Looks Like The Spread Is Up to 3.5
- Thread starter HFNY
- Start date
Just curious why you think Williams would give us such a better chance? How many times have you seen him play? Should we ignore the fact that he couldn't beat out Lindquist by the Hawaii game or Miles up to this point? Should we ignore that Petersen has said he needs to take care of the ball? Or should we take one series and use it as confirmation bias that Williams is our best QB?
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Tequilla
Active poster
@RoadDawg55
1) I haven't watched Williams much, but what I have seen of him is that he displays the ability to make quick decisions and play with the conviction necessary of the position. I did not, and still have not, seen those traits out of both Lindquist and Miles.
2) Williams is a year in experience behind both Miles and Lindquist. It does not surprise me that there were elements in the decision making process where he still needed to learn that discretion is the better part of valor in his growth/development
3) He's passed Lindquist on the depth chart, that right there tells me that he's continuing to grow as a QB.
4) Miles has proven exactly what he is so far. He's won the games that he should win and lost the games (brutally) in the games that we probably shouldn't win. We're now entering the part of the season where quality play in the QB position could be the difference between us winning and losing games. I've seen enough from Miles at this point to convince me that he's not a QB that can win games for you.
5) Look at the ASU defensive gameplan last year. Blitz. Blitz. Blitz. Miles is not strong at reading defenses and making quick decisions. From what I've seen from Williams, he'll make the tight throw and not shy away from giving his players a chance to make a play. I expect ASU to continue to all out blitz us this year until we prove either that the OL can handle it or that our QB can make plays in the face of it. Which QB on the roster do you actually have any kind of confidence in to respond in the fact of that pressure?
1) I haven't watched Williams much, but what I have seen of him is that he displays the ability to make quick decisions and play with the conviction necessary of the position. I did not, and still have not, seen those traits out of both Lindquist and Miles.
2) Williams is a year in experience behind both Miles and Lindquist. It does not surprise me that there were elements in the decision making process where he still needed to learn that discretion is the better part of valor in his growth/development
3) He's passed Lindquist on the depth chart, that right there tells me that he's continuing to grow as a QB.
4) Miles has proven exactly what he is so far. He's won the games that he should win and lost the games (brutally) in the games that we probably shouldn't win. We're now entering the part of the season where quality play in the QB position could be the difference between us winning and losing games. I've seen enough from Miles at this point to convince me that he's not a QB that can win games for you.
5) Look at the ASU defensive gameplan last year. Blitz. Blitz. Blitz. Miles is not strong at reading defenses and making quick decisions. From what I've seen from Williams, he'll make the tight throw and not shy away from giving his players a chance to make a play. I expect ASU to continue to all out blitz us this year until we prove either that the OL can handle it or that our QB can make plays in the face of it. Which QB on the roster do you actually have any kind of confidence in to respond in the fact of that pressure?
I'm not especially pleased with Miles, but I think it's pressing to automatically assume Williams is going to give us more. I haven't written Williams off at all and agree with you about the fact he is a R-Fr and it's not surprising that his decision making has been suspect in practice.
I re-watched the game and Williams had some nice scrambles, but almost all of his completed passes, but one were check downs against a cover 2 defense. He looked pretty good. I just don't care about garbage time and the sample size was way too small to reach any conclusions about his game.
There has been too much focus on Miles about an Oregon game where we couldn't run the ball and the defense got shredded. His INT ended the game, but up to that point, he had played well. I don't care who plays QB for us, if we can't run the ball, the offense will suck. If we give up 3 straight 80+ yard TD drives, we won't win. The defense and missed opportunities (the Mickens and Ross plays, not getting a 4th down stop) were the main reasons the game got out of hand, not Miles.
To your 5th point, this isn't the same ASU defense. Last year's defense was legit. This year's defense has been horrible except last week against Stanford. A slip screen for a big gain to Ross and the blitzing will stop. Williams is a young QB himself. A lot of young QB's struggle against the blitz. That's why defenses do it. Oregon wasn't bringing much pressure when Williams played, so again, there is nothing there other than you wanting to believe, that Williams can handle it.
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HFNY
Active poster
If he can go, I'm guessing Petersen will give Miles the 1H of the ASU game to see what he can do against a decent to pretty good Pac-12 D. If Miles can't take care of the ball AND see that the offense scores a reasonable amount of points in two quarters, I'm sure we'll see Williams in the 2H.
Tequilla
Active poster
You note that a lot of Williams completions were check downs. While on one hand you can spin that as a negative, I can spin that as a positive. Hitting the check down means that you are going through your progressions. It means that you're reading the defense and willing to take what the defense is giving you. In contrast, what we see with Miles is a lot of paralysis anytime he analyzes anything. IMO, Miles' best throw in the game was the throw back across the field to a RB on a play action rollout ... and even that throw was probably a count or two late in being made.
Your points on blitzes are fair. But in some ways, they are easy for a QB in that it forces him to make no more than 1-2 reads and then just throws the ball.
If you watch any of what TCU is doing on offense right now, they have a QB that is terrible at going through progressions and having field awareness. What they've basically done is simplify the offense so that he's throwing the ball to more or less 1/2 of the field and if the first 2 reads aren't there, he's gone. There's ways to work around it if you have a QB that can make the throws in place.
Your points on blitzes are fair. But in some ways, they are easy for a QB in that it forces him to make no more than 1-2 reads and then just throws the ball.
If you watch any of what TCU is doing on offense right now, they have a QB that is terrible at going through progressions and having field awareness. What they've basically done is simplify the offense so that he's throwing the ball to more or less 1/2 of the field and if the first 2 reads aren't there, he's gone. There's ways to work around it if you have a QB that can make the throws in place.
dnc
New Fish
There's a much greater range of possible outcomes with Williams. Williams maybe turns it over four times and receives Sparky's plunger before half. He also could come out and throw for 350 yards and run for another 60 and put ASU away before the end of the third.
Miles doesn't do either of things. He probably keeps us somewhat in the game, but probably isn't good enough to win it. Williams might not keep us in the game...but then he might have what it takes to win it going away*. He's the high variance option. And IMO, the right option.
EWIWBI
I would love for Williams to throw for 350 and run for 60. 95% chance that doesn't happen though. If the coaches thought he was capable of that, he would play. I have a hard time believing they would turn that down because Williams might throw an INT or two.