Answer Friday!

Still finishing up that pre-Emerald Bowl forum.

Q: Champion said:
Two part question
Every quarterback excepect Matt Barkley has redshirted at USC their freshmen year besides John David Booty who redhirted the next year, and most college quarterbacks redshirt their freshmen year as Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy and Jake Locker. With the success of redshirt freshmen Andrew Luck and the struggles of Matt Barkley do you think Pete Carroll feels he should have allowed Barkley to redshirt to allow him to master the playbook and learn from the scout team before playing him in order to better prepare him for next year or was Carroll worried about Mitch Mustain struggling that he wanted Barkley?Please explain.

A: Carroll was so enamored with Barkley he would not consider redshirting him. Even in retrospect, I think he is comfortable with this decision. He did not think the other QBs were better or would lead the offense to success like Barkley would, so he’s never second-guessed his decision.
He would say he had no choice but to play Barkley. Others might disagree. But it’s obvious from the way he handled things he did not have confidence in the other QBs. I always advocated a gentle transition which would have given Barkley some extra time.

Q: Charlie Bucket said:
wolf, recently you published a list of NFL QB’s who were victims of the most dropped passes by their inept receivers. is there a similar list for Div I college QB’s? who do you think would top that list?

A: The NFL keeps much more detailed stats than college football. Perhaps because it tracks far fewer teams. But I also know that individual NFL teams keep much more detailed stats than college teams do. I would guess a team like Houston or Cincinnati or Texas Tech might lead in drops simply because they pass so much.