Cory Slater

[George S. Patton]

Yes he stuck it out all four years with the team...Duke graduated recently and is headed for med school in January.

Looks like we have another former Mustang player on the board. If so, welcome and thanks for sharing the knowledge. And best wishes to Duke Hasson.

And as for that chart comparing Willis' first-half numbers and second-half numbers, there is no better pastime than twisting numbers to make them say what you need them to say. That's a practice followed by many in all walks of life.

Air liner destined to crash
All hope is lost
Passengers certain to die

[expony18]

Yes he stuck it out all four years with the team...Duke graduated recently and is headed for med school in January.

correction... Duke was there 5 years. youngster

[southerncomfort]

Haha you're right I wasn't there for Duke's five years for sure...lost count, what can you do We can at least be glad he's doing something great with his degree after 5 years unlike quite a few of them!

[MrMustang1965]

Coach B. seems to recruit to lose talent.

[PhirePhilBennett]

Maybe we can get ERIC JOHNSON back...

Anyone have a list of defection QBs under Bennett?

Eric Johnson
Corey Slater


that 3A Golf guy -
Richard Bartel (signed with Cowboys)
That ENNIS QB converted to TE, signed by Cavan late
Invited Walk-on that transferred to Tech

David Page
Kelen Luker


who else?

ennis--tate wallis (scholarship), mesquite--mark hodges (scholarship) ,austin westlake (walk-on)--duke hasson, Crandle--Paul Teinert (Walk-on) (quit after on year and was put on a track scholarship, transfered to CAL and competed in the decathalon), Midland--Ryan ROwland (sledge's teammate transfered to TT).... Eric Johnson.... i might be missing one or two

*edit*
BL-- CPHil... but he was really a QB/TE/Rapper

That 3A golf guy...who was that?

[mrydel]

Maybe we can get ERIC JOHNSON back...

Anyone have a list of defection QBs under Bennett?

Eric Johnson
Corey Slater


that 3A Golf guy -
Richard Bartel (signed with Cowboys)
That ENNIS QB converted to TE, signed by Cavan late
Invited Walk-on that transferred to Tech

David Page
Kelen Luker


who else?

ennis--tate wallis (scholarship), mesquite--mark hodges (scholarship) ,austin westlake (walk-on)--duke hasson, Crandle--Paul Teinert (Walk-on) (quit after on year and was put on a track scholarship, transfered to CAL and competed in the decathalon), Midland--Ryan ROwland (sledge's teammate transfered to TT).... Eric Johnson.... i might be missing one or two

*edit*
BL-- CPHil... but he was really a QB/TE/Rapper

That 3A golf guy...who was that?

Lee Trevino I think but he was too short and his passes always faded a little.

[stangdad 40]

That 3a golf guy was ricky joe meeks

[expony18]

That 3a golf guy was ricky joe meeks

thanks for picking up my slack... he transfered over to louisianna (Northwestern State), i go to law school with one of his best friends from high school. He told me ricky joe was starting, but i never thought he had the talent to start in Div. 1

[PonySnob]

Now that Corey Slater is no longer associated with SMU football, shouldn't this topic be moved over to the "general" topic board?

[Cadillac]

I think that PhirePhil would have had a better time using "Yards-per-completion" to make his point. Willis uses a lot of short dump-offs, which give him a very high completion ratio, which offsets the short length of the passes when you use a yards-per-attempt ratio.

If you look at YPC instead of YPA, things move around a lot. Consider the players around Justin in the YPA rankings. Below I've listed them with their YPA ranking, but showing their YPC stats:

35. Chad Henne, Michigan 12.35
36. Rudy Carpenter, Arizona St 13.71
37. Justin Willis, SMU 11.24
38. Curtis Painter, Purdue 12.65
39. Drew Tate, Iowa 12.67
40. Graham Harrell, Texas Tech 11.06
41. Brady Quinn, N Dame 11.85

Rudy Carpenter is interesting. He doesn't have as high of a completion percentage, but when he does hook up, it's for a proportionally larger gain. Justin is on the opposite side, with lots of short passes getting completed. Graham Harrell is interesting in the mix there too. Much like Willis, he has a high completion % and a low YPC. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Of course none of this really makes sense from his initial assertion that Willis is not an efficient passer. Efficiency is the one thing he has. The QB ratings may be a very flawed statistic, but when the concept of efficiency is batted about, I think they certainly give you something objective to look at. I have always considered efficiency to be rooted in completion% and TD%- INT% Here is where Willis Shines.

The weak point in his game as a Freshman, in my opinion, and in line with his yards-per-completion numbers, was getting the ball down the field. As far as Freshman problems go, this one I don't mind. I'd rather have a kid learning to make the throws from the inside out, rather than throwing a ton of picks trying to force the outside throws. Additionally, I have no idea how much of Justin's performance was the result of playcalling by the coaches. Was he instructed to work on the short-underneath stuff to help bring him along, or is that the extent of his game? I wouldn't be surprised by either.

Hopefully, we can put some speed on the field this Fall and Justin can hit the long throws now and again. Pushing up his YPC isn't necessary to propel SMU to a bowl this season, but it will certainly help get us there.

-CoS

[PhirePhilBennett]

Well said.

I think Willis will continue to improve as well.

Like Parcells said, "Let's don't pull out the annointing oil just yet"

Romo is set up for a BIG fall this year - too much press/hype. You'd think he was a "4th-Year Troy Aikman" or something...

[expony18]

Willis uses a lot of short dump-offs, which give him a very high completion ratio, which offsets the short length of the passes when you use a yards-per-attempt ratio.

If you look at YPC instead of YPA, things move around a lot. Consider the players around Justin in the YPA rankings. Below I've listed them with their YPA ranking, but showing their YPC stats:

35. Chad Henne, Michigan 12.35
36. Rudy Carpenter, Arizona St 13.71
37. Justin Willis, SMU 11.24
38. Curtis Painter, Purdue 12.65
39. Drew Tate, Iowa 12.67
40. Graham Harrell, Texas Tech 11.06
41. Brady Quinn, N Dame 11.85

The weak point in his game as a Freshman, in my opinion, and in line with his yards-per-completion numbers, was getting the ball down the field.

-CoS

the problem with this argument is that most coaches say their young QB's have problems checking down... in this case you have basically proven that just plays beyond his experience by already knowing when to check down and dump off the ball. i think everyone on this board would rather these numbers with a low number of ints, then huge large ypc average with lots of ints.

[Cadillac]

the problem with this argument is that most coaches say their young QB's have problems checking down... in this case you have basically proven that just plays beyond his experience by already knowing when to check down and dump off the ball. i think everyone on this board would rather these numbers with a low number of ints, then huge large ypc average with lots of ints.

Yes, I said as much in my post; that I'll take the shorter numbers on YPC vs. a high interception ratio. However, I was mistaken when I used the term "dump off". Not all of these plays are check downs, many of them are short by design (passes along the line of scrimmage for example). That's where the question lies in my mind: How much of it is intentional playcalling to protect him and how much is it the limits of his ability to take the short reciever. I don't know.

I certainly don't think I'm being overly criticle of Willis. Even if he doesn't improve those YPC numbers, this team can still play well within the conference and with an improved defence can Challenge for the C-USA. That's a great testement to a fella who'se only started 11 games if you ask me.

-CoS

[Stallion]

Justin will never been a great down field thrower-more of an intermediate passer-but give him some receivers who can make a play and ypc and TDs will go way up. Emanuel Sanders(13.2 ypc) showed that and so did Columbus Givens (13.9 ypc) to a lesser extent. He doesn't have a quartet of playmaking WRs that Tech or UH had last year for example. BTW those numbers are skewed somewhat by the passing philosophy of the team. For example Tech throws very effectively to its RBs for about 100 receptions a year so their ypc come down. Taurean Henderson himself had 303 career receptions from his RB spot and he got about 10 yards and a first down just about every catch. Better than a handoff. SMU has been very ineffective in successfully incorporating the RB into the passing game. It might be more instructive to look at ypc by WRs to determine vertical passing game.

[Cadillac]

I think you're absolutely right Stallion. His lack of a true long ball (as well as his height) are the reasons he's here. But if the intermediate routes are opened up and he can exploit them, he'll be even more effective and hopefully open up the running game. That should make the offense dynamic enough to score on anyone in the conference even without a 6'3" bomb tosser in the pocket.

If Martin is back fo Frosh form and Sanders comes back, the offense should have a good range of plays to keep up with damn near anyone they go up against. It's really going to be up to the defence if this team is going to go anyhwere, and that's still just a little too scary for my tastes.

-CoS