Hawk Stock: What Kind of Year did Vandenberg Have?

To be fair, you also have to factor in that Ricky had started 9 games his sophmore season before getting to his junior year. Vandy had started 2 games coming into his junior year. Ricky improved a great deal from his soph to his junior year.

Repetitions in the game are so huge for QBs ability to develop the vision and quick decision-making ability....Vandy has all the physical tools, the mental part is where he will get much better next year,imo.

Vandy is going to have a bigger season next year,which will put him on the list of great Iowa qbs. 26 dropped passes this year hurt his numbers....catching 20 of those adds at least 200-300 more yards,and probably a few tds.
 
Before this season, I said that 2011 JVB would provide about equal value as 2009 Stanzi. His passing stats would be better, but that he wouldn't be able to match Ricky's leadership and intangibles.

I like to think I was correct in that assessment.
 
Who passes the eye test? Stanzi. I think he had better decision making than JVB. I trusted Stanzi on offense, I'm not so trusting of JVB with the ball (running into sacks, McNutt or checkdown to Coker being his choices on a consistent basis, throwing it to the receiver but too low or high or behind, etc). I would hope that aspect would change before the bowl game and especially next year.
 
Bigtenchamp said:
Vandenberg has better arm strength and accuracy.... Stanzi had better mobility, touch and leadership.

Put them together and that would be an awesome QB.

Potentially Vandenberg can be a better player - but he has to play much better on the road and not take phantom sacks.

Skill wise he is superior but for all the raving about his confidence he lacks poise in the pocket and panics - especially on the road.
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Just watched a few '09 tapes to get some perspective on Reiff and Stanzi was throwing great passes on the run. JVB is ok on the rollout but Iowa ran the rollout+deep comeback to death in their first 3 games of '09. Different QBs to be sure.

Your assessment is pretty much spot on. JVB has the tools to exceed Stanzi but right now he hasn't put it all together yet. I talked to him about his recognition/reads after the Michigan St loss and he knew in hindsight what a few of them were and how he should have handled. Seems like a guy who is gonna put in the time and fix some of those issues. Dealing with pressure isn't as simple and is something that Stanzi struggled with at times even in '10. People forget the Arizona game where Stanzi got blitzed into oblivion down the stretch.
 
DTF said:
Who passes the eye test? Stanzi. I think he had better decision making than JVB. I trusted Stanzi on offense, I'm not so trusting of JVB with the ball (running into sacks, McNutt or checkdown to Coker being his choices on a consistent basis, throwing it to the receiver but too low or high or behind, etc). I would hope that aspect would change before the bowl game and especially next year.
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There is just no way a sane and logical person could claim Stanzi made better decisions. JVB threw half the number of picks Stanzi did despite throwing the ball on more occasions.

Those who say Stanzi is better because he has more wins are conveniently overlooking the fact that in addition to having a much much better defense behind him he also had much better skill position players.

SG had the best season for a RB in the history of Iowa football. DJK+McNutt were appreciably better than McNutt and Davis. Stanzi had much better weapons at TE with Reisner and Tony.

It's funny how many people say stats like completion percentage, TD/INT, passing yardage, YPA, rating, are over rated stats, then throw out a blanket stat like W-L as their justification for crowing Stanzi the victor.

By that rational Tim Tebow is the second best QB in the NFL right now because he has the second best winning percentage. That's right, he's better than Brady, Brees, Romo, Big Ben, Rivers, Stafford, Sanchez... etc.
 
hawkeyegamefilm said:
Just watched a few '09 tapes to get some perspective on Reiff and Stanzi was throwing great passes on the run. JVB is ok on the rollout but Iowa ran the rollout+deep comeback to death in their first 3 games of '09. Different QBs to be sure.

Your assessment is pretty much spot on. JVB has the tools to exceed Stanzi but right now he hasn't put it all together yet. I talked to him about his recognition/reads after the Michigan St loss and he knew in hindsight what a few of them were and how he should have handled. Seems like a guy who is gonna put in the time and fix some of those issues. Dealing with pressure isn't as simple and is something that Stanzi struggled with at times even in '10. People forget the Arizona game where Stanzi got blitzed into oblivion down the stretch.
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He failed to get it done in the stretch multiple times in 10.
 
DuffMan said:
He failed to get it done in the stretch multiple times in 10.
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To my recollection Iowa's offense sputtered in the clutch against Arizona, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Ohio St.

Stanzi's numbers were great his senior year but he didn't have those signature wins like he had in '08 & '09. Stanzi's worst quarter by rating in '10 was the 4th quarter. By a pretty wide margin to if memory serves me correctly. Magic just wasn't there in '10.
 
Do you think it was the coaches or Vandy that opted to not stretch the field that often? With big, physical receivers like McNutt and Davis, it seems like there should be a minimum of 5-6 balls thrown 30+ yards downfield. More often than not this should result in a catch or an interference call. For how much we've heard about what a big arm JVB has, we sure didn't seem to utilize it. It seemed like JVB was very scared to take any chances, often times taking a sack or dumping off to Coker for little gain. I think this is reflective of the overall philosophy of the coaches, refusing to take a chance at the end of halves, on the road, long field goals, faking/trying to block a kick, etc. That effect trickles to the players and instead of worrying about making plays, they are worrying about screwing up.
 
hawkeyegamefilm said:
DuffMan said:
He failed to get it done in the stretch multiple times in 10.
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To my recollection Iowa's offense sputtered in the clutch against Arizona, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Ohio St.Stanzi's numbers were great his senior year but he didn't have those signature wins like he had in '08 & '09. Stanzi's worst quarter by rating in '10 was the 4th quarter. By a pretty wide margin to if memory serves me correctly. Magic just wasn't there in '10.
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and that was after being perfect in 09.

the reality is the truth is somewhere in the Middle of 09 and 10.
 
TylerSash said:
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm....they did not both become starters in their 4th years.

Stanzi started as a soph, his 3rd year.
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He took over as the starter in game 5 of his soph year. His first full year of starting was '09. JVB started 2 games in '09, sat in '10. So it's fair to say both had starting experience before taking over as the full time starter in the years we're comparing.
 
PatrickAdamovicz said:
To many people get caught up in stats, stats, stats. Its wrong. Look at Jake Christensen's TD to INT ratio. It was much better than Stanzi's. Stanzi had those intangibles that are hard to find. He was calm in almost every situation. Going all the way back to his sophomore year when he rallied the team in the 4th quarter against #3 rated Penn St. Again, that was as a sophomore. Don't give me stats. Give me 4th quarter production when the game is on the line and Ill take Stanzi everytime. Vandenberg has yet to show outside of the Pitt. game this year that he is a 4th quarter clutch player. He has struggled in those instances.
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This!
 
The only stat that counts is Wins and loses. Tebow has some god awful stats but he wins.

JVB looks like a deer in headlights at times, he gets happy feet, way too much mustard on the short routes and stares down receivers too much. I like JVB but I'm not sold on him. Stanzi his Junior year was a leader, he never looked like a deer in the headlights and he had a 'it' factor. Stanzi's senior year was bad, he's stats might've said other wise but he was too worried about not making a mistake which made him worse at least IMO.

Unless JVB gets some wins, not to mention more away wins (only 1) he'll be known as mediocre at best, might fall under bad though if next year ain't better than 7-5.

KF quarterback measuring stick
Great Iowa QB's - Banks, Tate, Stanzi
Mediocre Iowa QB's - Nathan Chandler, JVB
Bad Iowa QB's - McCann, Jake C
 
PatrickAdamovicz said:
To many people get caught up in stats, stats, stats. Its wrong. Look at Jake Christensen's TD to INT ratio. It was much better than Stanzi's. Stanzi had those intangibles that are hard to find. He was calm in almost every situation. Going all the way back to his sophomore year when he rallied the team in the 4th quarter against #3 rated Penn St. Again, that was as a sophomore. Don't give me stats. Give me 4th quarter production when the game is on the line and Ill take Stanzi everytime. Vandenberg has yet to show outside of the Pitt. game this year that he is a 4th quarter clutch player. He has struggled in those instances.
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This brings up a couple of interesting points:
1) Statistics don't lie. People's interpretations of statistics are often just wrong. It's tough to interpret stats correctly because correlation doesn't necessary equal causation. All statistics(the what) in football should be taken in context and matched up with film study(ie how). Also more than 1 statistical category should be looked at when looking for answers to macro questions such as "Is someone a good QB?". Jay Christiansen is a prime example. 17TD:6 INT's is a pretty solid ratio for 2007. However his completion % of 53.5 & YPA of 6.1 are alarmingly low. His QB rating was 116.94 over a 12 game season, which is a huge red flag; especially when you watch the film and see the issues he had. He was very inconsistent with accuracy and velocity on his passes. Long story short: statistics are what they are, facts. What can be discerned from those statistics however is generally unclear and almost never concrete.

2) Stanzi led a lot of successful 4th quarter game winning drives during '08 and '09 and Stanzi had excellent 4th quarter split statistics. Most notably '09 where he had a rating of 184.29. He completed 63.2 % of his passes along with a 10.7YPA. He had 6TDs with only 1 INT. Those are spectacular numbers that allow you to reach only one conclusion: Ricky Stanzi was stellar in the 4th quarter in 2009. His 4th quarter rating was 60+ points better than his rating in the other 3 quarters combined.

Doing the exact same analysis on his '10 numbers you see a rating of 138.69 for the 4th quarter. His TD:INT ratio is still good at 6:2, but his completion % drops to very low 53.3%. His YPA falls all the way to 7.65,well below his season average of 8.7. His 4th quarter rating was around 30 points lower than the other 3 quarters.

So according to those numbers Stanzi was extremely clutch in '09. Did that mean he is a great 4th quarter QB? It means he was for that season. 2010 went a long ways towards back-tracking that argument. It's a tough thing to figure out and even watching the replays of all those games I'm not real sure as to the underlying causes of his struggles in the 4th quarter in 2010. The one thing we know for sure is Stanzi's improved overall numbers in 2010 didn't lead to more wins, but that doesn't necessary mean "stats lie".
 
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Stanzi played almost one more season than Vandy by this time in their careers. The fact that he managed to throw so many touchdowns to the opponents while being "clutch" amazes me. If the '09 team had this years D, they would've been lucky to get to 6 wins.
 
Stanzi was bailed out by much better defenses - Stanzi definately is more mobile than vandenberg and has a better pocket presence however.

Also stanzi has better touch throws - however Vandenberg is overall more accruate and has a much stronger arm.
 
In my recollection Jake C started the first game of 08, then Ricky started vs ISU,Jake bailed him out,then Jake started vs Pitt,then Ricky started the last 9 games. So in the end,Ricky started 11 of 13 games in 08. I really think it is fairer to compare Rickys 08 numbers to Vandys 2011 numbers.
 
David79 said:
Stanzi's junir year wasn't about great stats, it was about his leadership ability. He never got rattled and would get right back up and lead the team to a win. I think he tried so hard not to turn it over his senior year that he looked scared at times like Vandenberg did this year.
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I agree.

Stanzi let 'er rip and made mistakes, but he also had drives that won games.

VDB has great stats, but in big games he's super tight and he looks really bad. PSU and NU looked like they had 13 guys on defense, as VDB was totally unable to take advantage of defenses who were trying to take advantage of him.
 
FUISU said:
The only stat that counts is Wins and loses. Tebow has some god awful stats but he wins.

JVB looks like a deer in headlights at times, he gets happy feet, way too much mustard on the short routes and stares down receivers too much. I like JVB but I'm not sold on him. Stanzi his Junior year was a leader, he never looked like a deer in the headlights and he had a 'it' factor. Stanzi's senior year was bad, he's stats might've said other wise but he was too worried about not making a mistake which made him worse at least IMO.

Unless JVB gets some wins, not to mention more away wins (only 1) he'll be known as mediocre at best, might fall under bad though if next year ain't better than 7-5.

KF quarterback measuring stick
Great Iowa QB's - Banks, Tate, Stanzi
Mediocre Iowa QB's - Nathan Chandler, JVB
Bad Iowa QB's - McCann, Jake C
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Such a stupid comment.
 
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