Benchmark Glennon: What Does One Game Mean?

'11 Football ACC NC State NCS Football Tom O'Brien39

Before I go into any of this, I can not emphasize enough how much one game can only give us a glimpse of what to look for in the future.  Still, I thought it would at least settle some nerves to take a look at the starting quarterbacks of the past 10 years and consider how each player fared in their debut start compared to how well they finished their first “starting season”.

FIRST, THE CAST…

Philip Rivers (#17) fielded his first start against Arkansas St in 2000, leading the Wolfpack over their opponent 38-31.  He finished the day connecting 51% of all passing attempts (29-51) and racking up a total of 397 passing yards.

Jay Davis (#10) started against Richmond in 2004, the season following a Tangerine Bowl victory over Kansas, crushing the Spiders 42-0.  He connected an impressive 73% of his passes (16-22) averaging 11 yards per completion.

Marcus Stone (#9) began his starting career during the 2005 homecoming game against Southern Mississippi leading NC State to a 21-17 victory, largely due to the help of a break-out game by Andre Brown.  Stone, who originally was a back-up for Jay Davis, only connected 38% of his passes (10-26) but managed to total 128 passing yards for the day and 13 yards per completion.  About the only good thing people recall about Stone’s tenure was his ability to truck unsuspecting defenders.

Daniel Evans (#7), son of famous Wolfpacker and current radio voice of the Wolfpack Johnny Evans, opened up two games into the 2006 season against Boston College leading the Wolfpacker over the Eagles 17-15.  He completed just under 50% of his passes (15-31), totaled 179 yards, and earned 12 yards per completion.

(NOTE: Harrison Beck didn’t see a massive amount of playing time the way these other guys did, so I didn’t include him in this list.  Sorry, buddy.)

Russell Wilson (#16) is… actually, scratch that.  If you don’t know who Russell Wilson is, you’ve probably navigated to the wrong site.  Russell opened against Clemson a couple games into the 2008 season.  The Pack fell short of defeating the Tigers 9-27.  Wilson’s passing game was on par with Daniel Evans (48% or 10-21), but his rushing game was on full display (compared to how every other quarterback fared in their season opener).  The rookie quarterback rushed 13 times for a total of 26 yards, the most rushing attempts for any quarterback in the past decade.  Wilson averaged 9.2 yards per completion that night.  It’s ironic that despite how much everyone enjoyed Wilson’s tenure, he is the only quarterback in this list to open up with a defeat; though, it’s worth noting that he also opened up to arguably the toughest defense of anyone else, as well. (NOTE: Wilson was actually slated to start the 2008 season opener against USC, but was injured after only 1 quarter or two full drives.  For the purpose of this analysis, I’m assuming that only getting to play for one series doesn’t really help you get your “first game jitters” out of the way, so for all intensive purposes… his “first full start” was against Clemson.  Thanks LRM for the head’s up.)

Mike Glennon (#8) started Saturday against the Liberty Flames in a 43-21 victory.  I know everyone is aware of this, but I’m writing it for posterity.  Glennon completed 58% of his passes (18-31) and racked up 156 yards for an average of 8.7 yards per completion.  Glennon only rushed 6 times, amounting to -26 yards, but I’m sure as every NC State blog on the internet will be willing to tell you, that was because of the O-line or whatever other force of God we are blaming performance on these days.  Please excuse my cynicism.

SO, WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?

The short answer is… for what we’re talking about we’re not that interested in the game in general.  For Glennon, what you have is a quarterback that had hiss start at the beginning of the season, had to overcome some difficulties, made some incredibly stupid mistakes, but still gave a glimpse (maybe) of what he could or could not be.  It’s worth noting that Jay Davis and Philip Rivers are the only other quarterbacks on this list that debuted as a starter for the first game of the season.  Every other quarterback on this list debuted as a starter sometime in mid-season.  Glennon was forced into a situation where he had to debut as a new starting quarterback with an entirely fresh squad right out of summer camp, albeit an experienced one.

I can tell you what Glennon didn’t do: turn the ball over through interceptions.  That may be reaching to see the positive in Saturday’s game, but its something that shouldn’t be overlooked.  To be honest, I’m shocked that more people aren’t pointing that out, especially after some of the quarterbacks that came between Philip Rivers and Russell Wilson.  Now you may be saying “yeah, but Glennon did fumble the ball which was returned for a touchdown”.  Well, he fumbled when he got sacked and he only fumbled during one of his 4 premature run-ins with Liberty’s defense (still waiting on that legendary O’Brien O-line to show up).  I’m somewhat able to overlook that and recognize that as a quarterback, Glennon does have enough sense to not throw the ball to the wrong team.  It’s something and it gives me some confidence that no matter how Glennon turned out, hopefully we won’t be dealing with him willingly giving the ball to our opponents the way it’s felt previous quarterbacks have in the past.

ANYWAY, HOW DOES GLENNON’S PERFORMANCE FORECAST THIS SEASON’S FUTURE?

Long story short, last night doesn’t mean one damn thing in terms of who Glennon is or isn’t.  It’s all up to Glennon’s work ethic and how O’Brien and Bible develop him.

Here are the facts.  We all know who we liked and didn’t like ‘behind center’ over the past 10 years, right?  I think everyone agrees that besides Rivers and Wilson, NC State has died by their quarterbacking.

Let’s look at how everyone’s arm debuted in terms of passing percentage (red/top axis) and average yards per completion (blue/bottom axis).


In terms of distance, the only result that you might expect is for Philip Rivers to be a total beast .  What you may not be expecting to see is the next biggest contenders for strongest arm to be Marcus Stone, Daniel Evans, and Jay Davis, respectively.  Now, there are several reasons why Russell Wilson may have such a low average passing distance and percentage (such as issues with the receiving core), but the stats are what they are.

‘Average yards per completion’ is deceptive because it could simply be how the offensive coordinator decided to run the offense and not how capable the quarterback is, but the passing completions should be at least somewhat comparable between players, baring some discussion on the level of pressure each quarterback faced from the opposing team’s defense.  Obviously a quarterback who is facing an opponent like Clemson will probably have his receivers shut down more frequently than someone playing Richmond, which likely explains why Jay Davis’ passing percentage was so high sompared to Wilson’s.  All you can tell at this point in time is that judging the outcome of a quarterback is deceptive when you only look at their first time starting on the field and not how they evolved through the season.

Maybe if we look at the same stats over the course of each quarterback’s first season, we can see some kind of trend between their debut and what they ended up becoming.

…nope.

What you find when you look at the remainder of each quarterback’s season is that each individual’s passing ability leveled out to be about the same.  “So, NCStatePride, what’s the point of showing us this?”, you may ask.  The purpose of this plot is to prove that the ability of each quarterback isn’t necessarily in what their boxscore stats show, but in what happens off the field.  Maybe a better graphic to prove this point is in how each player’s passing percentage and average yards per completion improved over their first seasons.

Philip Rivers started great in his season opener and he stayed great (less than 10% change in his accuracy and distance per game).  That’s just who Rivers was… consistently impressive.  Wilson started mediocre and under the coaching of O’Brien and Bible improved to become who we all knew him as in the 2008 through 2010 season posting a 15% increase in his accuracy and an amazing 40% increase in his average range per game.  The point of this whole analysis is that Glennon’s mediocre performance proves nothing other than he isn’t a Rivers who will come in on day one and instantly win our hearts and souls.  Glennon’s start proves that he is a quarterback in control of his own destiny and that if he listens to the instruction and training of the very qualified Wolfpack coaching staff, he can become something great.

BOTTOM LINE (AND SOME NOTES ABOUT THE RUNNING GAME)…

Glennon will be relying on the coaching staff.  It’s been said time and time again that this is “put up or shut up” time for Coach O’Brien and his staff so what better way to “put up” for the fans than to develop Glennon into a machine?  Last season, he amazed the fan base and shocked the critics with his ranked 9-win season and victory over West Virginia in the Champs Bowl.  What everyone is looking for now is consistency in success.  Glennon didn’t start his career in any kind of irrecoverable hole.  If anything, Glennon started with a far more accurate arm than Rivers did (58% completions for Mike and 51% for Philip).  Let’s keep in mind, however, that Glennon is an older player now than when Philip debuted as a rookie starter.

If Glennon develops in the footsteps of Russell Wilson, the Wolfpack will be perfectly fine.  Remember, Wilson developed best in the area of yards per completion, making him a true deep-field threat.  The one area Glennon really lagged behind last Saturday was in yards per completion.

What we need to watch out for, with respect to Glennon’s development, is (a) how Glennon is developed into a greater long-range threat while maintaining his level of accuracy and (b) what Glennon does with his running game.  Glennon had 6 rushing attempts and lost 26 yards.  Now, the offensive line can be looked at if we’re trying to point fingers, but the bottom line is that the guys Glennon lined up behind last Saturday are the same guys he’ll be lining up behind when we play Carolina.  As the rest of the team improves, we can’t have a quarterback who is losing a quarter of the field per game (not to mention that NC State fans are just getting off the ‘rushing’ high that Wilson left… racking up an average of 39 yards per game in his starting season).

Glennon had an average start, and where he goes from here is up to him.  That is the message… the only message… that you can take from last Saturday’s game.

About NCStatePride

***ABOUT THE AUTHOR: NCStatePride has been writing for StateFansNation.com since 2010 and is a 2009 graduate of the College of Engineering.

'11 Football ACC NC State NCS Football Tom O'Brien

Home › Forums › Benchmark Glennon: What Does One Game Mean?

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  • 09/05/2011 at 5:11 PM #39367
    JEOH2
    Participant

    so should the coach ask the team if they should go for it on 4th down or kick a field goal? Who they want to schedule in the future? What kind of leadership would a coach have if every major decision was based on a direct democracy?

    09/05/2011 at 5:16 PM #39368
    imawolf
    Participant

    tjfoose1 I saw the same game you saw……in fact once, he was so locked in on one receiver he missed another man so wide open, it was a for sure touch down….I think it was our second possession. The receiver was so wide open, he was doing jumping jacks trying to get Glennon’s attention.

    09/05/2011 at 5:30 PM #39369
    Wolfy__79
    Member

    glennon will be fine! he may not be rivers, but he is a much better transition from rw than say davis, evans or beck! give him a break and enjoy the teams progress through the season. he got smacked around saturday and got back up and it didn’t appear to phase him. TOB touts him as having a steep learning curve.. after the initial impression from watching the game.. i’m over the lackluster performance. there are alot of big expectations for him as the qb. i think we can temper those a bit, but not on the overall team and our coach. all in all, i think we’ll be bowling and playing some pretty solid football towards the end of the season. who knows, glennon’s steep learning curve may rub off on his wr’s and blow up the acc!

    09/05/2011 at 6:08 PM #39370
    Gene
    Participant

    “What I saw from Glennon was a QB with a strong, accurate arm who needs to become accustomed to game speed. I’m not down on Glennon at all. Quite the opposite actually. I’m excited we will have him as our QB the next two years, and look forward to many great games from him as the season progresses.’

    Pretty much my thoughts on Glennon. He threw a lot of balls behind receivers, but he has the arm to be very good, if he can mentally play faster and get his timing down.

    I agree with what one of the commentators said, he throws a pretty ball.

    Hopefully it will translate to something positive this year.

    09/05/2011 at 6:15 PM #39371
    mak4dpak
    Participant

    Hopefully Glennon will take all the negativity over his first game performance, and make it a positive, with more desire to show the nay sayers that he deserves his job as the starting quarterback. One game certainly isn’t a good measurement of his ability.

    09/05/2011 at 6:43 PM #39372
    runwiththepack
    Participant

    Pride, good work.
    Saturday’s game was not the start i was hoping for – for either NCSU or the new qb. But, there is still a lot of time to fix what wasn’t up to par, given the relatively easy Sept schedule. Last year’s VA Tech season is an excellent case-in-point. I don’t think Liberty is much, if any, less of a team than JMU was when they knocked off VA Tech. By the end of the season, that game proved to be more of an upset than the AppSt/MI game, didn’t it?

    Some of us are hung up on comparing Glennon to RW. No reason to rehash or compare, but it keeps happening anyway. I haven’t seen anything yet to persuade me that one year of RW would be better than two years of Glennon. But for those who insist on making this compare/contrast, I would love to start a thread about last year being Wilson’s “third-best year” at NCSU. (I typed “worst” at first, but caught myself in time and corrected it.)

    If Glennon can get more comfortable and adjusted at his position, I still hold out a LOT of hope for him to put up big numbers in at least a few games before the year is over. We don’t need our new qb to be the best player on the team in order to have a good season like last year. We’ve got players all over the field who were good, or better than “good”, in 2010. I am convinced that Glennon improved 100% by the end of the game.

    My concern Saturday is just as much for all the other experienced players as it is for inexperienced Glennon. Experience very well may prove to be all that Glennon needs.

    But, on Saturday v. Liberty, there was just as much concern about the experienced players, who don’t have as many excuses as Glennon does for that worrisome first half.

    Go, Wolfpack! We got a W. Hopefully we can get about 7 or 8 more this year, but that goal is clearly in jeopardy based on the Liberty game. @WF is a much better measure of the 2011 season.

    09/05/2011 at 7:18 PM #39373
    coach13
    Participant

    I am hoping with a game under his belt he will refine some issues.

    1-He has to develop an internal alarm clock…couple of the sacks were on him for holding the ball too long.

    2-he has to at least try a long ball. He went safe or uncatachable.

    3-recognize double coverage which he threw into alot early.

    Issue Glennon has he cannot control is his receiving group. I don’t know what the hell happened to George but he had a drop and completely disappeared. I said in another post, but when your FB is line up as a slot receiver, something is wrong.

    09/05/2011 at 7:54 PM #39374
    tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc
    Member

    Please stop repeating the “game speed” excuse that the radio guys kept using last night. This guy is not an 18 year old true freshman. If he is still adjusting to “game speed” in his forth year, the team has bigger problems.

    Game speed against Liberty? Really? Do you think Wilson would of had a problem adjusting to the Liberty Flames’ game speed? Why the heck is spring and summer important if you are still learning about the speed of the game in September?

    09/05/2011 at 8:05 PM #39375
    NCStatePride
    Member

    tcthdi, I’m not sure you get how this works. When you are a second-stringer, by definition, you aren’t feeling the pressures of the first-string quarterback. When you are a freshmen and are watching everyone else play, you aren’t really growing a lot. What you are doing is learning how the system works, what routes to call, and increasing your abilities as a quarterback to connect with your receivers and avoid mistakes.

    Glennon didn’t do good. We get it. He did go an entire game without making any unforced fumbles or throwing any interceptions. He completed 58% of his passes which is better than Wilson or Rivers did their first game on the field. Sure, you could use your logic to say “but Rivers was a freshmen”, but Wilson had been around for at least a little while. Shouldn’t he have done better? What I’m trying to point out is that you are completely throwing out the window the fact that this “junior quarterback” has just as much experience as a redshirt sophomore quarterback on the field. He’s learning. If you didn’t expect any learning curve throughout the first few games of the season in Glennon, then I’d argue you are either being unreasonable or stupid. You pick.

    09/05/2011 at 9:29 PM #39376
    SuperStuff
    Participant

    It’s his first start and his first full game. Glennon will develop into a nice QB when he gets more experience.

    09/05/2011 at 10:31 PM #39377
    Wolfman 9806
    Participant

    Great post! Puts my mind at ease a little more after a lack luster first game. I really hope that we are going to rally around Mike. He has been nothing short of a class act here at State. He doesn’t deserve to be compared to RW every week by the State community as he will certainly hear it from the media.

    RW is a great alum of our university and I hope that his performance this year leads to an opportunity in the NFL. He’s also a class act and hopefully will find success in pro sports.

    TOB is our coach and made the best decision in a unique and difficult situation. He has brought stability and even more so hope to purr program after the circus side-show we became under CTC.

    In short, for some of you, stop f**king bitching and let’s support this team!

    09/05/2011 at 10:35 PM #39378
    Greywolf
    Participant

    “I was extremely disappointed in Glennon’s performance especially if you compare to how well Renner performed. He set an ACC record for gosh sakes.”

    The only way to be extremely disappointed is to have extremely high expectations. Don’t try to put your disappointment on Glennon.

    Another way to look at Glennon vs. Renner: Glennon has no way to go but up. Renner has no way to go but down. You can count on Greywolf to NEVER have a favorable comparison with UNX over State.

    09/05/2011 at 10:41 PM #39379
    redcanine
    Participant

    The guy won by 20 points in his first game as a starter. I’d feel pretty happy about that if I were the QB.

    What if he doesn’t light WFU up this weekend? So what, as long as he does enough for us to win.

    09/05/2011 at 11:19 PM #39380
    Master
    Participant

    Is it going to be like this every week on this site? It’s 2011 and we have a new team with new players. Is Glennon the only guy we can rip or is there an agenda?

    NCStatePride: Rather than delete this, I thought I’d make a point. It’s blatantly obvious that you didn’t read the article or didn’t get anything out of it. Absolutely NONE of this article is about “ripping Glennon” and it’s not about comparing him to Russell Wilson or starting another Russell Wilson discussion. In the future, I would encourage you to actually read the content on this site rather then assume what is or isn’t being discussed.

    09/06/2011 at 9:00 AM #39381
    lonewolf
    Member

    I dont follow this as closely as a lot of you do apparently, but it seems to me we may be focusing on Glennon too much and not enough on the rest of the team. He seems capable of being a succesful QB if the rest of the pack come through. He is not Russell Wilson for better or worse and that ship has sailed. The test for TOB will be W & L’s in the end. Its his program. Let him run it and hold him responsible. Wilson was more fun to watch but getting a 10+ win season could be even “funner”.

    09/06/2011 at 8:13 PM #39382
    Master
    Participant

    NCStatePride – I did read the entire article. I understand well how to use words that cast a subjective stance on an objective issue. Please excuse my cynicism.

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