Take it for whatever its worth, I provide the numbers, you can decide what significance it might hold... Eddie's huge leap came from a single pass, a 56 yard TD to Benn late against USC.... that was the first time he had slung the ball downfield for the Illini since the Michigan game (having not attempted a pass against Northwestern or Minnesota, and having not played vs. Ball State or Ohio State).
In the final analysis... that one pass to Benn late against USC was enough to allow Eddie to finish just ahead of Juice in total passer rating...A better look at Juice, here is his career stats... the bars represent individual game performances, the green line represents his cumulative career QB Rating... (remember the first three games of 2006 he was a backup... and if you combine those three games into one, his QB rating is similar to other early season performances like Indiana and Michigan State, where he was fairly good)
Slowely but surely his numbers have crept upwards since hitting rock bottom against Purdue and Northwestern last year... actually his two wost performances of the year were against Indiana and Penn State, big wins for Illinois (against Indiana the Illini didn't need to throw the ball, and his struggles against PSU are well documented).
3 comments:
Interesting analyses, but Eddie really didn't get enough time to make a fair comparison. Not arguing that he should, because I think Juice is definitely our QB, but any quarterback would need more reps to have a fair comparison over time.
can't say I dissagree... Juice threw over 250 passes this year, eddie threw less than 60...
so there is a big gap there.
It will be interesting to see how things shake out this spring... I'll post more on my thoughts on that later, but I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what we have in Phil Haig this spring (because, frankly, I have no clue what to expect from him).
Juice will be our QB, I would hope that Eddie gets a fair look (because there is no good reason not to), but I'm pretty confident that Juice wins out easily... its always comforting to know we have a competent guy on the sidelines ready to come in at any moment. (better than the Beutjer/Ward days by a country mile)
Yes, it is good to know that Eddie is a competent backup. I guess the most important point of the data is that Juice made good progress over the course of the season.
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