Rockne's Roundtable

Earlier this week, I wrote that it is too soon to say that Tommy sucks as a QB. I probably should have written that it is too soon to say that Tommy "totally" sucks. Many people just refuse to allow for a Qb too struggle as a freshmen and/or sophomore. Nor, have many posters allowed for the fact that often a kid gets it in his junior year. True, Tommy has real limitations, and never will be a star, but can he be adequate? Let's compare his first two years with that of Matt Barkley. No, I have not gone crazy and I am not comparing his talent to Matt Barkley's. Any fool can see that there is no compaison except someone who responds to this post and misstates what I am writing. Comparing certain aspects of their first two years "performance" can show what I mentioned above.

Matt Barkley : Year #1 (2009) - 211 comp. 352Attp. 2735 yds. 59% 7,77 ypc 15 TD's 14 ints.. Tommy Rees: Yea r#1 ( 2010) - 100 comp 164 Attp. 1106yds. 61% 6.74 ypc 12 TD's 8 int's

Mat Barkley - Year# 2 ( 2010) - 236 comp 377Attp 2791 yds. 62% 7.40 ypc 26 TD's 12 int's Tommy Rees Year #2 ( 2011) - 269 comp 411 Attp 2871 yds. 65% 6.99 Ypc. 20 TD's 14 int's

Statistics can be interpreted as a person wants to interpret them, and many factors enter into the statistics, but if you compare the interceptions you can see that both were intercepted about the same number of times. The most likely reason was because both were only sophmores. Note, Barkley also had a high Interception rate as a freshmen. Therfore, we should consider the following points :

1. The other guys, whom most of us believe have more upside, have a chance basically every day to beat Tommy out.
2. If no one unseats Tommy by the end of spring practice, there is always hope for that to happen in practice in August
3.. I, like most of you, hope that one of the other prospects beats Tommy out. However, if they can't do it , then we have to hope that a more experienced, calmer Tommy can cut down on his mistakes especially interceptions, and be an adequate QB for next season. It will help tremendously if we have a strong running game and defense to assist whomever is at QB.