[DC 86]

Watson played like four full games his true freshman year; while impressive, his stats are hardly representative. Rosen and Browning are, like Hurts, relatively rare examples of positive true freshman QB play. But, overall, if you look at all the data, the conclusion that true freshmen QBs are typically bad stands firm.

Watson played in eight games and started five, of course his statistics would have regressed over a full season but were still superlative. Even the article you cite has a chart of true freshman starters since 2000 and their overall statistics are far from "bad". Even Eason was merely mediocre, not bad.

Of course true freshmen are not going to be as successful as more experienced players, but the advent of early enrollment, personal QB coaching starting in junior high school and simplified spread offenses are going to make it more common to see true freshmen succeed. Not as likely at Stanford, but likely elsewhere.

As I said, I agree with your overall premise, but not with Hurts being analogous to a Halley's Comet sighting, since we had two strong true freshmen in our own conference a year ago. If you reduce the data set to top recruits (such as the ones in the Grantland chart and the type of recruit such as Mills that Stanford would be considering) then the results are respectable and far from bad, certainly a level that we would have been satisfied with this past year.

[DC 86]

Watson played like four full games his true freshman year; while impressive, his stats are hardly representative. Rosen and Browning are, like Hurts, relatively rare examples of positive true freshman QB play. But, overall, if you look at all the data, the conclusion that true freshmen QBs are typically bad stands firm.

Watson played in eight games and started five, of course his statistics would have regressed over a full season but were still superlative. Even the article you cite has a chart of true freshman starters since 2000 and their overall statistics are far from "bad". Even Eason was merely mediocre, not bad.

Of course true freshmen are not going to be as successful as more experienced players, but the advent of early enrollment, personal QB coaching starting in junior high school and simplified spread offenses are going to make it more common to see true freshmen succeed. Not as likely at Stanford, but likely elsewhere.

As I said, I agree with your overall premise, but not with Hurts being analogous to a Halley's Comet sighting, since we had two strong true freshmen in our own conference a year ago. If you reduce the data set to top recruits (such as the ones in the Grantland chart and the type of recruit such as Mills that Stanford would be considering) then the results are respectable and far from bad, certainly a level that we would have been satisfied with this past year.