The Biggest Disappointments of 2006: #3 - Anthony Morelli

The o-line and Kevin Kelly?

What's telling about that photo is the image of all the offensive lineman walking toward the sideline with Morelli flat on his back and in pain.  No doubt they had their fill of his holding onto the ball too long because of his indecision in his play making.

I'm not sure you'll see a dramatic improvement out of the QB spot in 2007.  He'll probably do a little better just because he'll have a year under his belt (and honestly he really couldn't do much worse). Where the real impact will be shown is when the opposing defenses realize Hunt is gone and they can start teeing off on the running game because Morelli elicits no fear at all in the other team's Defensive Coordinator.

Perhaps none of you watched a game this year.  Perhaps you did not see the awful play of the WR's and OL.    How many passes were dropped?  Football is a game of momentum, how many times did the OL and WR/TE kill this teams momentum?  Morelli made his share of mistakes, but he was a first year starter going against the likes of ND, OSU, and MICH early on.  The rotten play of the WR/TE/OL, in part, forced Morelli into a lot a bad situations and bad decisions.  I think that this kid will have a great senior year, and when he does, all of you can stay off of his band wagaon!

Passes are dropped mostly when the pass is thrown in a way that makes the receiver break stride, to catch the ball. When that happens the receiver has an additional things to think about

a) being exposed if the play is over the middle, and

b) how to start running again, and how many times do we hear "He was thinking about running before he caught the ball."?

Morelli was not consistent in leading the receivers enough so that they could keep their forward momentum. Many times this year he would throw a pass that either stopped the receiver dead in his tracks or the receiver had to reach across his body (behind him) to try to catch the ball, resulting in passes dropped.  Holding onto the ball too long, and throwing too hard at the last second, produces this kind of pass. Especially on 'out' patterns (which most passes are) as the receiver starts running out of room on the sideline.

So, if you see dropped passes the fault is not always the receivers.

By the way - Tyler Palko threw for five touchdown passes and completed 26-of-42 passes for 334 yards with no INTs against Notre Dame his first year as a starter.

The only reason I state that is because many, many first year QBs excel against quality competition. Not all put up those kind of numbers above, but good QBs rise to the occasion against big teams in big games. It's not like Morelli was a true freshman thrust onto the field due to an injury - he had been taking second team snaps in practice for years, and was named the starter the minute Robinson played his last game.