I sat down this week with long-time football scout Lannie Julias to discuss the five 2011 Heisman finalists. Lannie, who has coached, recruited and scouted in high school, college and in the professional ranks, gave his unique opinion on each of them.
The Heisman Pundit talks finalists with Lannie Julias from Amerigo Chattin on Vimeo.
Pat Forde on how he decided on why he voted for RGIII:
What came out surprised me somewhat, but supported my initial feeling as to who would get my vote.
Every finalist has impressive statistics. I wanted to know who those stats were compiled against – how good or bad were the defenses they played against?
And not just defenses in general. For running backs, it was important to see what kind of rush defenses they took on. For quarterbacks, how were the pass defenses?
Robert Griffin racked up big numbers, and if you think it was against a dozen cupcake secondaries you’re mistaken.
The results showed that Griffin III, Richardson and Ball played against roughly equal defenses. Luck and Barkley played against slightly weaker defenses.
The average rank of the 11 FBS rushing defenses Richardson faced is 64th. The average rank of Ball’s 12 FBS rushing defenses faced is 68th.
The average pass efficiency defense ranking faced by Griffin III is 65th. For Barkley, it was 72nd; for Luck, 82nd.
This are false statements. Griffin faced passed defenses which ranked 87 in the country. % of Baylor’s opponents were in the BOTTOM TEN in pass defenses, 7 were in the BOTTOM 30 and Griffin only played one—count e’em–one team ranked in the top 50% or the top 60 teams. That one teams was ranked #47.
Geno Smith Touched LSU’s Defense for over 460 Yards….I understand how you feel, but a Great passer is a Great passer! RGIII!! Hail.
Pat Forde continuation:
Given the wide-open reputation of the Big 12, I didn’t expect Griffin III’s opposition to rank that highly. But Oklahoma State (eighth), Texas (14th) and Oklahoma (30th) are top-30 defenses in pass efficiency. Those helped offset the three bottom-10 pass defenses Griffin III faced in Rice (110th), Texas Tech (113th) and Kansas (118th). Leading the nation in pass efficiency, as Griffin III did, was not a statistical fluke built on exploiting a schedule full of third-rate secondaries.
Richardson and Ball both faced just two top-30 rush defenses. Richardson took on LSU (third) and Vanderbilt (27th), while Ball faced Michigan State (12th) twice.
Barkley faced only one top-30 pass defense in Utah (23rd). Luck didn’t face any.