Clausen/Quinn Midseason Breakdown

Last offseason, this site came up with a three part article attempting to draw some comparisons between the freshman seasons of Brady Quinn and Jimmy Clausen. I thought that while we're in the middle of a slow bye week, it would be interesting to take a look at where the two stood after the first half of their sophomore seasons. From this high-tech Excel breakdown, it looks like Clausen is throwing (on average) more passes at a higher completion rate. JC is throwing for more yards per game, but his passes are averaging less yards per attempt.

One thing interesting to draw from last season's comparisons is that during freshman year, Quinn was attempting more passes and throwing for more YPG, and this trend has appeared to flip this season. Also, while JC is throwing 2.3 TDs to BQ's 1.5, the pair are virtually even in TD/INT ratio with Jimmy at 1.75 and Brady at 1.8. Feel free to chime in with any observations you have from the data above, but the most interesting info I got came from looking at YPG and Attempts Per Game:
Both squads were 4-2 through 6 games, and I have gone through and marked the losses of both teams. You'll notice that there seems to be a weak positive correlation between pass yards per game and losing, and although it may not seem that significant in the above graph, the chart marking attempts per game makes it fairly obvious.


The magic number seems to be 40 attempts: stay at or under and the team winds, go above that mark and you're itching for a loss. The tricky thing here is that equating passing to losing is sort of a 'chicken/egg' situation (i.e. are you losing because you're passing, or are you passing because you're losing?), but for this season, I think it is decently easy to resolve that dilemma. Against MSU, Notre Dame wasn't passing because they were down early, they were passing because they absolutely could not run the ball. At North Carolina, Weis and Co. came out with guns blazing, throwing on 14 of their first 18 plays (and the other 4 plays were 3 qb draws and a sack).


The bottom line is that numbers are just numbers, and they can't really ever tell the whole story, but maybe this chart suggests that these quarterbacks are still too young to shoulder 40+ attempt responsibility. Maybe Weis needs to learn how to incorporate his three-headed RB team and improving run blocking later in the game (what if the first play in the second half of the UNC game was a run?). If the aerial assault is to continue in 2008, Weis and Clausen need to figure out a way of eliminating the increased interceptions that come with increased pass attempts, otherwise we could be in for more disappointing losses in the second half of the year.


The good news that comes out of this post is that Jimmy is very comparable to Brady through the first season and a half, with Clausen arguably out performing Quinn. After sitting on my couch watching Big Ten football all weekend, I can tell you that Irish fans under appreciate a sophomore's ability to throw catchable balls on every attempt. The future has the potential to be very bright for Notre Dame, let's hope that the team can find a way to crank up the light switch.


Go Irish.