The Season After: Replacing 3yr Starting Quarterbacks

With so many players recruited to college football programs throughout the nation, there is usually a consistent overturn in starters at each position. Freshman and Sophomores tend to fall in line to the seniority of upperclassmen when it comes to playing time on Saturdays. 

However, every now and then, a truly transcendent and special youngster will step in and fill a starting role at a position of need for their football team. Some positions are easier than others to plug in an inexperienced underclassmen into the team’s system -- quarterback is not one of those positions.

Teams who return successful quarterbacks with experience tend to be rated a lot higher than those without. For example, 17 of the 25 teams in the 2011 preseason poll return QB’s with significant starting experience under their belts (including nine of the top ten ranked teams). Experience at the QB position is key in college football and teams usually find it difficult to replace a starting quarterback with significant in-game experience under their belt. 

Even with perennial Top 10 recruiting classes, Texas and Florida will tell you that guys like Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow (both three year starters) are not easy to replace. In 2010, the new quarterbacks struggled and both teams saw the win column take a dramatic dip as a result.  Their replacements were not a couple of walk-ons either; Garrett Gilbert and John Brantley were ranked as the 2^nd and 3^rd overall quarterbacks in their respective recruiting classes.

This had me wondering, typically, how hard it is to replace quarterbacks who have three seasons of starting experience without enduring some type of slide from the previous season? Outside of these two isolated cases, is this an epidemic amongst college football programs nationwide?

With wins being the most important statistic of all, I put this theory to paper using a few simple guidelines to determine if it really is a tall task to replace successful three year starters at quarterback.

Guidelines

• Teams were invited to a bowl game in the QB’s final year.  I used this to thin the field because I felt that being invited to a bowl game is the line between successful and unsuccessful teams in a given season. Expectations of which bowl is always different amongst programs, but for college football as a whole, this is the cutoff. Similar to making the cut in golf. 

• QB must have played significantly in 7 of 12 regular season games in three seasons. This allows room for injuries or a situation where the QB earns the starting job mid-season.

•  Record of the QB’s team in their final season will be compared to their record the following season. Using the only stat that matters in college football, wins, this will help determine any type of slide a team had having to replace that QB.

• QB was the starter their last year of eligibility. Basically, this is the Drew Weatherford rule. Sorry Drew.

Of course, there are always extenuating circumstances to why a program might slide from one season to the next, whether it be a coaching change, NCAA infractions, or Stephen Garcia partying too hard in the off-season (kidding....kind of). 

However, I have not figured out the standard deviation applicable to this formula that would attain the simplicity of the statistical analysis being conducted, so those variables will be ignored until I do. 

Did I sound intelligent there? Sweet dude, thanks.

Below are the three year starters dating back to 2003.

 

	Quarterback	Final Year	Final Season	Next Season
FLA	Tim Tebow	2009	13-1	8-5
BYU	Max Hall	2009	11-2	7-6
TEX	Colt McCoy	2009	13-1	5-7
CMICH	Dan LeFevour	2009	12-2	3-9
BGU	Tyler Sheehan	2009	7-6	2-10
OKST	Zac Robinson	2009	9-4	11-2
TTU	Graham Harrell	2008	11-2	9-4
MIZZ	Chase Daniel	2008	10-4	8-5
GA	Matt Stafford	2008	10-3	8-5
UTAH	Brian Johnson**	2008	13-0	10-3
RICE	Chase Clement	2008	10-3	2-10
BUGG	Drew Willy	2008	8-6	5-7
WVU	Pat White	2008	9-4	9-4
BAMA	John Parker Wilson	2008	12-2	14-0
RUT	Mike Teel	2008	8-5	9-4
FRES	Tom Brandstater	2008	7-6	8-5
HAW	Colt Brennan	2007	12-1	7-7
LOU	Brian Brohm	2007	6-6	5-7
KENT	Andre Woodson	2007	8-5	7-6
MICH	Chad Henne	2007	9-4	3-9
AUB	Brandon Cox	2007	9-4	5-7
TULSA	Paul Smith	2007	10-4	11-3
WISC	John Stocco	2006	12-1	9-4
PITT	Tyler Palko	2006	6-6	5-7
HOU	Kevin Kolb	2006	10-4	8-5
BOISE	Jared Zabransky	2006	13-0	10-3
ND	Brady Quinn	2006	10-3	3-9
FLA	Chris Leak	2006	13-1	9-4
NEV	Jeff Rowe	2006	8-5	6-7
MIN	Bryan Cupito	2006	6-7	1-11
GATECH	Reggie Ball	2006	9-5	7-6
MTU	Clint Marks	2006	7-6	5-7
IOWA	Drew Tate	2006	6-7	6-6
BYU	John Beck	2006	11-2	11-2
USC	Matt Leinart	2005	12-1	11-2
UCLA	Drew Olson	2005	10-2	7-6
OREG	Kellen Clemens	2005	10-2	7-6
TOL	Bruce Gradkowski	2005	9-3	5-7
NW	Brett Basanez	2005	7-5	4-8
FRES	Paul Pinegar	2005	8-5	4-8
COL	Joel Klatt	2005	7-6	2-10
CLEM	Charlie Whitehurst	2005	8-4	8-5
MIZZ	Brad Smith	2005	7-5	8-5
RUT	Ryan Hart	2005	7-5	11-2
USM	Dustin Almond	2005	7-5	9-5
PUR	Kyle Orton	2004	7-5	5-6
ORE ST	Derek Anderson	2004	7-5	5-6
HAW	Timmy Chang	2004	8-5	5-7
CIN	Gino Guidugli	2004	7-5	4-7
ASU	Andrew Walter	2004	9-3	7-5
MEM	Danny Wimprine	2004	8-4	7-5
UCONN	Dan Orlovsky	2004	8-4	5-6
UNC	Darian Durant	2004	6-6	5-6
NIU	Josh Haldi	2004	9-3	7-5
GA	David Greene	2004	10-2	10-3
WVU	Rasheed Marshall	2004	8-4	11-1
VA TECH	Bryan Randall	2004	10-3	11-2
MIA (OH)	Ben Roethlisberger	2003	13-1	8-5
NC ST	Philip Rivers	2003	8-5	5-6
MICH	John Navarre	2003	10-3	9-3
MISS	Eli Manning	2003	10-3	4-7
WASH	Cody Pickett	2003	6-6	1-10
COL ST	Bradlee Van Pelt	2003	7-6	4-7
BOISE	Ryan Dinwiddie	2003	13-1	11-1
TENN	Casey Clausen	2003	10-3	10-3
	The Season After
	Less Wins	49/65	75.4%
	More Wins	10/65	15.4%
	Same Wins	6/65	9.2%
	Not Bowl Eligible	26/65	37%

As you can see, a staggering 75% of college football programs saw some type of win total reduction after replacing a three year starter the following season.

Real game experience for quarterbacks is irreplaceable, which is why you see such a consistent drop in the win column for 75% of the teams replacing three year starters over the past seven seasons. The familiarity a QB has within an offense, or a collegiate football game in general, can pay off in high pressure situations where one play effects the outcome of the game.

How does this experience translate into wins over the long haul?

If you take the total difference in wins from a quarterback's finals season and the season after they leave, and average it, the difference on average is two wins per season.

If reading that paragraph confused you as much as it did me writing it, basically, a three year starter is worth at least two wins per season.

Obviously, this won’t always be the case and there will be a handful of exceptions where a team improves the next season. Leave it to Nick Saban and Alabama to be the only program to replace a three year starter in John Parker Wilson and win the national championship the following year. 

Off Topic Side Note: McElroy wasn’t a three year starter, but things are looking eerily similar for Alabama going into 2011. Just like 2009, the Crimson Tide enters the 2011 season with a defense that is shaping up to be the most dominant force in the country. What a nice luxury for an incoming QB.

Outside of the Crimson Tide, there are ten other bowl teams from 2010 that must replace a three year starter who won’t be equipped with a defense that makes the Denver Broncos jealous (yes, Alabama's defense is that good).

Here are my projections for these teams for 2011.

	QB	Final Year	Final Season	Projected 2011*
TCU	Andy Dalton	2010	13-0	10-2
NEV	Colin Kaepernick	2010	13-1	7-5
UTEP	Trevor Vittatoe	2010	6-7	4-8
IDAHO	Nathan Enderle	2010	6-7	4-8
WASH	Jake Locker	2010	7-6	6-6
NC ST	Russell Wilson*	2010	9-4	9-3
VATECH	Tyrod Taylor	2010	11-3	12-0
GATECH	Joshua Nesbitt	2010	6-7	8-4
IOWA	Ricky Stanzi	2010	8-5	10-2
FSU	Christian Ponder	2010	10-4	10-2
	*Bowls and conference championship games excluded
	The Season After
	Worse Season	5/10	50%
	Better Season	3/10	30%
	No Change	2/10	20%
	Not Bowl Eligible	2/10	20%

Disregarding the percentages from the statistical analysis, I analyzed how I thought each team would do on a personal projection basis and not the historical law of averages.

As you can see, my projections for the 2011 season did not end up quite along the percentages that were averaged over the past seven years. It will be interesting to see if the 2011 win total's average out closer to the seven year percentages over what I projected.

Many projections have been made by analysts in preseason rankings assuming John Brantley, Garrett Gilbert,  Kodi Burns, and Joe Cox could step in seamlessly and fill the shoes of some of the school’s all-time greats before them. All of those teams started the next season ranked by the AP at #3, #4, #10, and #13 respectively and failed to finish the season even ranked.

It will be interesting to see if EJ Manuel, Logan Thomas, Mike Glennon, and others can buck the overwhelming percentages and avoid some type of decrease in the win column for their teams in 2011.

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