Nerds at Bucky - 11:00 ABC

[Kerb Hohl]

Why throw deep so much with a qb who doesn't have the arm strength to lead his receivers? I know Fumagalli is out but that doesn't mean you can't run some pass plays that develop a little faster.

With 9 in the box and 1 on 1 with probably no safety helping and pretty good WRs, you HAVE to. You just have to.

This is not directed towards you as you're just asking about living with Hornibrook's limitations, but even though Hornibrook was clearly playing like ****, I'm going to repeat the same goddamn thing I say almost every week. He's not Russell Wilson, he may not even be Tolzien given that Tolzien could at least kind of move...but you're going to be depressed watching Wisconsin football forever if the standard you hold the QBs up to is what you've got it at. They've got a top ~30-40 college QB and a stacked team elsewhere and it probably will only be better than that once per decade. Enjoy it.

I like him. I think he's a potentially very good pitch-and-catch guy. He has great touch. I'm not even saying "don't throw deep"; just don't throw so deep that the only way he can get it there is lob it as high in the air as possible and hope it comes within 10 feet of where it should be to lead the receiver. I have few complaints about Chryst but it seems he had a little bit of the run-run-throw deep if the first two plays don't work mentality last game.

Yeah, I definitely wasn't directing that 2nd paragraph at you...just the general "yank him" thing that comes up every game from others. And it did every game with Stave, who we were kinda stuck with with coaching changes, etc. and he wasn't even that bad.

[Kerb Hohl]

I will disagree a bit on the run-run-throw thing, though.

I think what killed them late in the 1st quarter, early 2nd, is that the PA deep ball clearly had to be there with the how many runs we had and the PA pass eventually had to be there. Hornibrook slipped and took a sack on one and had some bad awareness/throws and it put us way behind the sticks, throwing off every drive. It's not ideal, but that's the limitation that we live with with almost any QB.

[Lippo]

Had a golf tourney, didn't get to watch the game til last night, Horni played about what Ive come to expect from him, will cost us a game this year, and loss will drop us out of the top 20. He really has to be able to hit fly routes when we have them beat by 10 yards though... Defense continues to make big plays when we need them. We really need a return threat, a special teams TD could win us a big game....

Bucky is so different than the Packers
With the Badgers I almost feel like the other teams best chance to score if when Horni drops back, and our best chance is on D, when we aren't running it successfully at least. Polar opposite of watch a GB game....

[Kerb Hohl]

Horni played about what Ive come to expect from him, will cost us a game this year

You can say this about 95% of college QBs.

[Bernman]

Yeah, I definitely wasn't directing that 2nd paragraph at you...just the general "yank him" thing that comes up every game from others. And it did every game with Stave, who we were kinda stuck with with coaching changes, etc. and he wasn't even that bad.

It should have been contemplated last game though with that bulky knee brace and limping around at times. I think that contributed to the early turnovers and sacks. Doesn't mean we don't generally have to stick with him and did with his predecessors considering the are worse or equivalent. Grass is always greener to some, but rarely has been in reality since one year of Russell. His successors have been anywhere from decent (Stave) to mediocre (Houston/Horni) to poor (Phillips) to atrocious (DOB). Only one backup proved clearly better than the starter, that being Stave over DOB, and they made the move accordingly.

[Kerb Hohl]

Yeah, I definitely wasn't directing that 2nd paragraph at you...just the general "yank him" thing that comes up every game from others. And it did every game with Stave, who we were kinda stuck with with coaching changes, etc. and he wasn't even that bad.

It should have been contemplated last game though with that bulky knee brace and limping around at times. I think that contributed to the early turnovers and sacks. Doesn't mean we don't generally have to stick with him and did with his predecessors considering the are worse or equivalent. Grass is always greener to some, but rarely has been in reality since one year of Russell. His successors have been anywhere from decent (Stave) to mediocre (Houston/Horni) to poor (Phillips) to atrocious (DOB). Only one clearly better than the alternative was Stave over DOB.

I think his knee issue looked like a problem for the remainder of the series that he tweaked it. Think he was fine after that.

You were always a Stave backer (and I also was) and it's interesting that you've called Stave decent and have Horni at mediocre.

He's only a RS sophomore and he's got excellent stats this year (yes, I know much of it was against air opponents). I think that Horni could easily be better than Stave in the end. We'll see how this conference season plays out.

Coan is a true freshman. Maybe he's really good and the egg is on our face, but oddly enough, even though Chryst has been here several years now, he is still a year or two away of having a full cupboard stocked of his QBs (an upperclassman and a few underclassman options). Given the Kafentzis/Gillins situation, we don't have an upperclassman. Horni is basically there but now our options behind him are freshmen.

[Bernman]

I think his knee issue looked like a problem for the remainder of the series that he tweaked it. Think he was fine after that.

You were always a Stave backer (and I also was) and it's interesting that you've called Stave decent and have Horni at mediocre.

He's only a RS sophomore and he's got excellent stats this year (yes, I know much of it was against air opponents). I think that Horni could easily be better than Stave in the end. We'll see how this conference season plays out.

Coan is a true freshman. Maybe he's really good and the egg is on our face, but oddly enough, even though Chryst has been here several years now, he is still a year or two away of having a full cupboard stocked of his QBs (an upperclassman and a few underclassman options). Given the Kafentzis/Gillins situation, we don't have an upperclassman. Horni is basically there but now our options behind him are freshmen.

It's not really interesting at all.

I thought Stave was decent/solid because he made good decisions outside the occasional game where his confidence was shot (some from his own doing and others from Gare), he was mobile enough to buy time and scramble for the occasional first, and he had enough arm strength to fit the ball into some seams against better teams. A lot of his flack I think came from playing the year following Russell, being a walk-on, and not hitting receivers long in stride but still giving them chances to make catches.

I think Hornibrook is half a tier below that because he doesn't have a lot of these attributes. Maybe he's not as prone to having the occasional game where his confidence is shot (although in fairness a staff hasn't screwed him over) and he is somewhat more accurate in general. But he does possess significantly worse arm and mobility, meaning you're tenuous against better teams. They went in another direction fairly enough after playing them last year, and this year the schedule is soft. Smallish sample. Also hasn't had 1 and a half years under Gare/Dudwig. You can't judge them comparatively a lot on stats with that in mind.

[Kerb Hohl]

I think his knee issue looked like a problem for the remainder of the series that he tweaked it. Think he was fine after that.

You were always a Stave backer (and I also was) and it's interesting that you've called Stave decent and have Horni at mediocre.

He's only a RS sophomore and he's got excellent stats this year (yes, I know much of it was against air opponents). I think that Horni could easily be better than Stave in the end. We'll see how this conference season plays out.

Coan is a true freshman. Maybe he's really good and the egg is on our face, but oddly enough, even though Chryst has been here several years now, he is still a year or two away of having a full cupboard stocked of his QBs (an upperclassman and a few underclassman options). Given the Kafentzis/Gillins situation, we don't have an upperclassman. Horni is basically there but now our options behind him are freshmen.

It's not really interesting at all.

I thought Stave was decent/solid because he made good decisions outside the occasional game where his confidence was shot (some from his own doing and others from Gare), he was mobile enough to buy time and scramble for the occasional first, and he had enough arm strength to fit the ball into some seams against better teams. A lot of his flack I think came from playing the year following Russell, being a walk-on, and not hitting receivers long in stride but still giving them chances to make catches.

I think Hornibrook is half a tier below that because he doesn't have a lot of these attributes. Maybe he's not as prone to having the occasional game where his confidence is shot (although in fairness a staff hasn't screwed him over) and he is somewhat more accurate in general. But he does possess significantly worse arm and mobility, meaning you're tenuous against better teams. They went in another direction fairly enough after playing them last year, and this year the schedule is soft. Smallish sample. Also hasn't had 1 and a half years under Gare/Dudwig. You can't judge them comparatively a lot on stats with that in mind.

That's not a bad take. The mobility and arm strength are obviously an issue, but some of the balls he drops in the bucket over the top do make up for it a bit. I'm just not sure if Coan is a better option right now and we also should see how he looks through B10 play, because in general he looks "good enough" to me even with the deficiencies.