Welcome to “I Got 5 On It”, each week I’ll be picking five news-worthy subjects based around college football to cover. Ranging from views on Devy prospects, general college football talk, interesting stats, and a little bit of hip-hop music mixed in now and then.
1. Top QB Performers
@FBGChase has done a lot of great work on twitter with ANY/A with NFL passers. That gave me the idea of using this metric to gage college passers weekly. If you are unaware of this metric “An advanced statistic in football that quantifies the contributions of a quarterback’s passing game by including five key passing statistics; passing yards, passing touchdowns, interceptions thrown, times sacked and yards lost to being sacked. This measure rewards passers for scoring with a multiplier on touchdowns and punishes a passer on throwing interceptions. This is all combined into a value on a per pass attempt basis.
It’s calculated as follows: ANY/A = (pass yards + 20*(pass TD) – 45*(interceptions thrown) – sack yards) / (passing attempts + sacks)”
Here are the top 10 performers from week 16 of the CFB season out of 40 qualifying performances.
*Note – The total on the bottom is the tally of all QBs that attempted at least 10 passes this past weekend.
The SEC Title Game was just fractions of a point away from having the two best passers of the week. On the flip side, the B1G Title Game had the worst two passing performances of the week. Mac Jones topped the weekly chart once again. He’s become accustomed to being in the top ten each week. Kyle Trask just narrowly missed out on being number two because Nick Starkel beat him out. Starkel has had a great season for San Jose State. He’s currently the 12th best QB for the entire season. Not a lot of sexy names in this week’s top ten but tFR QB Max Johnson found his way onto the list. Still baffles me how TJ Finley started over him for so long. Trevor Lawrence just barely snagged a top ten spot in Clemson’s humiliation of the Irish.
Justin Fields had the worst showing of any QB this last weekend. A lot of Fields’ concerns from the offseason all reared their ugly head against the Wildcats. Fields has to speed up his processing and decision making. If he doesn’t, he’s going to struggle at the next level. The time to get the ball out is only going to get shorter as he turns pro. Maybe the most surprising outcome of the weekend was that Matt Corral was only the sixth-worst with his 5 INTs. Throwing for 9.3 YPA and 3 TDs saved his ass.
I will have a full-length article breaking down who had the best ANY/A over the entire season coming this month.
2. Javonte Williams
If you’ve followed my work this Fall, you know I’m not a fan of Javonte Williams. My first real exposure to Williams was against Notre Dame. That was by far the best defense UNC has faced this season, and Williams looked like a JAG. I saw nothing special. I didn’t see the hype. He wasn’t this beast that broke tackles and got a bunch of yards after contact. He was a JAG that went down on the first contact with very little fight. His backfield mate looked just fine cranking off over 7 yards per rush against that same Irish defense. Looking over Wiliams stats from 2002. He was a bottom-feeder. He destroyed bad rushing defenses and was a non-factor against Top 60 rush defenses. UNC faced one Top 25 rush defense and he was totally shut down by the Irish. The next two best rush defenses faced were UVA (39th) and Syracuse (57th). Both games saw Williams struggle mightily compared to what he did against defense outside the Top 60 in the country.
In three games against Top 60 Rush Defenses, Williams averaged 3.6 Yards Per Rush. That’s kinda bad for a “premiere” back. His teammate Michael Carter, in the same exact three-game set, rushed for 8.29 Yards Per Rush. Williams averaged 8.8 yards in UNCs other 7 games against rush defenses ranked 61st or worse. This includes 3 teams ranked 90th or worse. In that same three-game set, Williams only gained a first down on 28.9% of his attempts to Carter’s 29.2%. Carter’s 29% was steady no matter the opponent faced. Williams gained a 1st down on 51.7% of his attempts against teams outside the Top 60. Quite the difference when facing bad defenses. Another category that saw polar opposite results was rushes over 10 yards or more. Against Top 60 defenses, Williams ripped off a 10+ yard run on 7.9% of attempts compared to 33.6% against teams outside the Top 60. Michael Carter’s 10+ yards percentage stayed steady no matter the opponent, once again. He was at 25% against top 60 teams and 25.6% against teams outside the top 60. Yards After Contact and Avoided Tackles saw a major decrease when facing better competition. Yards After Contact saw a dip per rush of 5.18 against teams outside the top 60 to a 3.1 against teams inside the top 60. He Avoided Tackles at a 28.9% rate against the top 60 teams and jumped up a whopping 55.2% against the poorer defenses. Once again in these same exact categories, Williams’ teammate, had a small drop off but nothing to the extent of Williams.
All I know is both backs played behind the same offensive line, same offensive scheme, and faced the same exact defenses. One back stayed steady with his production no matter the level of defense faced, while the other feasted against the inferior defenses and mightily struggled against the better teams. It’s not like they faced a lot of stellar rush defenses either. UNC only faced two defenses ranked inside the top 40 in PFF rush defense. Even in the utter destruction of Miami, Carter had just one more carry than Williams but had 72 more yards on the ground. Williams will be nowhere near any of my dynasty rosters. Williams’ saving grace is that he can become a short-yardage back who vultures TDs as he did at UNC. Buyer beware of Williams.
Javonte Williams Stats Via PFF
Michael Carter Stats Via PFF
3. Dual-Threat C2C Option
The Utah Utes added themselves a potential CFF All-Star. Ja’Quinden Jackson transfers to Utah from the University of Texas. Jackson spent one season at Texas, not seeing action due to an ACL injury and being down the depth chart. Jackson was a highly rated recruit out of Duncanville, Texas. Prior to signing with UT, Jackson was ranked as the 46th overall prospect and 3rd rated Dual-Threat QB in his recruiting class. The new Utah QB has 4.61 speed and rushed for over 1,000 yards each of his final two years in high school. As a junior, Jackson ran for 1,497 yards and 23 TDs. He saw a slight tick down as a senior, where he ran for 1,030 yards and 16 TDs. Jackson is clearly a bigger threat with his legs than his arm at this point. During his final two years in HS, Jackson threw for 210/336 (62.5%), 3,291 yards, 36 TDs, and 8 INTs. I really like Jackson as a late C2C add. I value him much more for his CFF value than his NFL future. Jackson has a long way to go to develop into an NFL QB. Utah also welcomed in another QB transfer in Charlie Brewer. Brewer would be the more likely starting option for the Utes in 2021. Brewer was a four-year starter at Baylor prior to his transfer. If you are willing to save a roster spot for a year solely for a CFF upside play. I’d be willing to use that spot on Jackson. His CFF upside is high due to his rushing abilities.
4. Minnesota Snags Transfer WR
There’re so many damn names in the transfer portal right now, it’s nuts. It’s almost impossible to keep track of the names and landing spots. The Golden Gophers have lost a ton of talent at WR over the past two seasons. The losses of Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman are huge. With the addition of Texas A&M transfer Dylan Wright, that can hopefully ease the pain. Wright hasn’t proven much to this point on the college field but was once a heralded recruit. Wright ranked inside the top 100 and a top 10 receiver recruit back in 2019. During the 2019 season, Wright redshirted after limited action and appeared in five games in 2020 while recording no stats. With the void left by Bateman departing for the NFL, Wright will have his chance to show why he was a once highly ranked recruit.
5. Freshman Spotlight
Moving forward until next fall, when we have some game action again, I’ll be highlighting an incoming freshman each week in the 5 spot. We’ll kick it off with Penn St, WR, Lonnie White, Jr.
White is currently the 9th ranked WR by 247Sports and the 71st overall prospect. He’s excelled on and off the gridiron. He was previously committed to Clemson to play baseball until he blew up as a football prospect. He’s considered to be a highly regarded baseball player as well. As a junior, White played mostly a glorified wildcat quarterback. Channeling his inner Lynn Bowden. This fall, he saw more action from his projected college position of receiver. He saw a major uptick in his recruiting ranking following his successful senior campaign.
“I think I called him our version of Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders,” Franklin said. “Hopefully we don’t get a situation where he plays a football game, jumps on a flight and then plays a baseball game later in the same day. But it’s challenging. From the very beginning, we talked about it. We talked about, at one point, he was leaning toward just playing football. And then what happens is, he goes and plays baseball, he has success in baseball, and as you guys have seen he’s very highly thought of [as a baseball prospect].”
“We’re excited about getting him.. And I think he’s one of these guys, when he plays baseball, he thinks baseball is his deal. When he’s playing football, football is his deal. It just kind of depends on the timing of it. And for me, we’ve had a little bit of it, not a lot of it, because it’s hard to do.”
After White totaled nearly 2,000 yards of offense as a do-it-all playmaker in 2019, pandemic issues limited his senior season to only four games. During an abbreviated 2020 campaign, he turned 17 receptions into 369 yards (21.7 per catch) and four touchdowns, added 94 yards and two scores as a runner, and intercepted three passes. White soared from No. 311 overall to No. 71 in the latest rankings update, placing him fourth overall among Pennsylvania players.”
I was extremely impressed by White’s limited film as a senior. I expect to have White among my top 5 WRs in this class once I fully do my deep dive into the class of 2024. I’ve already written my profile on White for the 2021 Devy Watch Guide, and I believe he’s got a bright future at Penn State. His future teammate, Harrison Wallace, is another impressive WR signee by the Nittany Lions. But back to White, fingers crossed he doesn’t go pro in baseball.
