[BostonCard]

Year	QB	Coach	G	Plays	Total Yards	Yards/Play	Yards/Game
2008	Pritchard	Harbaugh	12	777	4221	5.43	351.8
2009	Luck	Harbaugh	13	850	5559	6.54	427.6
2010	Luck	Harbaugh	13	914	6136	6.71	472.0
2011	Luck	Shaw	13	935	6361	6.80	489.3
2012	Hogan/Nunes	Shaw	14	948	5242	5.53	374.4
2013	Hogan	Shaw	14	895	5680	6.35	405.7
2014	Hogan	Shaw	2	130	874	6.72	437.0

The table above shows our offense through the years, starting in 2008, the last year pre-Luck.  I put in the QB running the team at the time and the head coach on the list.  A few things are clearly obvious.  First, The QB makes a brobdingnagian difference; we saw a brobdingnagian jump in offense going from Pritchard to Luck, a big drop going from Luck to Nunes/Hogan, and steady improvement during Luck's tenure and again over Hogan's tenure.  Two games is really too small a sample size to draw meaningful conclusions about this year, but I don't think it is at all clear that there has been a step back in terms of the offense as a whole compared to last year.  Indeed, the offense is on pace to be comparable to the Luck/Harbaugh years (yards per play is comparable to 2010, yards per game is slightly better than 2009).  To be fair, it is skewed a bit by playing Davis, although USC is probably one of the better defenses we will face.

That doesn't mean, of course, that the offense doesn't have problems.  In another post, I compared our offense inside the opponent's 40 to our offense overall, and it appears, to date, that the offense is no where nearly as good in those situations.  However, I think people are trying to jump all over the situational statistics and trying to extrapolate to the offense as a whole.  Hogan isn't Luck, but he is having a better career than any QB not named Andrew Luck than any QB since Todd Husak (including a couple top 5 recruited QB's, one of whom has gone on to the NFL).  I will gladly take him with all his limitations.

Our running game has had trouble this year; we are averaging 3.96 yards per cary, which is the lowest average since before Toby was our running back.  I'm not sure if that is because the offensive line, or the running backs, or some combination of the two.

BC

[BostonCard]

Year	QB	Coach	G	Plays	Total Yards	Yards/Play	Yards/Game
2008	Pritchard	Harbaugh	12	777	4221	5.43	351.8
2009	Luck	Harbaugh	13	850	5559	6.54	427.6
2010	Luck	Harbaugh	13	914	6136	6.71	472.0
2011	Luck	Shaw	13	935	6361	6.80	489.3
2012	Hogan/Nunes	Shaw	14	948	5242	5.53	374.4
2013	Hogan	Shaw	14	895	5680	6.35	405.7
2014	Hogan	Shaw	2	130	874	6.72	437.0

The table above shows our offense through the years, starting in 2008, the last year pre-Luck.  I put in the QB running the team at the time and the head coach on the list.  A few things are clearly obvious.  First, The QB makes a brobdingnagian difference; we saw a brobdingnagian jump in offense going from Pritchard to Luck, a big drop going from Luck to Nunes/Hogan, and steady improvement during Luck's tenure and again over Hogan's tenure.  Two games is really too small a sample size to draw meaningful conclusions about this year, but I don't think it is at all clear that there has been a step back in terms of the offense as a whole compared to last year.  Indeed, the offense is on pace to be comparable to the Luck/Harbaugh years (yards per play is comparable to 2010, yards per game is slightly better than 2009).  To be fair, it is skewed a bit by playing Davis, although USC is probably one of the better defenses we will face.

That doesn't mean, of course, that the offense doesn't have problems.  In another post, I compared our offense inside the opponent's 40 to our offense overall, and it appears, to date, that the offense is no where nearly as good in those situations.  However, I think people are trying to jump all over the situational statistics and trying to extrapolate to the offense as a whole.  Hogan isn't Luck, but he is having a better career than any QB not named Andrew Luck than any QB since Todd Husak (including a couple top 5 recruited QB's, one of whom has gone on to the NFL).  I will gladly take him with all his limitations.

Our running game has had trouble this year; we are averaging 3.96 yards per cary, which is the lowest average since before Toby was our running back.  I'm not sure if that is because the offensive line, or the running backs, or some combination of the two.

BC