#1 goes down again; big QB questions emerge in college football Saturday … There will be a new #1 team in college football this weekend – most likely Oregon – after Georgia knocked off top-ranked Texas 30-15 last night. For the record, that means for the first time in almost two decades there are no remaining unbeaten teams in the SEC before Hallowe’en. Perhaps the bigger question, though, is the possible impact of the game on the draft status of QBs Quinn Ewers of the Longhorns and Georgia’s Carson Beck, truth be told neither of whom looked like potential future NFL stars. In fact, Ewers was briefly benched in favor of Arch Manning late in the first half and had Texas head coach saying he was still their starter after the contest. On the night, Ewers did complete 25 of 43 passes (58%) including 2 for scores, but for just 211 yards, while he was picked off once, lost two fumbles and was sacked a half dozen times. Numbers aside, what was concerning about Ewers is that so many of the completions that he does make are not much more than dump offs. And while his team did win, Beck’s performance might have been even weaker than Ewers. Beck completed 23 of 41 passes (56%), but for only 175 and had three picks as the Georgia offence generated a measly 14 first downs. Pro scouts may also be asking some questions of Alabama’s Jalen Milroe following the Tide’s 24-17 loss at Tennessee yesterday afternoon. Milroe was also only in the 55% completion range (25 for 45) against the Vols and threw a couple of picks and just didn’t look at all smooth throwing the ball down the field.
As a general rule, we don’t like to draw too many conclusions from just one game, but none of the trends that we saw yesterday relating to those three QBs were necessarily new. We even went to bed wondering if was even possible that in the end one or more of them ultimately opts to return to school next fall, if in fact those trends continue. Stay tuned!
