The Las Vegas Raiders are expected to draft Fernando Mendoza with the overall #1 pick in the NFL Draft in April – – or they might trade the pick to another QB-needy team, and the Raiders will try to fill out a badly constructed roster with the bounty from that trade. The point here is that Heisman Trophy winner, Fernando Mendoza is destined to be the overall #1 pick. That Draft is still almost 3 months into the future and so, a lot can change; but the idea that Mendoza will go off the board first seems reasonable to me.
I agree that he is the best QB prospect this year – – and the emphasis there is on the word “prospect”. The NFL is resplendent with examples of great college players – – QBs particularly – – who just cannot translate their excellence to the NFL level. And to that end, allow me to present the NCAA QBs who had the most TD passes in a single season. For some of these players, I suspect that many folks here will not recognize the name – – let alone where the QB went to college. Moreover, only one of these players has had a successful – – albeit still incomplete – – NFL career:
- Bailey Zappe – – 62 TD passes in a single season – – W. Kentucky
- Joe Burrow – – 60 TD passes in a single season – – LSU
- Colt Brennan – – 58 TD passes in a single season – – Hawaii
- David Klingler – – 54 TD passes in a single season – – Houston
- B.J. Symons – – 52 TD passes in a single season – – Texas Tech
- Dwayne Haskins – – 50 TD passes in a single season – – Ohio St.
- David Carr – – 50 TD passes in single season – – Fresno St.
- Sam Bradford – – 50 TD passes in a single season – – Oklahoma
- Brandon Doughty – – 49 TD passes in a single season – – W. Kentucky
- Anthony Gordon – – 48 TD passes in a single season – – Washington St.
- Derek Carr – – 48 TD passes in a single season – – Fresno St.
- Case Keenum – – 48 TD passes in a single season – – Houston
College football and NFL football are two different games and projecting success at the college level onto the NFL level is not an easy thing to do – – particularly at the QB position. On that list of 12 highly competent QBs in college, I would argue that only one – – Joe Burrow – – is rightfully compared to the top NFL QBs as he was compared to top college QB. In addition to Burrow:
- The Carr brothers – – David and Derek – – were starters in the NFL for several years but neither ever really ascended to “star status”.
- Sam Bradford made a lot of money off NFL owners and GMs who signed him to big contracts, but he never “lit it up” at the pro level.
- Maybe – – MAYBE – – some day Dwayne Haskins might have become a competent QB in the NFL but the Grim Reaper saw to it that we will never know if that might have happened.
The NFL and NCAA football are different games particularly for QBs. When a college QB who has innate/God-given talent breaks the huddle and “surveys the opposing defense”, the chances are that he might be playing against one or maybe two defenders who are of NFL caliber. Most college QBs in most of their games have a couple of opposing defenders who are – – to be polite – – easy pickins.
Now take that same QB to the NFL and when he breaks the huddle and “surveys the opposing defense” he is going to see 11 NFL caliber defenders staring at him fully anticipating making his life miserable at best. Sure, some defenders are better than others; and indeed, the QB’s coaches will try to exploit the weaker defenders on the other side of the ball. However, that “weak sister” on an NFL defense is still a mile-and-a-half better than what the new NFL QB was used to facing in his college days just a year ago.
This is not a knock on Fernando Mendoza; I think he fully deserved to win the Heisman Trophy; I will in my Pre-Draft Analysis come April call him out as the best QB in the Draft. And, frankly, I hope he works out positively for the Raiders or for whichever team trades with the Raiders to acquire Mendoza. But it is not a layup …
I think the overriding way of looking at this Draft-and-Hope Scenario is the sports version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In quantum physics, you cannot know the position and the velocity of a particle exactly at the same time; the more precise you are in measuring one of those variables, the less precise will be your measurement of the other. Here, the more you know about college football stats does not diminish the uncertainty of projecting a player into the NFL at a competent level, but it is still not an exact science.
Finally, the only person who can logically close today’s rant is Werner Heisenberg:
“Certainly, in the course of time, the splendid things will separate from the hateful.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………