Freshman QBs in BCS Final

[IndyIUFan66]

watching these Freshman play tonight shows good talent can get on the field!

Not only could Tronti or Penix legitimately play next season, but given the value of mobility and playmaking skills, don’t count out the potential of Reese.

4 mobile QBs who appear to have real talent. I love it!

 

[td75]

Damn right!

 

[Crimson Crush]

The skill positions are definitely good but where you see a huge disparity with teams like Bama and Georgia from the other teams are in the trenches. The quickness and speed for guys on both sides is just out of this world. There wasn't a guy on the Bama DL that didn't look every bit of an NFL body. These teams have a legitimate gap up front in talent from the .500 ball clubs.

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

The skill positions are definitely good but where you see a huge disparity with teams like Bama and Georgia from the other teams are in the trenches. The quickness and speed for guys on both sides is just out of this world. There wasn't a guy on the Bama DL that didn't look every bit of an NFL body. These teams have a legitimate gap up front in talent from the .500 ball clubs.

"gap"......

More like a Grand Canyon chasm...

A quick look at Ga's roster shows 44 4* and 11 5* players. They have 6 5* commits for next class.

It's a different world for sure.

 

[Indianaftw]

watching these Freshman play tonight shows good talent can get on the field!

Not only could Tronti or Penix legitimately play next season, but given the value of mobility and playmaking skills, don’t count out the potential of Reese.

4 mobile QBs who appear to have real talent. I love it!

I know there was some chatter about pulling Tronti's shirt even in the Purdue game. I know they said before the game if Lagow went down he would have to come in. Unlike bama and uga we don't have the kind of talent and depth at skill positions sitting and waiting. After Tronti I guess we could have played Johnny Pabst

IMO for us to be successful we have to play young guys and develop more young guys behind them. In year 3 or 4 after playing that youth and developing that we have a chance to make solid runs at the big boys in our conference. Its NOT going to happen every year at IU unless we started competing and recruiting at an extreme high level, but that's like a major paradigm shift and how likely is that to happen at IU regarding football?

It was the national championship game and all the stops were pulled out. If anything Saban just taught the coaching world something new last night. He pulled a 25-2 starter and replaced him with a different skillset QB TRUE FRESHMAN which was a big gamble BUT it made sense and paid off.

I'm glad we did not burn Tronti's shirt. I don't know if that could have worked OR if DeBoard had the mindset to take shots down the field like bama did with their true freshman QB. ALOT of questions regarding Tronti and DeBoard if the same situation could have happened in the purdue game? Thoughts...

 

[td75]

Saban didn't play it conservative and took a HUGE gamble by going away from a 25-2 QB. But when you've got FIVE Tiles in your bag, who in the hell has the authority or balls to question Nick Saban???

 

[Hoosier_Hack]

Saban didn't play it conservative and took a HUGE gamble by going away from a 25-2 QB. But when you've got FIVE Tiles in your bag, who in the hell has the authority or balls to question Nick Saban???

Don’t hear anyone calling him grandpa...

 

[Bowlmania]

I'm glad we did not burn Tronti's shirt. I don't know if that could have worked OR if DeBoard had the mindset to take shots down the field like bama did with their true freshman QB. ALOT of questions regarding Tronti and DeBoard if the same situation could have happened in the purdue game? Thoughts.

This isn't exactly breaking news, but our offensive line wasn't very good in '17 and we're not Alabama.

Burning Tronti's shirt for the Purdue game would have been insane.

 

[Superstar84b]

"gap"......

More like a Grand Canyon chasm...

A quick look at Ga's roster shows 44 4* and 11 5* players. They have 6 5* commits for next class.

It's a different world for sure.

I don’t think the stars matter, at all. Wisconsin would play with Georgia because the guys in the trenches are big physical bodies. That’s where Georgia gets ahead and why it’s a different world. Wisconsin on the other end, will go out there with 2* lineman and compete with Georgia, and Wisconsin is in a different world as well. What I’ve seen it come down to is are the guys upfront big and physical. If they are, it doesn’t matter if they’re 2* guys or 5* guys, hence how Wisconsin and Georgia can be mentioned in the same breadth as two premier teams, even with very different recruiting breakdowns.

 

[Superstar84b]

I know there was some chatter about pulling Tronti's shirt even in the Purdue game. I know they said before the game if Lagow went down he would have to come in. Unlike bama and uga we don't have the kind of talent and depth at skill positions sitting and waiting. After Tronti I guess we could have played Johnny Pabst

IMO for us to be successful we have to play young guys and develop more young guys behind them. In year 3 or 4 after playing that youth and developing that we have a chance to make solid runs at the big boys in our conference. Its NOT going to happen every year at IU unless we started competing and recruiting at an extreme high level, but that's like a major paradigm shift and how likely is that to happen at IU regarding football?

It was the national championship game and all the stops were pulled out. If anything Saban just taught the coaching world something new last night. He pulled a 25-2 starter and replaced him with a different skillset QB TRUE FRESHMAN which was a big gamble BUT it made sense and paid off.

I'm glad we did not burn Tronti's shirt. I don't know if that could have worked OR if DeBoard had the mindset to take shots down the field like bama did with their true freshman QB. ALOT of questions regarding Tronti and DeBoard if the same situation could have happened in the purdue game? Thoughts...

Tronti would’ve struggled because the line is bad. I don’t really mind if Deboard went with young guys at skill positions. They’re more so able to come in and play immediately if needed. Saban will also play the guy who gives them the best chance to win. The issue with the Tronti comparison is that Indiana doesn’t have the players on the offensive line to protect him. That will likely change next year because these guys could all improve on our offensive line, but in 17’, we probably had the second worst line in the league.

On the flip side, Bama has men on the offensive line who will compete for major nfl playing time each year. You go down the list of NFL rosters, and you’ll see bama offensive lineman there. They have fullbacks, and tight ends, and hit people in the face. So QB simply has more protection and their gameplan has more variability which makes guys successful. Now you can have a bad offensive line and a QB can be successful, but typically they’re older QB’s who have a knowledge of the game and can call their own plays. Jared Goff at Cal comes to mind. He went 1-11 as a freshman and got killed. He had an equally bad offensive line as a Junior, but had a better knowledge of the game and was able to call his own plays, plays that were designed to make things easier for the offensive line so that he wouldn’t get killed. Obviously the bama freshman wasn’t/couldn’t call his own shots, but because of the line and talent around him he didn’t have to.

Flip to Tronti, and we would’ve seen a young man running for his life in the Purdue game, without the football IQ to audible and get into better plays to protect the offensive line. Could he be successful as a true freshman at bama? Probably. Could he have been at Indiana with the 17’ line? No. The good news is that it’s likely that Tronti will either develop his Football IQ in order to survive with a bad line, OR the line will improve headed into 18’. I don’t know, but I’d wager that the two true freshman QB’s will end up at WR, enabling them to get on the field faster than they would at QB.

 

[gohoosiers1984Not]

watching these Freshman play tonight shows good talent can get on the field!

Not only could Tronti or Penix legitimately play next season, but given the value of mobility and playmaking skills, don’t count out the potential of Reese.

4 mobile QBs who appear to have real talent. I love it!

They need an O Line to block for them first.

 

[turney333]

I'm glad we did not burn Tronti's shirt. I don't know if that could have worked OR if DeBoard had the mindset to take shots down the field like bama did with their true freshman QB. ALOT of questions regarding Tronti and DeBoard if the same situation could have happened in the purdue game? Thoughts...

In no way would Tronti have been in the been remotely a similar situation. Saban didn't burn Tagovailoa's RS, he was the backup all year and had played in 7 games (albeit solely in a mop up role).

Also, my guess is that Saban's decision was probably more straight forward than it appears from the outside. It very well may have been that Tagovailoa started outplaying Hurt in practice (or at least playing just as well), but splitting hairs, experience and winning kept Hurt as the starter.

 

[Indianaftw]

Saban didn't burn Tagovailoa's RS, he was the backup all year and had played in 7 games (albeit solely in a mop up role).

I was NOT aware of that...