Ricky Stanzi Still Third In Passing Efficiency, For Now

But I don’t think anyone will give him serious consideration. When I voted fringe, I imagined it still being a lower finish than Tim Dwight’s (7th?).

I believe that Stanzi will continue with being very good this year. I don’t see the interceptions getting worse over the next few weeks. Last year, Michigan didn’t have a good defense either and yet he threw a pick six. Ricky has turned the corner and is having a stellar senior year.

Stanzi remains in the Top 3-5 and is completely snubbed from any Heisman consideration.

Because that’s what I see happening.

He is taking two full semester classes and a half semester class. They are as follows:
An art class
Alcohol and your Educational experience
Making a vocational and educational choice

yeesh, basket weaving must have been full. errr, I mean go America!

But I still hold out the hope that someday we won’t run the ball and our 5’8" sole-source RB into 8-9 man boxes, and our offensive scheming to date is all a set-up for the Wiscy, OSU and maybe MSU games when we start passing to run. In this thrilling scenario, Stanzi’s numbers go up, not down.

It seems like every year they throw the five-wide thing out there OOC, just to show a little leg* —

but by the time we’re ready to go, we get this instead —

As Mikhail Perestroika Alvarez knows, the woman in door number one is not going to pick a lot of potatoes for you and keep you alive, but still.

*with apologies to the .0001% of BHGP readership who lack for the Y chromosome, for my obvious retrograde sexist metaphor.

Stanzi has really only made 1 INT in my mind, considering that the ball in Arizona hit McNutt in the hands. Yeah, it could have been a little less hot, but I have always said that if it hits a receiver in the hands, it should have been caught. He is making great decisions. He is finding big holes in the defense, and his long ball looks really good. I think the only fair comparison that you can make to the Stanzi of last year is his will to win, and any comparisons to his bad decision making needs to go away.

which means Stanzi is throwing more accurately. That may be due to the confidence and comfort that comes with playing pass defenses. But, I DO think we have a whole host of plays that will get dusted off this weekend and beyond. We have mostly abandoned the bootleg that was used by KOK to get Stanzi in rhythm. The big improvement from my POV is that Ricky can drop back and pass now. That makes him much more dangerous. It seemed up until this year he threw passes along three lines: bootleg/rollout; 3-step drop/ shotgun. He avoided the 5 and 7-step drops. Well, he’s doing those this year and they have cut into the bootlegs and shotgun plays. So Wisconsin has their hands full this weekend.

And let me make this point…Ohio State has no more than 60% or 70% of the playbook we probably have. Pryor is very limited in terms of the passing game. Our run game is very vanilla, but our passing game is very nuanced now.

Long story short, I see Stanzi finishing inside the Top 10 and he is now the front runner for All Big Ten QB. But his reputation as being a sloppy QB has probably made is that he cannot win that award without winning the Big Ten. Whereas Cousins or Pryor or even Persa have more slack in that regard. I hope I am wrong on that…but the Big Ten media is fickle and wierd.

I believe his numbers should stay comparable with where they are now. Even though the competition in the second half of the season will improve, Iowa’s offensive line will also continue to improve (please, please, please). If Iowa continues to run the ball, even against 8 man fronts, it keeps the play action pass a viable weapon.

did he change positions in the off-season and now plays defensive back?

In reality…the Michigan game shouldn’t be discounted whatsoever or at least very much given the fact that many of his biggest fuck ups last year were primarily his own doing and not a product of great defense. We’ve been saying all along (or at least the coaching staff has) that a good game for Stanzi is one with no turnovers. Regardless of the defense…his yardage is usually going to be consistent with the outliers occurring when we get busted plays with either blown coverage or huge YAC (see: Iowa v Indiana 2009) or conversely when our offense…including the run…is especially bogged down all game long for some reason (see: Michigan State v Iowa 2009).

I’m just not sure we’ll see a negative outlier for the remainder of the season given that the toughest defenses we’ll see are all at home…I’m guessing that most negative outlier games for QBs in our system occur on the road.

All-in-all…I think we’re seeing a slight uptick in Rick’s production with a big decline in negative plays and it seems to be more of a trend than a fad.

and it’s in second place by 1%. Wow.

Here is a simple chart I “made” (original chart stolen from BSD Mike):

Difference <25 = push
Difference >25 = one helmet
Difference >50 = two
Difference >75 = three
Difference >100 = four

I’m pretty much convinced Iowa will win because Stanzi is just a bit more competent than Tolzien. I also think it’s possible Iowa could win by more than 10 if they air it out.