Jay Paterno And The Development Of Penn State Quarterbacks

I think the biggest knock on Jay from his detractors is not his development of QBs, but his recruiting.

I think the DC’s are where he can make progress, but no one is going to be able to get more than a one-off hot shot from Ohio until OSU slows down a little bit with the BCS bowls.

That’s usually a pretty good blog, but linking an analysis from 2007 and completely ignoring the fact that our QB was first team All-Big Ten last year is pretty lazy.

Best part of the mgoblog breakdown…..

Note to self: refer to coming Appalachian State win as “pulsating.”

There’s what Jay does, what fans think he does, what Joe allows him to do, and what Jay is able to accomplish recruiting in a state that is essentially locked down by Ohio State.

And Morelli. There’s always the mystery of Morelli, and why he kept starting.

I will no longer blame Jay for the downfall of society, although his political activities during the football season still makes me a little anxious regarding his judgment.

stop refering to the QB from Penn State during the 2004-2007 seasons by his first or last name.

The only accepted terms are QB14 or The QB that shall not be named..

And it also caught me a little surprised. I would have thought that Clark’s success in 2008 would have quieted some of Jay’s critics, but apparently not. To quote an MGoBlog post from before the 2007 season is kind of like a Pitt fan slamming us by comparing our records from 2000-2006. Or throwing “12-0 BITCHES” in our face. It’s too selective to be taken seriously. But I know Dr. S. just did it for the punchline.

I’m not convinced Jay can develop an NFL caliber quarterback. Not saying he can’t, but he hasn’t done it yet. But I think it’s fair to say he can develop a good college option quarterback. Mills, Robinson, and Clark have all had success under Jay. But you have to include their rushing success in there. If you look at just their passing stats it’s not impressive. #14 did not have success, but then he didn’t pose any kind of rushing threat. It’s tough to say if that’s Jay’s fault or not, but I think we can all agree #14 had a lot of mental issues that negatively impacted his play and discouraged his teammates from believing in him.

and comments by everyone.

It really is tough to accurately define how well JayPa has done, because as has been pointed out he’s had:

• a QB that played injured and unable to throw the ball
• a QB that was wildly successful (with 3 freshmen WRs), and a good RB
• a QB who was either unable to learn, to stubborn to learn, or who was undercoached (I wonder how many times JayPa told him to learn to throw the ball away, to check down his receivers, and to not stare down who he was throwing to…things I would imagine any QB should know as absolute basics. Was it often, was it never? The answers to those questions would answer how well Jay is at being a QB coach), and who was wildly unsuccessful with those same 3 WRs who were now more experienced, but with a RB with similar headcase issues
• a QB who was wildly successful, with the same 3 WRs, who were now seniors, and a VERY productive and steady RB

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3426990

PREPARATION

First, I went to the team websites to study the players and managers. Then I called my position coach at Penn State, Jay Paterno, for advice; I still do this a lot. He hooked me up with Penn State softball coach Robin Petrini, who told me the game would have a ton of downtime—and opportunities for me to let my personality come through on camera. “Just be yourself,” she said. Then I spoke with ESPNU coordinating producer Meg Reintjes, my boss for this assignment. She told me not to worry. I just had to be creative and have fun. No problem.

This comment struck me. He could have contacted anybody for advise but chose JayPa. This is really an indication of respect that MRob has for JayPa.

He has done a good job overall, Mills was hurt since freshman year, MRob wasn’t really a QB, Morelli was helpless and DC not ready yet, DC/Devlin are both going to be pros.

I appreciate this analysis. I am a huge fan of Clark but I think you still have to consider the book out on him. He has to show a solid 60 minutes against top competition, which he did not against OSU, UM, PUR, WI, and IA. Maybe MSU was the turning point, and I give him a pass on USC because of injuries to RBs and the defense got debacled.

I think we’re best served to remember that for every QB14 there is a Drew Henson, Kyle Wright or Ron Powlus, highly touted players at schools with reputations for developing QBs that never did anything.

Was he on the cardinals taxi squad or did he get outright cut?

I was really intrigued by the “undercoached” comments. Coaches and personnel (even “former pro scouts”) are traditionally so careful about what they say that it seems much more likely that there is some questionable information flow rather than this guy happens to be the one person in all of football willing to speak his mind.

I don’t think this guy has an ulterior motive but I am wondering if he asked Morelli a few questions, heard some BS from him, and that’s where he gleaned the “undercoaching.” I don’t recall hearing mechanical criticisms of Morelli. I think it would be hard, given only game tape, to distinguish mental errors due to stupidity from those due to coaching.

competence, what areas must a QB coach excel at teaching ?
  
throwing motion
touch
ability to read defenses
accuracy
ability to check down receivers
knowing when to throw the ball away
playbook mastery
footwork

If given a coach is given a raw, teachable athlete with a decent brain how much of the athlete’s success is attributable to the athlete and how much to the coach? If a QB never really improves his throwing motion and accuracy, but he is athletic enough to scramble out of broken plays – who should be given credit.

My opinion is that a mobile QB overcomes poor coaching from both the position coach and play calling. He doesn’t need perfect fundamentals to win games. QB’s with poor fundamentals don’t last long in the NFL or are switched to other positions.

Anyone else seem to remember when he first broke out that some people were predicting a heisman for this guy? I would peg his career on injuries/deficient supporting cast, I mean the one year we had adequate RBs and WRs we won 9 games and should have won 2 others.

MRob and DC17 both “had to” prove people wrong, therefore they had added incentive to do well. Morelli had no incentive to do well besides getting people off his ass, he just never seemed to be a “Penn State guy” I think that it is tough to gauge just how much of an athlete’s performance is god given talent and how much is coaching up. We aren’t in the weight room or on the practice field, so the only people that truly would know how effective Jay is and the only ones who could truly judge him is the rest of the staff and our QB’s. MRob and DC both seem to love him, so he at least has that.

Its all just a blurry mess, I am fine with JayPa as of right now, I think he gets too much shit. If he is better at running a spread with an athletic QB, fine, we’ll run that and be successful. Go with your strengths, and it appears he is solid when working within the Spread HD. I think if he can do well wil Newsome he will have cleared the bushes, if the spread HD fails when DC leaves, then he isn’t looking so hot

1 Larry Johnson, and four other first round draft picks made Mills look better than he was. Injuries and lack of talent surrounding him made him look worse. Zack Mills was a gutty kid, that probably was not a Division One college quarterback, they got as much out of that guy as they could.

2 Jay Paterno was pretty instrumental in getting the spread principal applied to Penn State’s offense. Michael Robinson was a stud, probably the most talented kid in the Big Ten that year. Think Pryor as a senior, except if he hadn’t played quarterback that season. Putting Robinson in an offense where he had a chance to be successful should not have counted as a stroke of genius. At Penn State it is.

3 If Anthony Morelli wasn’t a five star recruit, he would have been a marginal quarterback, rather than whatever it is you guys think he is. Two nine win seasons, two bowl wins. If he’s as bad as everybody says, they did a pretty nice job getting as much out of them as they did.

4 Let’s see how Clark does with a rebuilt offensive line and four new wide recievers, none of which are Derrick Williams.

game planning and receiver coaching will be huge.

If we can play-call to our strengths, instead of forcing players into situations where they can’t produce, we should be fine.

11 wins, including a bowl victory.

You read it here tenth. Remember it.

with a loss in the BCS Bowl game…we won’t get national title chance since our OCS BLOWS

Which one do you think can exploit our secondary? Michigan State tried last year and nearly got their quarterback killed. Purdue? My guess is they’ll pull another 50 pass, 30 completetion, 7 point day. Illinois, Ohio State & Michigan? The more they throw downfield the better.

Nobody will run on us. Very few people will be able to block us sufficiently to throw downfield on a regular basis. Defense is going to be fine.

Losing Williams out of the WR corp is the killer. He was the game changer (even if he didn’t change as many games as you hoped) that you had to account for. Butler and Norwood were both quality possession guys that found a lot of openings becasue Williams kept people honest. We don’t have that this year, and trouble in pass protection is really going to exacerbate the problem.

from Jay Pa:

John Brantley is going to be a star: A year ago Brantley, a rising redshirt sophomore, got a few chances to show off the talented arm that made him a highly-recruited quarterback out of Ocala. This season he will be a major factor in the offense as Florida prepares for the post-Tebow era. You only have to watch Brantley for five minutes in practice to realize that he has an NFL arm.

"He’s a special talent," Loeffler said.

In 2006 Chris Leak was the starting quarterback and Florida developed a package of plays for Tebow, the freshman. This season Brantley will play that same role with a package of plays that will force opposing defensive coordinators to spend extra time preparing for the change of pace when Brantley comes in the game.

UF has the best QB in the country returning and they are planning packages around the backup. Have some confidence PSU.

We treat our 2nd string QB like most people treat their 2nd serve in tennis. We need to start ripping our 2nd serve.