Jantz/Barnett/Richardson thoughts....

[Tazzels]

Steele Jantz has a good arm, very good speed and athletism, and good size. He is still very raw at quarterback and he does well against average competition, but struggles against very good and superior defenses where his athletism and speed are above that of the defense. Does not progress through his reads and will sometimes struggle to find the open man. He lacks the accuracy, precison, and sharp mental game he needs to do well against the better teams. He has plenty of upside, but lacks the experience and mental/leadership at the position to excel.

Jared Barnett has speed and quickness and does a very good job at running the zone read. Does not have the size, vision, and arm to be a consistently effective passer. He is not as effective this year because of the loss of Kelechi and Hicks in run blocking. He has limited upside because he is somewhat one dimensional because he can not make all of the throws and can not find the open receivers consistantly. Defenses figured out what he could and could not do.

Sam Richardson has the quickness and speed to run the zone read. He has an accurate arm which is essential to the success of screens and short game. The receivers get the ball in the right location that gives them extra yards. He moves through the progressions well, sells the pump fakes and double WR moves. He is the most complete quarterback of the 3 and the best fit for this offense. The 2 1/2 quarters against Kansas was the most effective offense under Paul Roads. He needs to bulk up a little to take the hits from the more elite defenses. I did not see any drop passes as the ball had the right touch and accuracy.

I like our chances against WV.

 

[Luth4Cy]

Good write-up. I really wonder what Jantz would have looked like had he been on campus as a Freshman. Ideally that would have given him more time to progress and show his upside, or maybe his mental game has reached a ceiling.

 

[atlantacyclone]

I feel better about our O but against WVU I'm more worried about our passing D. Could be a long night.

 

[simply1]

We have a very small sample size on SR at this point, but he did better than the other 2 would have against what looked to be a pretty bad defense. SJ is gone after this year, so his growth really had to come at the beginning of the year, obviously it didn't.

Hopefully SR will play well against a bad WV defense, and then we'll have to see what kind of D we face in the bowl game. If we can give him protection, he looks to be the best option of the 3. If we can't, well we'll have to see how that goes.

 

[madguy30]

Jantz: Give him 15 years in the system, and he still freaks out when the ball is snapped. Great teammate, and he played his *** off for ISU.

Barnett: give him an arm, and he's almost the perfect QB for this offense. He was an important part in some of the greatest moments in ISU history last season (OSU). Does anyone else feel like he's going be a real good coach some day?

SR: it's embarrassing that I was impressed with someone who simply finds the guy who's open, and then throws the ball to that guy in a way that makes it easy for him to catch it. ISU has two games left, and experience is only good from here on out, no matter how the games go. If he doesn't start Friday, CPR must have been blackout drunk down in Lawrence.

 

[Max57]

Great game by SBR. It was one game against the now, 1 - 10 Kansas. We felt really good about JB about this time last year. We felt really good about Jantz 14 months ago.

However, it is kinda cool that we now have 3 QBs on our team that have been successful at various points in their career. SBR: -> 1 game = success. Let's see how he handles some expectations and pre-game pressure.

 

[clonedude]

Jantz: Pretty good QB 90% of the time IMO. Can make all the throws, and is a very effective runner as well. It's just the other 10% that just kills him. Just out of the blue he will throw it right to the other team or fumble in a critical situation. He can win games for you with his playmaking ability, but he can just as easily cost you games.

Barnett: Good running QB that also understands the game. He just can't throw the ball to save his life though. Defenses can just stack everyone up on the line of scrimmage against him because he is no threat to beat you with his arm.

Richardson: In the KU game, he showed he has the total package. Great arm and accuracy. Also very effective at running the ball too, but has to learn to slide IMO. AND... he finds the open guy versus just locking in on one guy like Jantz and Barnett do. But as I said, it was just the KU game so far. He had the time to throw, and he had some guys pretty wide open too. But at least he showed what he is capable of when he has time and guys are open. Jantz and Barnett have had that at times too and not shown the ability to get guys the ball.

Richardson will be the guy for the rest of this season and will be the starting QB going into next season as well IMO. My guess is that WV is going to bring the kitchen sink at him on Friday, so we better be prepared for that. Work on the screen game this week, as well as the dump off to the TE over the middle because WV is going to try to bring pressure.

It was just so refreshing to see an ISU QB that looked through his progressions, found the open guy, and hit him in stride. I think we all saw what this offense can be when ran effectively. I think we saw that it's not so much the design of the offense, but it's who's running it. We are capable of putting up some serious points if we have a more than capable QB.

 

[Ry4Cy]

Jantz: Pretty good QB 90% of the time.

:twitcy:

 

[Frak]

Honestly I think that Jantz's fumbles hurt him more than anything. He's always good for one pretty much unforced fumble per game. Worst ball security I've ever seen from a runner.

 

[Stormin]

My thoughts are that Sam is a pretty damn good QB. With Lenz back we can burn WV if they blitz. This is the best I have felt about our offense in a long, long time. An accurate throwing QB who has the right touch on the ball and is very adept at ballhandling for the run game. Plus he followed his blocks well when he ran. Sam's upside is huge.

 

[clonedude]

My biggest fear right now with Sam is that he needs to learn when to slide. He took some pretty big, unnecessary hits last night. The good thing is that he was just trying to get as many yards as he could, but we can sacrifice a few yards for a healthy Sam Richardson.

 

[Rabbuk]

My thought is why did it take 10 games to try sr.

 

[Ry4Cy]

My thought is why did it take 10 games to try sr.

Probably because he was a freshman who didn't understand the Offense enough to be put into a game.

 

[ISUAgronomist]

My thought is why did it take 10 games to try sr.

This was the perfect game to do so.

 

[CySmitty]

It was exciting to watch him it receivers in stride but its not very fair to judge him based on game where are seemed to actually have step or two on the secondary and he almost never had any pressure.

I feel like both Jantz an Barnett looked good at the beginning of games but once they started getting hit their patience in to stay in the pocket a progress through the looks pretty much disappeared. SR will have to show he can maintain his pocket presence with guys breathing down his neck to be truly effective in the Big 12.

I am however still excited. Watching him actually hit receivers is something that ISU has been missing. A good quarterback can make his receivers look better and SR did that last night. Did CPR say multiple times that he is the best passer of the QBs?

 

[IceCyIce]

The three headed monster worked well for ISU. Each won games that with the previous starter in we may not have. The changes by the coaching staff to switch it up is what got us to our bowl. Example Do we beat TCU without Barnett, we did with, Do we beat baylor without Jantz, We did with. Do we beat Kansas without SR? We did with. The Iowa State margin for error os razor thin and we struck gold on each one. Go State!!

 

[bawbie]

Another thing is that the coaches have always said Sam has the highest football IQ of the group, he's the best in the film room.

 

[bawbie]

One more stat:

Barnett's highest QBR: 168 @ TCU
Jantz's highest QBR: 171 vs WIU
Richardson's first game QBR: 211

The fact is that Sam was better in this game than Steele or Jared have ever been.

 

[Dryburn]

IMO, Sam throws by far the best ball of all 3 of them, and it is not really close. He was very accurate last night, and throws a ball that it seems the receivers have no trouble catching. He even knows how to use a pump fake properly. He may not be quite the runnnig threat that Steele or Jared are but I think his arm will make up for that.

 

[huntt26]

My thought is why did it take 10 games to try sr.

Because he may have died against Oklahoma and Texas' pressure