[washingtonismoney]

Lastly, I would characterize Costello's ceiling as unknown, rather than higher.

BC

Hmmm, I would quibble. Nearly by definition -- in the sports sense -- if you have a ceiling it's unknown. (It's basically the "upper bound of realistic possibilities." That automatically introduces uncertainty: both in whether the athlete will reach that ceiling, and whether that's an accurate description at all. Unrealistic things happen reasonably frequently, right?)

Anyway, with that in mind, I think it's pretty fair to say Costello has a higher ceiling. We've seen nearly three-quarters of a season of Chryst's play by now, so we have a sense of his performance, both statistically and by eye. It's hard to imagine Chryst can get *way* better than he is now; for example, Hogan, who had some ups and downs, didn't get below 7.2 yards per attempt (in his redshirt freshman year's half-season) or 7.9 YPA (in his redshirt junior year). I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of QBs, of course, so if any examples of QBs playing as ... mediocre ... as Chryst has early in his career come to mind, please do mention him. Meanwhile Chryst is currently a redshirt junior. He's pretty experienced! I feel pretty confident in saying what we've seen is what we've got, with the caveat that he has some strong plays or even games where you get to thinking.

It's hard to fix *really* precisely what Costello's realistic ceiling is, by contrast. We've got at least some performance to go on. (Notably, Costello's four games have featured an equal number 60+% completion days as Chryst has in his career so far -- excluding cameo appearances for both.) He's a redshirt freshman; in general, they tend to have more upside than your random redshirt junior. He visually looks the part. So pretty comfortable in saying Costello has more potential than Chryst. How much more? I can't say. Costello could realistically be Sean Mannion, or he could also realistically be Kevin Hogan. (He could less realistically be even better.) But either option is comfortably better than Chryst's optimized season-long best -- at least that's my strong hunch.

[washingtonismoney]

Lastly, I would characterize Costello's ceiling as unknown, rather than higher.

BC

Hmmm, I would quibble. Nearly by definition -- in the sports sense -- if you have a ceiling it's unknown. (It's basically the "upper bound of realistic possibilities." That automatically introduces uncertainty: both in whether the athlete will reach that ceiling, and whether that's an accurate description at all. Unrealistic things happen reasonably frequently, right?)

Anyway, with that in mind, I think it's pretty fair to say Costello has a higher ceiling. We've seen nearly three-quarters of a season of Chryst's play by now, so we have a sense of his performance, both statistically and by eye. It's hard to imagine Chryst can get *way* better than he is now; for example, Hogan, who had some ups and downs, didn't get below 7.2 yards per attempt (in his redshirt freshman year's half-season) or 7.9 YPA (in his redshirt junior year). I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of QBs, of course, so if any examples of QBs playing as ... mediocre ... as Chryst has early in his career come to mind, please do mention him. Meanwhile Chryst is currently a redshirt junior. He's pretty experienced! I feel pretty confident in saying what we've seen is what we've got, with the caveat that he has some strong plays or even games where you get to thinking.

It's hard to fix *really* precisely what Costello's realistic ceiling is, by contrast. We've got at least some performance to go on. (Notably, Costello's four games have featured an equal number 60+% completion days as Chryst has in his career so far -- excluding cameo appearances for both.) He's a redshirt freshman; in general, they tend to have more upside than your random redshirt junior. He visually looks the part. So pretty comfortable in saying Costello has more potential than Chryst. How much more? I can't say. Costello could realistically be Sean Mannion, or he could also realistically be Kevin Hogan. (He could less realistically be even better.) But either option is comfortably better than Chryst's optimized season-long best -- at least that's my strong hunch.