Interesting string of thoughts here:
No doubt Stetson Bennett was clutch. Beck took over and had the challenge of living up to the legend that was Stetson. Now it’s Stockton’s turn.
But is it about the quarterback? Or is it the surrounding cast?
Discuss.
Yeah, I’m going to go with the cast here.
The rest of the team had better be good or the best QB will find himself running for his life. SB was the topping on the cake of a great supporting cast.
Even Patrick Maholmes can’t win a SB with a broken down OL and cack-handed receivers. So yeah, cast first, QB second.
*Mahomes
He lost to Brady once with two back up tackles. I know it’s Brady, but Mahomey got hit but handed to him that game
I would say cast and then QB 90%+ of the time. Cite HW#34 and the defense.
If your cast is full of play makers your QB only needs to not screw it up. That’s way easier and more sustainable than asking a QB to carry a team.
Or like last season asking Beck to carry the offense. If he and Bobo had Monken’s last offense both would have looked a lot smarter.
It can be done if the QB is a phenom, like Burrow or Cam (damn I hate writing that). But the surer thing is the cast route.
Burrow had a receiving corps that created those statistics. Not saying he wasn’t great in 2019z
It is definitely a team effort and Oklahoma’s (USC too) biggest issue under Riley was defense. They never had one with even a pulse.
People do seem to forget that Stetson was a Heisman finalist. The guy could play and made plays with his arm and feet.
You saw that in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. They won the Super Bowl after the 2012 season with Flacco and then they immediately gave him a MASSIVE new contract. Well to pay for that they had to let a lot of veterans walk (the supporting cast) and they dropped like a rock in 2013 (8-8). Same QB. New supporting cast.
Both, the QB needs to throw catchable balls to the same team but the D also needs to get stops.
IMO many say cast because the media focuses on the QB. If it were so slanted in favor of the cast Iowa would have been in the playoffs
When it comes to QBing you gotta have a football player there. I don’t apologize for wanting a gunslinging dude with an uncoachable arm/chip on his shoulder that studies the playbook by the light of a juke box back there. Carson Beck on paper is a better QB than Lil Stet but not a better football player (and Carson had his moments).
I’m not a Beck hater but I’ve been very intrigued by how he didn’t improve in his second year under Bobo and behind a Coach Searles O Line. Several QBs on Bob’s watch did. I understand there are things we’ll never know behind the scenes, but I prefer keeping things simple.
Beck was in the program for 4 years at that point. I’m guessing Kirby’s yelling was wearing thin by then, but that’s just my guess. For whatever reason, the chemistry wasn’t there last year.
The chemistry was a young man’s testosterone stirred by a red hot mama-jama to the south.
You make a good point. Beck had Monken bring in his fave JT 7-0 as a Dawg Daniels, then get passed over at the last minute as a starter by Lil Stet, and then as a possible Overall #1 draft pick things didn’t work out and he got hurt. I’m sure the “I coulda played baseball at Florida” voice spoke to him some.
Had he taken that route, it’s likely that a fraction of the attention, money, etc. would have been heaped on him, with the first two things to go being the multi-mil college contract, and the insta-famous hip accessory. Carson chose his path. Maybe less exposure would’ve been good for him. I knew he lacked heart/passion when he came in behind Stetson’s thrashing of UAB, and stares down the wr so long/hard that he throws a pick 6. The int isn’t the issue here, as they happen to all QB’s. It’s that his shoulders drooped and his feet were stuck to the ground. He made zero effort to rectify his mistake.
Several in my circle point to that play as a reason they never trusted/liked Beck. I get it.
Can I have both please?
10000% cast. Proof is in the pudding.
I think the answer is both. With an outstanding surrounding cast a “game manager” QB can be extremely successful. With an average to decent surrounding cast an extraordinarily talented QB can take you to the promised land. You need some combination of the two (QB and surrounding cast) to do more than simply have an acceptable season. Looking back on the Richt years, we always seemed to be one or two players short. Or, if we had the players, injuries or some other circumstance prevented us from achieving our full potential. It was often frustrating.
To the casual fan, good or bad it’s always the QB…
He’s going to be a hero or villain regardless. The supporting cast kind of let Beck down and a lot of people put their foot on his neck.
It wasn’t all Beck’s fault or Bobo’s fault..the team just took a step back from great to pretty good.
No matter how much some want to think the world has changed it is still all about who can dominate the line of scrimmage. Give me a good offensive line and a mean and physical front seven who can dominate the interior over quarterbacks any day. It still comes down to who is the the most physical up front.
Riley couldn’t win with both
If we score we may win, but if they don’t score we will never lose. Some dude named Erk said that.