Stanford fans grumbled (read: yelled) about Mark Ingram beating out Toby Gerhart for the Heisman Trophy. But Thursday’s Freshman All-American team announcement should prompt even greater fury — the Football Writers Association of America chose Tom Savage of Rutgers over Andrew Luck for the lone quarterback spot.
Now let me be clear: in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t really matter. There are a number of Freshman All-American teams. Luck made the first team for the Sporting News, College Football News and Rivals. But the FWAA is a fairly prestigious organization — it gives out the Nagurski and Outland trophies — and holds an appropriate level of clout, which is what makes their (awful) selection so weird.
It’s not just about Luck — although it helps to have a Stanford bent. Savage was no better than the fourth-best freshman quarterback in the country and was not even tops in his own conference.
(It’s worth mentioning that I happen to like Tom Savage quite a bit. Rutgers is as close to a local team as New York gets and while I’m not a fan, they’re fun to watch. He has a wicked arm and is fairly mature for a true freshman. With due respect to Mike Teel, he’s the best Rutgers QB I’ve seen. But he still doesn’t deserve this honor. I’ve digressed.)
Who was the best? It shakes out fairly well. Luck was the clear No. 1, with Oklahoma’s Landry Jones and South Florida’s B.J. Daniels below him. Savage enters the conversation here, along with Michigan’s Tate Forcier and USC’s Matt Barkley, although he tops both.
Before getting to Savage, Jones, Luck and Daniels, let’s key in on one statistic: yards per attempt (YPA). It’s an efficiency rating that is perhaps the most important for quarterbacks. The name is self-explanatory — in order to maintain a high number, you have to a) complete a good percentage of passes for b) a nice amount of yards. One of the main qualms with Colt McCoy’s Heisman campaign, for example, was that while he hit on 70 percent of his passes, they did not go for a tremendous amount of yards — his 41st ranking in YPA indicates a tendency to dump the ball off more than other quarterbacks.
As for our freshmen, Luck was sixth in the nation with 8.9 YPA; Daniels was eighth at 8.7. Sandwiched between them was Jimmy Clausen. Savage was 35th, just ahead of Aaron Opelt of Toledo. Jones, in the weakest part of his candidacy, was 63rd.
But let’s not look at just one statistic. Savage threw for fewer yards with a worse completion percentage than both Luck and Jones. Luck threw for one less touchdown than Savage, but he also tossed just four interceptions, whereas Savage threw seven. Meanwhile, Jones had 26 scores through the air. Luck added 354 yards rushing; Savage and Jones both had worse than negative 100 yards on the ground. Daniels ran for 772 yards and compiled 23 total scores. Savage had the lowest passer rating of the four; Luck had the highest.
Put it this way: of the major statistics, Savage topped Luck in exactly one: touchdowns. He had 14, Luck had 13. When rushing scores are factored in, they had the same amount. Otherwise, Luck tops him across the board. Nearly the same holds true for Luck and Daniels, except that Daniels has more total touchdowns.
Speaking of USF’s dual threat, outside of yards per attempt, where Daniels is far and away better than Savage, the two have fairly similar passing statistics. But Daniels rushed for nearly 900 yards and eight touchdowns more than Savage — he was multidimensional, while Savage was most certainly not.
As for Jones, he tops Savage in yards, touchdowns, completion percentage and passer rating. Savage betters him in interceptions and YPA. But Jones, unlike Savage, was not supposed to play this year and, due to injuries, had to adapt on the fly for a team that had national championship aspirations. Jones gets the nod.
The only possible explanation is that Savage had a pretty good bowl performance while Luck sat out, so a “what have you done for me lately” factor set in. But that doesn’t fly for the other candidates: Jones was excellent against Stanford and Daniels had a very nice game in the International Bowl.
While this may fall under the “pick your battles” category, I’ve long contended that for people who ostensibly watch a lot of games, sportswriters can make mind-numbingly bad decisions when it comes to awards seasons (see: American League MVP, 2006). Even the reporting on awards can be bad: the local New Jersey paper said that Savage was a surprise because Barkley was in the race; meanwhile, Barkley would have a tough time placing among the top five freshmen quarterbacks. These rampant displays of sheer ignorance only enhance my beliefs and subsequent disillusionment.
Wyndam Makowsky has nothing better to do than explore freshman statistics now that the Giants missed the playoffs. Give him something better to do at makowsky “at” stanford.edu.