Double Extra Point
Burning the midnight oil Jeff? Me too...
Outstanding work here in shedding further light on this debate...I read both AJ and Mike's point/counterpoint and couldn't quite put my finger on what they were missing. Mike was right to correct AJ's typical hyperbole regarding the circumstances of Ganz's TD's in the KU game...but continues to sort of operate under a rather loose definition of "garbage time". You brought more focus to the term and nailed it on the head with the "clutch-o-meter", giving more perspective as to the possible psychological ramifications of the 15+ ahead/behind margin. The comparisons you draw to other QB's are particularly useful in crystallizing exactly where Ganz ranked on the "clutch-o-meter" last season.
This here is a great example of something I really enjoy watching transpire...bloggers riffing off of one another. You do a fine job of continuing the discussion and lending further clarity to this particular discourse.
Thanks DT. After I finished the piece, I completely crashed, so I woke up just hoping it made sense. I really enjoy building off of the work of other bloggers as well. However, it seems as of late that the Nebraska bloggers have become a bit surly, or perhaps even competitive or snipy (is that a word?) This blog is purely a labor of love, so that other junk is not my bag baby.
Good work. I'm not sure where you draw the line at "garbage time" versus "down double digits". AJ threw 40 points, so I ran with that. 15 points is more than two scores (ok, maybe it should be 16 or 17 due to "DoubleExtraPoints" 
, and yes, it does make a difference in how you play defense when the margin is that large.
But I think there are two different arguments to be made. The point I was arguing with AJ was comparing Sam Keller to Joe Ganz. I still maintain that Ganz was the better Nebraska QB in 2007.
The other point is Ganz's standing in the Big XII in 2008. That's another matter entirely. I think we're in agreement that Ganz is servicable, and might be an decent quarterback. He's not going to challenge Bradford and Daniel or Harrell in the conference standings. Maybe not even Colt McCoy.
Good thoughts Husker Mike. I agree about Ganz vs. Keller and I certainly don't mind giving AJ credit for nailing the Sam Keller as JC annointment.
+/- 15 points is an arbitrary cut-off, but the data was available and I assumed most QBs would face it enough to have a decent amount of data points.
As it stands my lasting memory of Ganz comes from early in the 3rd quarter of the Colorado game. He threw back to back INTs to open drives and to help blow an 11-point halftime lead.
Even after the first one you could see the confidence leave his eyes. With my training in sport psychology I immediately turned to those I was watching the game with and said, "it's over, Colorado is going to pound us".
Those are the kind of situtations that he's sure to face a bunch in 2008. Most fans seem to focus solely on his numbers without looking at context.
Let the record show that Mike and I's argument ended with me calling him a wanker and the two of us not speaking anymore.
Just kidding. (He's still wrong though)
The statistical analysis is great, but I think it omits the single most important number--INTs. In three starts, Ganz accounted for 7. Sure, a couple came against KU when he was forced (by virtue of the score) to make aggressive throws. But others came at critical times when the Huskers were still in games.
As JH notes, Ganz' two biggest INTs came in the 3d quarter against CU. The first came at a time when the Huskers' single most important objective was to get out of the shadow of its own goalpost. Instead, Ganz forced a throw, missed badly, and the errant pass was returned for a TD. Undeterred, on the very next drive Ganz threw a bullet into triple coverage which ricocheted into the hands of yet another Buff, setting up the go-ahead TD.
Unlike Keller, Ganz understood the importance of throwing the ball to our playmakers (i.e. Purify) instead of ALWAYS checking down to Lucky. That said, his decisionmaking needs to improve. Don't get me wrong, I think Ganz will do an alright job. But I'm not buying into the 'Franchise Player' tag that the media seems ready to bestow upon him. I think it will be at least one more year before we see a QB surpass the productivity of Zac Taylor in '06 (26 TD, 8 INT).
For the moment, I think this team needs to ride its talented OL, find a running game, and get back to playing defense. The solution is NOT to place the reigns in the hands of Joe Ganz and ask him to be our Brett Favre.
One thing to remember about Ganz's back-to-back picks against the Buffies, is that on his previous pass at the end of the 1st half, Ganz walked off the field and into the locker room with his shoulder or arm dinged.
I was just curious about how many of Ganz's 7 picks came in "crunch time" or "garbage time"? I think that is as much as a gauge as the TD's are if not more. Were the picks costly and thrown when either trailing or leading by a small margin? Or where most thrown when the game was already out of hand? Turnovers are never a good thing, but an INT in a 14+ pt. victory is easily forgotten, while obviously the 2 ints against CU are not.
JH,
Good question, and I'm not sure why I didn't include INTs since I had the data available. Five of Ganz's 7 INTs came when we were trailing by 15+ points. While that is "garbage time" by my current definition, I suppose the INTs also prevented any chance of a comeback. In addition, it means that his other two INTs were the costly ones thrown during the CU game. Obviously you are going to be throwing more when you're behind 15+ points, but it will be interesting to find out how closely the number of INTs for Ganz is going correlate with his number of attempts.
After a re-read, I see now how the debate originated between Husker Mike and AJ regarding a comparison between Ganz/Keller. But it's sort of developed into this discussion of tempering expectations of Ganz. I've got to agree with Husker Mike that Ganz was the superior QB of the two, if only for the fact that the team seemed to rally around him more. How to verify this with stats is pretty tough...but I know what I saw and what I saw seemed to point to a definite discrepancy in leadership/knowledge & ability to run the offense/etc. (in favor of Ganz).
What I was happy to find was the point Jeffie just made, that the bulk of Ganz's INT's came in...let's call it "desperation time"...down by 15+. He achieved a 7-2 TD/Int. ratio in games still separated by 2 TD's or less.
I don't know how much of this is possibly making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill, as it is pretty tough to deduce concrete trends out of 150 attempts in 5 games. But like I said, I'll side with Mike & others like ADM when I say that Ganz should be a serviceable upgrade over Keller. I think that he displayed certain "intangibles" that are tough to bear out via the limited stats available, but above all, the experience he did get in directing the offense last year now seems to be priceless.
Commenting by HaloScan
