The QB situation

Today, I'm more concerned about the weather for the game and my tailgater than I am about ISU. So I'm going to talk about the QB situation.

First, I think that Canfield will be the man this season. I know Riley mentioned Gundy this week throwing another wrench into the system, but Canfield will take slowly improve and will do well this season. Why? Here's my theory: If it takes about a season for new QBs to learn the system from scratch (Derek Anderson and Matt Moore) then a QB who has been in the system 2-3 years will acclimate to game speed much faster (Sean Canfield).

Both Matt and Derek had no experience with Riley's offense. Each had prior game experience under different systems with mixed results. But both had a ton of interceptions in their first year under Riley's system.

(Cmp-Att-Int)
Moore.... 211-355-19, 11 td, 271 ypg, 123.11 effic
Derek.... 261-510-24, 24 td, 312 ypg, 124.13 effic

By their Senior years both Matt and Derek "broke out". They looked confident, controlled, and much less mistake-proned. But they were both learning on the job in their Junior years and didn't really know Riley's offense completely.

Canfield is also learning on the job. But he played in 10 games last season and went 28-45 with 2 tds, 2 ints, and 335 yards passing. That's basically a game an a half. Add that to his two half games this year and he's about 3-4 games in to his learning year. So at worst he will start to come around in game 7 or 8 and become a good QB.

However, I have this sneaking suspicion that he will come around sooner if given playing time. Mainly because he doesn't really have to learn on the job. He knows the offense in and out. Now he's just getting the game speed down and learning how to read defenses. Tough, yes, but not as tough as doing both at the same time. So I predict (and hope) that he will be a solid QB around the Arizona or UCLA game. That means less mistakes and basically not costing us the game. By the end of the season he could be really contributing a lot. Especially if teams are still stacking up on the run. I really hope Sean starts it in a big way against ISU today.

Here's to one more warm Saturday game before fall hits.

Go Beavs!