[washingtonismoney]

In 2009, Luck had a relatively low completion percentage (56.3%), but very high yards per completion (15.9). It was a longer, but lower percentage, passing game. In 2010 and 2011, Luck had very high completion percentages (70.7% and 71.3%), with middle-of-the-road yards per completion (12.7 and 12.2). He was a master of the intermediate passing game. In all three seasons, Luck's yards per attempt were in the 8.7 to 9.0 range, which is excellent.

Hogan has a very high completion percentage (71.7%), as Luck did in his last two seasons. But Hogan has sub-par yards per completion (10.1). His completions are almost all short passes. He just doesn't complete many passes downfield. So he gets only 7.2 yards per attempt, which is OK but not at Luck's level.

The key thing you leave out here is sacks. It's a point hammered on in the previous link I posted -- with sacks, Hogan's YPA drops to 6.4 (which is actually lower than Nunes' adjusted YPA). Part of that, we hope, is inexperience -- and Hogan took no sacks against Wisconsin, which is quite good. (The other two parts: Nunes was really good at avoiding sacks, and the offensive line performance dipped pretty appreciably. I don't want to be too harsh on the guy, but I think going from Wilkes to Murphy/Garnett/Peat will be a gigantic upgrade. Wilkes deciding to take a fun false start within our five yard line was probably my least favorite moment of the Rose Bowl, performance-wise.)

Anyway, I don't think the problem is Hogan as much as the targets. Here's a revealing link, pre-Rose Bowl: http://es.pn/Vs8GgN

The key comparison here is Luck 2011 w/ 2 TEs vs. Hogan 2012 w/ 2 TEs. Hogan's 9.2 YPA compares very favorably with Luck's 9.7 YPA, especially when you consider Luck had the help of Fleener, DeCastro and Martin. The same issue terry has wisely hit upon -- the overly high pass completion percentage -- is still there, but if you're averaging 9.2 YPA...well, it just doesn't matter.

[washingtonismoney]

In 2009, Luck had a relatively low completion percentage (56.3%), but very high yards per completion (15.9). It was a longer, but lower percentage, passing game. In 2010 and 2011, Luck had very high completion percentages (70.7% and 71.3%), with middle-of-the-road yards per completion (12.7 and 12.2). He was a master of the intermediate passing game. In all three seasons, Luck's yards per attempt were in the 8.7 to 9.0 range, which is excellent.

Hogan has a very high completion percentage (71.7%), as Luck did in his last two seasons. But Hogan has sub-par yards per completion (10.1). His completions are almost all short passes. He just doesn't complete many passes downfield. So he gets only 7.2 yards per attempt, which is OK but not at Luck's level.

The key thing you leave out here is sacks. It's a point hammered on in the previous link I posted -- with sacks, Hogan's YPA drops to 6.4 (which is actually lower than Nunes' adjusted YPA). Part of that, we hope, is inexperience -- and Hogan took no sacks against Wisconsin, which is quite good. (The other two parts: Nunes was really good at avoiding sacks, and the offensive line performance dipped pretty appreciably. I don't want to be too harsh on the guy, but I think going from Wilkes to Murphy/Garnett/Peat will be a gigantic upgrade. Wilkes deciding to take a fun false start within our five yard line was probably my least favorite moment of the Rose Bowl, performance-wise.)

Anyway, I don't think the problem is Hogan as much as the targets. Here's a revealing link, pre-Rose Bowl: http://es.pn/Vs8GgN

The key comparison here is Luck 2011 w/ 2 TEs vs. Hogan 2012 w/ 2 TEs. Hogan's 9.2 YPA compares very favorably with Luck's 9.7 YPA, especially when you consider Luck had the help of Fleener, DeCastro and Martin. The same issue terry has wisely hit upon -- the overly high pass completion percentage -- is still there, but if you're averaging 9.2 YPA...well, it just doesn't matter.