to work even if they may be infected or forced into less than ideal spaces like crowded public transportations/etc, and they're still waiting on a $600 stimulus check for the last 9 months, while e.g. New Zealand hands out $600 stimulus per WEEK to full-time employees.
But still, you're not going to convince me that anything other than willful ignorance by 30-40% of the population (common in rural areas, poor/uneducated areas, etc) is the biggest cause for how poorly the US has handled the pandemic. There are numerous examples from around the world of more densely populated areas (e.g. Singapore, parts of Asia, etc) handling the pandemic better just by following basic common sense guidelines like wearing masks, social distancing, and staying home if you're sick. 30-40% of the country thinks it's a hoax, that you should sacrifice grandma for the sake of the economy, that Bill Gates is sneaking microchips into vaccines, etc., and as long as there is a large population available to be carriers of the virus, the virus will persist, even as vaccinations become more widespread. And frankly if you're one of those 30-40%, I'm not really interested in continuing this discussion further.
Am I ranking by potential or by current performance? Usually my metric is "who I'd rather have start for us?"(Note: I actually wouldn't trade Garbers for anyone listed above him, but I am trying to factor future pro potential in here as well). Let's try that:
1. Davis Mills (Stanford)
2. Sam Noyer (Colorado)
3. Chase Garbers (Cal)
4. Kedon Slovis (USC)
5. Chance Nolan (OSU)
6. Jayden Daniels (ASU)
7. Grant Gunnell (Arizona)
8. Dylan Morris (UW)
9. Jack West (Stanford)
10. Tyler Shough (Oregon)
11. Chase Griffin (UCLA)
12. Tristan Gebbia (OSU)
13. Jayden de Laura (WSU)
14. Dorian Thompson-Robinson (UCLA)
15. Jake Bentley (Utah)
16. Will Plummer (Arizona)
Not listed:
?? Cameron Rising (Utah)
Davis Mills is probably the most pro-ready QB, as his issues are the most easily fixable (stop staring down receivers, tone down the gunslinging when not needed, etc) in addition to the talent he obviously has. I don't really know about Noyer's pro potential yet, but he was easily the biggest surprise of the season, and actually looked better than 4-year starter Steven Montez, despite the similar play styles. I think Garbers is the best passer of the daul-threat QBs, but Noyer probably edges him out with running ability (or at least did better running the ball because had less regard for his own safety with the types of runs he did, although it eventually caught up to him in the Utah game, when he hurt his shoulder on a big hit by Utah LB Nephi Sewell).
Kedon Slovis has seemingly hit his physical ceiling, and he regressed a bit with his throwing mechanics and decision-making. He can be coached out of the latter, but I'm not sure he has much room for improvement in regards to e.g. arm strength. He has pro-caliber receivers and excellent protection up front and USC still struggled, so I can't even imagine how he'd be doing on a team with a worse supporting cast. #4 even seemed generous here.
Dylan Morris and Tyler Shough are both physically gifted and probably have the highest ceilings, but they're both first year QBs and made a lot of first year QB-type mistakes. Shough I thought had the most potential out of anyone, but he struggled big time against Cal's talented secondary, and he looked gun-shy in their following game against USC (although to be fair, simply limiting mistakes is a great gameplan against USC, and was probably part of the coach's strategy).
Chance Nolan was another big surprise, especially since he was backing up Tristan Gebbia. Gebbia has a ton of arm strength but not a lot of touch, and sometimes you need to stop throwing lasers at your teammates and start throwing more catchable balls. Nolan had a slight frame but a willingness to run the ball, and he also had some of the best throws in the conference this year despite the limited game time. It's a bit early for me to judge his potential also, but his highlight reel passes show that he has some excellent accuracy.
Jayden Daniels is super athletic, but I just don't think he's a very good passer, and he seems like the type of QB that the NFL would try to convert to another position. His passing stats are misleading (although he only averages 175 passing yards per game, a mere 49 completions on 84 attempts on the season), since the majority of his passes are to wide open receivers on busted coverages. The key here, though, is that Daniels doesn't take a lot of risks and hence doesn't make a lot of mistakes. This is in stark contrast to the conference's other super athletic QB, Dorian Thompson-Robinson (11th in the conference in rushing, 10th in rushing yards per attempt), who still has fumble-itis and still can't read coverages. DTR's passing yards put him between freshman QBs Dylan Morris and Jayden de Laura. DTR's biggest game this season was against USC, and a credit to the UCLA coaching staff for drawing up a gameplan built around DTR's limitations (they were probably watching some ASU games-- or even just the ASU-USC game would have been enough), in which they took advantage of a short (and safe) passing game, where DTR didn't take any dangerous downfield passes, and consequently didn't have any turnovers. Turnovers are UCLA's single biggest issue. They lose games when they turn the ball over, and win games when they do not. It's really that simple.
That's why I'm a fan of their backup freshman QB Chase Griffin. Griffin is still a dual-threat, and while he's not the 10th or 11th best rusher in the conference, he already showed the ability to read a defense better than the starter, and has the accuracy to challenge DBs down the field (DTR, on the other hand, was top 10 in the FBS in interceptions when he tried the same). I think Griffin can also develop into a good passing QB, but he may end up going the way of UCLA's other backup QB, Austin Burton, who ended up transferring to Purdue despite showing a lot of the same. Chip Kelly prefers super athletic QBs, from Oregon's Darron Thomas and Marcus Mariota, the Eagles' Michael Vick, the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick, etc., so who knows if Griffin will stick around. Chip Kelly's personnel decisions are why he's failed everywhere since Oregon, but that's another story.
Jayden de Laura is a true freshman QB so I probably shouldn't be so hard on him, but right now he just looks like a system QB throwing to talented WRs whose job in the Run&Shoot offense is to find the open zones in a defense.
The only big question mark I have is Utah's Cameron Rising, who I thought would be very good after I saw him in Utah's 2019 spring game (he sat out that year after transferring from Texas), but he was injured in the first game, on like the second drive of the game. Jake Bentley got worse as the season went on, and my best guess is that as a South Carolina native, he just wasn't ready for the cold December weather in Colorado and Utah. But after he misread a very basic coverage against WSU, he was benched for good. Drew Lisk looked okay for a half, but I wouldn't expect anything more from Lisk than to win a backup job.
Any questions, let me know.
I like Garbers, and this year wasn't particularly great, but we were breaking in a new offensive scheme with not a whole lot of practice, so I'm likely to give him a pass. I'm going to re-watch the Cal games soon (after bowl season) and take a closer look, because honestly I don't really watch Cal games nearly as intensely as other teams; I still watch Cal games like a "fan" (watching them live, maybe with, uh, a couple drinks, and yelling at the refs any time something remotely controversial goes against Cal). Whereas I download/record other teams' games, fast-forward through downtime, watch and rewind and evaluate what happened on a given play, etc.