With all the Heisman talk regarding Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M, I decided to take a deeper look into whether or not he was really the best quarterback in the country this year. What follows does not answer that question, but this analysis serves to frame the discussion in something approaching an objective way. I want to first note that, in this context, by “best” I mean “most production within a given offense and/or scheme”. There is no practical way to separate out the effect of the quarterback from that of the rest of his offense, so I am not going to try. This is why we have eyes and minds, to sort out the effects of scheme and surrounding talent, but I prefer to start with the stats and work from there rather than the other way around.
I have taken the quarterbacks with the most attempts this season from the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC, and rated them in a variety of ways using their stats from conference play only. This is to limit the discussion to a major conference players, among which we may reasonably expect to find the best quarterback, and the opposition to the rough standard of “major conference opposition.” I no longer consider the Big East to be a major conference in football, so I left them out. I compared each player to the average of the group in the study in the following metrics, listed below with the reason for inclusion:
Touches per game – In this case, total touches means pass attempts plus rushes. This is to give credit where credit is due for a player being expected to carry his team.
Yards per game – This is to measure raw total progress toward scoring for his team, even if he did not record the ultimate score.
Completion percentage – This is to account for passing accuracy.
Yards per pass – This is to account for success throwing deep, as well as the ability to lead a receiver so that he can get yards after the catch.
Passing touchdown percentage – This is the percentage of passes resulting in touchdowns, and accounts for a quarterback’s scoring by that means.
Interception percentage – This is the percentage of passes that are intercepted, which is an attempt to account for ending drives without the ability to score.
Yards per rush – This is to measure how effectively a quarterback runs. Note that in the NCAA, sacks and the lost yardage from them are counted as runs, so quarterbacks who get sacked more often tend to have lower figures. I also adjusted this so that the lowest figure was a zero, and rated players from there.
Rushing touchdown percentage – This is the percentage of runs leading to touchdowns, and accounts for scoring by that means.
Personally, I would have left out the running aspects, but since Johnny Manziel was the inspiration for the study, it would have been incomplete to leave out quarterback running. Each number for each quarterback was compared to average, and all six figures then averaged to get a final score for each player. This results in passing skill having twice the impact of either sheer productivity or running skill. I am fine with this, as even running quarterbacks generally have throwing the ball as their primary job.
Now, then, I am going to list the top ten quarterbacks with over 30 touches per game in alphabetical order. In my opinion, they all have arguments for claiming to have been the best this year. Again, remember that technically each player’s name does not represent only the player himself, but the player in the context of team and scheme in which he plays, so “Johnny Manziel” really means “Johnny Manziel, with Texas A&M’s offensive personnel and Kevin Sumlin’s offensive scheme.” Take it for what you will.
Tajh Boyd, Clemson
Passing: 177/267, 2620 yards, 27 TD, 10 INT
Running: 113 att, 391 yards, 8 TD
Tajh Boyd racked up 47.5 touches per game, one of the highest marks in the group studied. He averaged 376.4 yards per game, including 9.8 per pass. Boyd completed an excellent 66.3% of his passes, and 10.1% of his passes went for touchdowns, the only player to top double digits. Boyd averaged 3.5 yards per carry, which is effective if not spectacular.
Nick Florence, Baylor
Passing: 182/302, 2821 yards, 19 TD, 9 INT
Running: 82 att, 301 yards, 8 TD
Nick Florence averaged 48 touches per game for Baylor, quite a vote of confidence by Art Briles as he followed up Robert Griffin III. While he only completed 60.3% of his passes, he still averaged 9.3 yards per pass and 3.7 yards per carry en route to 390.3 yards per game to lead an elite Bear offense.
Brett Hundley, UCLA
Passing: 200/294, 2407 yards, 18 TD, 7 INT
Running: 107 att, 163 yards, 7 TD
Hundley was the center of the Bruin offense this year with 44.6 touches per game, but he only tallied 285.6 yards per contest. He excelled in hitting his targets and protecting the ball though, with a completion percentage of 68.0% and an interception rate of only 2.4%. Hundley didn’t rack up a lot of yards on the ground, but he did score 6.5% of the time.
Collin Klein, Kansas State
Passing: 129/199, 1697 yards, 9 TD, 4 INT
Running: 125 att, 577 yards, 16 TD
Klein isn’t quite as central as some of the other quarterbacks in this list, but with 40.5 touches per game he is still plenty involved. While not a great passing-touchdown machine, only generating touchdowns on 4.5% of his throws, he has completed 64.8% of his passes to help keep the chains moving. Klein averaged 4.6 yards per carry and is the only quarterback in this list to notch a touchdown on over 10% of his runs.
Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M
Passing: 200/284, 2289 yards, 11 TD, 6 INT
Running: 128 att, 698 yards, 10 TD
The inspiration for this study, Johnny Manziel is among the best runners in the group, averaging 5.5 yards per carry and a touchdown on 7.8% of his carries. Highly accurate, Manziel completed 70.4% of his throws, the only quarterback in this list to achieve that feat. Given the volume of passes, his interception rate is very good at 2.1%, but he has only thrown touchdowns on 3.9% of his passes, the lowest rate on this list.
Marcus Mariota, Oregon
Passing: 160/235, 1837 yards, 22 TD, 5 INT
Running: 76 att, 582 yards, 4 TD
Famed for running Oregon’s hyperspeed attack, Mariota only averaged 34.6 touches and 268.8 yards per game, both the lowest marks in this list. That said, he averaged 7.8 yards per pass and 7.7 per run, while throwing touchdowns on 9.4% of his passes. He was typically right on target as well, completing 68.1% of his throws and only turning the ball over on 2.1%.
Matt McGloin, Penn State
Passing: 187/306, 2265 yards, 15 TD, 3 INT
Running: 43 att, -80 yards, 3 TD
This was the biggest surprise of this entire project for me. He was rather average in this group for the most part, though he did carry a lot of the load for Penn State with 43.6 touches per game. What really set him apart, however, was that he practically never turned the ball over with a 1.0% interception rate. Three rushing touchdowns with only 43 carries was a pretty good rate as well.
Taylor Martinez, Nebraska
Passing: 130/216, 1605 yards, 12 TD, 7 INT
Running: 119 att, 642 yards, 6 TD
Martinez put up good numbers across the board when running the ball, which carried his relatively unimpressive 60.2% completion percentage and 7.4 yards per pass. Racking up 41.9 touches per game helped as well.
Geno Smith, West Virginia
Passing: 231/348, 2525 yards, 25 TD, 5 INT
Running: 44 att, 82 yards, 1 TD
Early Heisman candidate Geno Smith has rather unimpressive running numbers. That said, he takes a lot of touches (49.0) and puts up a lot of yards (325.9) for the Mountaineers. A touchdown rate of 7.2% against an interception rate of only 1.4% over 348 passes puts him in the conversation.
Bo Wallace, Mississippi
Passing: 158/250, 2126 yards, 12 TD, 11 INT
Running: 91 att, 184 yards, 6 TD
This was another surprise. Wallace put up the worst interception rate (4.4%) of anyone on this list, and his 4.9% touchdown rate was only about average in the whole group. He did put up 42.6 touches per game with 288.8 yards per contest, which combined with good (for a quarterback in the study) running stats gives him an argument.
Those are the guys who have claims to “best quarterback” status. Some arguments are stronger than others, clearly, and while Manziel may win the Heisman, I think this shows that he’s not the slam-dunk candidate that some people think he is.
JLO Sports 